Installing Google App Engine SDK on Ubuntu

Installing Google app engine SDK on Windows and Mac OS X is very easy as they have installation launcher, but for Linux and other system we have Google App Engine SDK in a zip format which has to be installed manually. Not a big deal but few step that requires to get it done.

Let’s get them step by step

1. Download Google App Engine for linux from here and Unzip It in your selected drive (for me the unzipped location is here /opt/lampp/htdocs/google_appengine)
2. Create a new folder inside the directory and give it a name (for me /junaltest)
3. Create 2 files with the following name app.yaml & yourfilename.py (for me junaltest.py). Yaml file describes which App Engine runtime environment the application uses. My app.yaml file contains the following lines

application: junaltest
version: 1
runtime: python
api_version: 1
handlers:
- url: /.*
  script: junaltest.py

and junaltest.py looks like the follow [for a simple hello world]

print 'Content-Type: text/plain'
print ''
print 'Hello, World'

1. Open the command prompt and run the following command dev_appserver.py [options] <application root> (i.e. python appcfg.py /opt/lampp/htdocs/google_appengine/junaltest/)
2. Once you successfully run the command you can visit here on your local machine  http://localhost:8080/

now, you are supposed to see the text “Hello, World” on your browser. We are done here but for further clearance let’s open and account on Google App Engine from here and let’s upload a file using command line. (assuming you have a gmail id)

please note that, application identifier is the application id. So give it a name that you can use it in the yaml file. Im keeping the same name for application identifier as “junaltest”.

Now, let change or do something on junaltest.py file and let’s upload it to the Google Server using the following command

dev_ appcfg.py update <application root>

(i.e. python appcfg.py update /opt/lampp/htdocs/google_appengine/junaltest/)

now it will ask you for your gmail id and password. Give it correctly and then check your application page from here http://appengine.google.com/

bingo! One file is uploaded! Check it, see if it’s showing what you gave ask me if you have any questions.