How to make flask server running in a VM externally available? - python

If I run my flask app on my local machine I get proper results by connecting to http://127.0.0.1:5000/report?id=1
But now I want to make it externally visible by deploying my flask in a VM in azure. I have opened the port 80 on my VM. And I'm running the flask app using this:
if __name__ == '__main__':
app.run(host='0.0.0.0')
I'm still not able to connect to my flask server using this (assume the public IP address of my VM is x.x.x.x):
http://x.x.x.x:5000/report?id=1
Any suggestions how should I go ahead with it?
Edit: I'm able to psping my VM's public IP address on port 80.

The problem isn't related to Flask, since you opened up your application to listen on any public IP (0.0.0.0).
Moreover you should do a proper port mapping in your azure configuration. Google said, you might have a look here: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/virtual-machines-set-up-endpoints/
EDIT
Another idea, where some colleages often run into, is that you may have skype open which somewhat uses port 80/443 and therefore is blocking it. Shutdown skype if you do so or use a different port for your webapp.

So here's the deal with Azure:
If you open a port from the Azure portal, the firewall in your VM STILL blocks that port. You have to manually go in and create a firewall setting in your VM to keep the port 5000 open for your flask server. Once that is done, you should be able to connect to it.

Related

how can I post to api running on remote desktop?

I'm creating a python flask api on remote desktop and running it on localhost of remote desktop.
Is there anyway I can access this api from my local machine?
We are working in a team and I want to share this with my team members, but this is confidential and not to be deployed on open server.
We want to post and get the result with every member's local machine from api runnnig on remote desktop.
Both of our local machines and remote desktop are windows10.
Sorry for being abstract but I'm searching for any way out. Thanks.
Well, you should open your way to this API. You'll have to set up a VPN or IP address filter in the server so you can access the server from your network while still have it secured on the Internet. You can also setup a simpler proxy if you prefer it. I'll not cover the details on how to setup a VPN or proxy since it can get pretty extensive, but a Google search will help you out find the best alternative for you.
AFAIK, the Remote Desktop Protocol does not allow for any kind of VPN. However, if you can switch to TeamViewer, it does have an easy to setup VPN system that will allow you to get into the network with few configuration. Once a VPN is configured, it will work like if you were in the same network as the server, so from there you can access your API from your host machine by just going to the IP address of the server.
Do notice the security policies of whoever owns the server, since you can get into trouble if you don't have permission to enable some access from the outside. Security goes always in front of comfort.
Short term solution:
Firstly download ngrok for your operating system.
For debugging and testing purposes you can expose a secure tunnel connection to your API by running this command in your command prompt / terminal.
ngrok http <PORT_NUMBER>-host-header="localhost:<PORT_NUMBER>"
Where PORT_NUMBER is the port number in which your flask application is running.
Example if your flask application is running at port 5000 then simply execute this command:
ngrok http 5000 -host-header="localhost:5000"
Running this will give you two hostnames one with HTTP and other a secure HTTPS connected by a tunnel like this for a duration of 8 hours after which the command needs to again re-run.
Which you can call remotely
Long term solution:
Deploy flask application using FastCGI
or
To a cloud infrastructure provider like Microsoft Azure which gives readymade templates for flask applications.

Accessing python application hosted on Azure VM (Windows OS) from outside

I have hosted a python flask web application on azure virtual machine (Windows OS). When I start the python application, it gets hosted on 127.0.01:5000 i.e. localhost. I can access this in browser by providing localhost:5000 in URL. I want to access this from outside the VM machine. The problem here is Azure VMs have an internal IP and external IP.
I tried to use the external VM IP as parameter in app.run() but it throwing error and not able to host it on external IP.
app.run(HOST = “external Azure VM IP”)
It is throwing below error when trying to host on external IP.
"Error : s.bind(get_sockaddr(hostname, port, address_family))
OSError: [WinError 10049] The requested address is not valid in its context"
Is there any way I can make it work?
Also, I tried hosting it on azure web app services and I was successfully able to host there but I am not able to install external libraries like (beautifulsoup4) into flask application hosted on Azure App Services.
you need to listen on internal IP (probably better if you listen on *), not on external IP. vm is not aware of the external ip. it will get request on its internal ip, not external.
You also need to open port(s) on firewall and on Network Security Group.
ps. package management on Azure App Services

