Install GDAL and GRASS on python Web App

Question

Install GDAL and GRASS on python Web App

Dhananjay Agarwal 0

I have developed a python script that uses GDAL and GRASS and runs fine on my local Macbook Pro. I need to make the python scripts work on the Azure Web App. For this I need to install GDAL and GRASS on the web app server. On my local machine, I am using GDAL version 3.10.2 and Grass version 8.4.0. How can I install these so my script works fine on the web-app server?

Prabhavathi Manchala 80 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff

2025-03-13T04:11:43.66+00:00
Hi Dhananjay Agarwal,

To deploy your Python script that uses GDAL and GRASS GIS to an Azure Web App, make sure both dependencies are properly installed and configured on the server.

1.Make sure your Azure Web App is configured to use a Linux environment, as GDAL needs to be installed on Linux.

2.You can install GDAL using the package manager. For Ubuntu-based systems, use.

sudo apt-get install gdal-bin

3.Make sure the GDAL libraries are included in the search path by setting the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. This can be done within your Azure App Service settings.

export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/

In Azure, please add an application setting named LD_LIBRARY_PATH with the value /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/.

4.Use pip to install the GDAL Python package. Make sure it matches the version you installed.

pip install GDAL==3.10.2

Installing GRASS directly on an Azure Web App can be challenging because of its dependencies and compilation requirements. However, you can utilize the GDAL-GRASS plugin to access GRASS data without needing to fully install GRASS.

1.Clone the GDAL-GRASS driver repository by using below commands.

git clone https://github.com/OSGeo/gdal-grass cd gdal-grass

2.Use CMake to build and install the plugin and make sure that the GDAL and GRASS support files are accessible.

cd gdal-grass mkdir build && cd build cmake .. cmake --build . cmake --install .

3.Set the GDAL_DRIVER_PATH environment variable to include the directory where the plugin is installed.

In Azure App Service, please set the environment variables name as GDAL_DRIVER_PATH with the value /path/to/gdal-grass/plugin

4.After setting up the GDAL-GRASS plugin, you can access GRASS GIS raster and vector data through the GDAL interface in your Python script.

After deploying your app, please check the logs on Azure to ensure that GDAL and GRASS are correctly installed and initialized. If any errors occur, you can resolve them by adjusting the installation scripts or dependencies.

After installing the dependencies, test the Python script by sending a request to the web app to ensure that GDAL and GRASS are working correctly.

Please go through below link for your reference.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/1287370/azure-web-app-gdal-support
Dhananjay Agarwal 0 Reputation points

2025-03-13T07:21:40.2+00:00

Hi Prabhavati:

I created my Azure web app as a python webapp. It uses Debian Linux and not Ubuntu. Not sure if the minor differences are relevant here.

Sudo command doesn’t run for me as suggested in your response:

sudo apt-get install gdal-bin

Also, I don’t think I am using a Docker container for my webapp. How can I find out? Your response for Grass GIS is for web app using docker containers.

Dhananjay
Prabhavathi Manchala 80 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff

2025-03-13T08:35:03.46+00:00

Hi Dhananjay Agarwal,

You can verify whether you're using a Docker container or not on your Azure web app.

Go to the app service in the Azure portal, then under "Settings," find "Docker" or "Container settings" in the left-hand menu.

If you are using Docker, this section will be visible; otherwise, you will not see any container-related settings.
Dhananjay Agarwal 0 Reputation points

2025-03-13T10:21:40.7+00:00

I have attached the left hand menu and also the blown out menu for Settings. I don't see Docker or Container Settings. This makes me feel that I am not using Docker Container for my web app. Please assist with the solution to my issue. I am using SSH shell where the Sudo command is failing.

2 answers

Your answer

Dhananjay Agarwal 0 Reputation points

2025-03-13T07:21:40.2+00:00

Hi Prabhavati:

I created my Azure web app as a python webapp. It uses Debian Linux and not Ubuntu. Not sure if the minor differences are relevant here.

Sudo command doesn’t run for me as suggested in your response:

sudo apt-get install gdal-bin

Also, I don’t think I am using a Docker container for my webapp. How can I find out? Your response for Grass GIS is for web app using docker containers.

Dhananjay
Prabhavathi Manchala 80 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff

2025-03-13T08:35:03.46+00:00

Hi Dhananjay Agarwal,

You can verify whether you're using a Docker container or not on your Azure web app.

Go to the app service in the Azure portal, then under "Settings," find "Docker" or "Container settings" in the left-hand menu.