Error accessing my webpage from network

I've just started learning network developing using Flask. According to its official tutorial:
Externally Visible Server
If you run the server you will notice that the server is only
accessible from your own computer, not from any other in the network.
This is the default because in debugging mode a user of the
application can execute arbitrary Python code on your computer.
If you have the debugger disabled or trust the users on your network,
you can make the server publicly available simply by adding
--host=0.0.0.0 to the command line:
flask run --host=0.0.0.0
This tells your operating system to listen on all public IPs.
However, when I try to access 0.0.0.0:5000 on another device, I got an error: ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSE. In fact, I think this behavior is reasonable, since people all around world can use 0.0.0.0:5000 for different testing purposes, but isn't the tutorial implying that adding --host=0.0.0.0 can make my webpage "accessible not only from your own computer, but also from any other in the network"?
So, my question is:
What does adding --host=0.0.0.0 do?
How can I access my webpage on device B while the server is running on device A?
You don't access the Flask server on another computer by going to 0.0.0.0:5000. Instead, you need to put in the IP address of the computer that it is running on.
For example, if you are developing on a computer that has IP address 10.10.0.1, you can run the server like so:
flask run --host=0.0.0.0 --port=5000
This will start the server (on 10.10.0.1:5000) and listen for any connections from anywhere. Now your other device (say, on 10.10.0.2) can access that server by going to http://10.10.0.1:5000 in the browser.
If you don't have the host=0.0.0.0, the server on 10.10.0.1 will only listen for connections from itself (localhost). By adding that parameter, you are telling it to listen from connections external to itself.

Flask isn't recognising connections from other clients

I have an apache server setup on a Pi, and i'm trying to learn Flask. I set it up so that The 'view' from the index '/' returns "hello world". then i ran my main program. nothing happens from the browser on the PC i'm SSH'ing from,I just get an error saying , but when i used the Pi directly and went to http:localhost:5000/ i got a response.I read about setting Host to '0.0.0.0' but that didnt help. how can i get my Flask to accept all connections? does it make a difference that I have an 'index.html' in '/'?
you need to configure your firewall on your server/workstation to allow connections on port 5000. setting the ip to 0.0.0.0 allows connections to your machine but only if you have the port open. also, you will need to connect via the ip of your machine and not localhost since localhost will only work from the machine where the server is running.

connect to a localserver that is running on another server

I have server on an external hardware running at port number 162.74.90.100 and i can access all the files and terminal on it using SSH Secure Shell software.
Now i run a Python-Flask server (127.0.0.1:5000) on the existing server (ie. 162.74.90.100 ) which is supposed to run a website.
To access the website, I tried running the IP addresses in a browser like 162.74.90.100/127.0.0.1:5000 but it does not work.
can anyone suggest how can I access 127.0.0.1:5000 using browser? I am stuck and cannot find any relevant documentation.
You can't, not directly. By running on 127.0.0.1 (localhost), you are explicitly not binding to a public IP address and are not visible to the outside world.
Your options are to:
Use SSH port forwarding to redirect traffic from your own machine to that localhost port; add -L 5000:localhost:5000 to your ssh command line and access the Flask server at http://localhost:5000. Use this option if only you should be able to access the server.
Use a 3rd party service like ngrok to tunnel from a public host to your Flask server.
Use another web server serving on a public IP address forwarding connections to localhost:5000. See Proxy Setups in the Flask deployment documentation.
Restart the Flask server to bind to a public IP address, not 127.0.0.1. This is not recommended, as the development web server that comes bundled with Flask is not really suited for the rough world that is the public internet. You can do this by giving app.run() a host argument:
app.run(host='162.74.90.100')
or (using the flask command-line tool) using the --host command-line argument:
flask run --host 162.74.90.100
to bind to your public IP address, or use 0.0.0.0 to bind to all available IP addresses on your server. This will only work if your server is connected directly to the internet (not behind a router) and the firewall allows connections to the port; you'll need to configure the router and firewall otherwise.
The reason why you are not able access your application is because you are not running it off the interface(162.74.90.100, in your case) where you need to access it from.
Since you are using a flask application, and I am assuming your run code looks something like this...
if __name__ == '__main__':
app.run()
This would by default associate your application to the localhost(127.0.0.1) at port 5000. Now for the application to run on port 5000 exposed to outside world you either do this....
if __name__ == '__main__':
app.run(host='162.74.90.100')
or this...
if __name__ == '__main__':
app.run(host='0.0.0.0')
I would suggest latter which runs the application off all the interfaces, hence being accessible from the outside world. Once you have made this change, you could access your application at 162.74.90.100:5000

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