If you are using Docker, this section will be visible; otherwise, you will not see any container-related settings.
Dhananjay Agarwal 0 Reputation points

2025-03-13T10:21:40.7+00:00

I have attached the left hand menu and also the blown out menu for Settings. I don't see Docker or Container Settings. This makes me feel that I am not using Docker Container for my web app. Please assist with the solution to my issue. I am using SSH shell where the Sudo command is failing.

Answer 1

Hi Dhananjay Agarwal,

Thank you for confirming that you are not using a Docker Container for your web application.

1.You can include GDAL directly in your requirements.txt file or install it manually using pip, given that native system installation is restricted, installing via pip will eliminate the need for sudo access.

GDAL==3.10.2

run by using below command.

pip install -r requirements.txt

you can install it directly as below.

pip install GDAL==3.10.2

After installation, please confirm the setup by verifying the GDAL version within your Python code.

import osgeo
print(osgeo.__version__)

If the installation was successful, it should display version 3.10.2.

Please install GRASS GIS Python bindings via grass-session. add the following to your requirements.txt file.

grass-session

run by using below command.

pip install -r requirements.txt

If you need to install GRASS GIS and other dependencies, consider using a custom startup script in the Azure Web App's configuration settings.

Please create a custom startup.sh script as below.

#!/bin/bash
apt-get update
apt-get install -y gdal-bin grass
pip install -r /home/site/wwwroot/requirements.txt

You can configure the application to execute the startup.sh script in your app configuration settings.

Answer 2

Please note that I am not using Docker container. I ran pip install GDAL==3.10.2 and I got the following error.

root@94276ae1d814:/home/site/wwwroot# pip install GDAL==3.10.2

Collecting GDAL==3.10.2

Downloading gdal-3.10.2.tar.gz (838 kB)

 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 838.1/838.1 kB 41.3 MB/s eta 0:00:00

Installing build dependencies ... done

Getting requirements to build wheel ... error

error: subprocess-exited-with-error

× Getting requirements to build wheel did not run successfully.

│ exit code: 1

╰─> [88 lines of output]

  /tmp/pip-build-env-9ngbd8f1/overlay/lib/python3.10/site-packages/setuptools/config/_apply_pyprojecttoml.py:81: SetuptoolsWarning: `extras_require` overwritten in `pyproject.toml` (optional-dependencies)

    corresp(dist, value, root_dir)

  Using numpy 2.2.3

  running egg_info

  writing gdal-utils/GDAL.egg-info/PKG-INFO

  writing dependency_links to gdal-utils/GDAL.egg-info/dependency_links.txt

  writing entry points to gdal-utils/GDAL.egg-info/entry_points.txt

  writing requirements to gdal-utils/GDAL.egg-info/requires.txt

  writing top-level names to gdal-utils/GDAL.egg-info/top_level.txt

  Traceback (most recent call last):

    File "<string>", line 91, in fetch_config

    File "/opt/python/3.10.16/lib/python3.10/subprocess.py", line 971, in __init__

      self._execute_child(args, executable, preexec_fn, close_fds,

    File "/opt/python/3.10.16/lib/python3.10/subprocess.py", line 1863, in _execute_child

      raise child_exception_type(errno_num, err_msg, err_filename)

  FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'gdal-config'

  

  During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

  

  Traceback (most recent call last):

    File "<string>", line 231, in get_gdal_config

    File "<string>", line 94, in fetch_config

  __main__.gdal_config_error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'gdal-config'

  

  During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

  

  Traceback (most recent call last):

    File "/opt/python/3.10.16/lib/python3.10/site-packages/pip/_vendor/pyproject_hooks/_in_process/_in_process.py", line 389, in <module>

      main()

    File "/opt/python/3.10.16/lib/python3.10/site-packages/pip/_vendor/pyproject_hooks/_in_process/_in_process.py", line 373, in main

      json_out["return_val"] = hook(**hook_input["kwargs"])

    File "/opt/python/3.10.16/lib/python3.10/site-packages/pip/_vendor/pyproject_hooks/_in_process/_in_process.py", line 143, in get_requires_for_build_wheel

      return hook(config_settings)

    File "/tmp/pip-build-env-9ngbd8f1/overlay/lib/python3.10/site-packages/setuptools/build_meta.py", line 334, in get_requires_for_build_wheel

      return self._get_build_requires(config_settings, requirements=[])

    File "/tmp/pip-build-env-9ngbd8f1/overlay/lib/python3.10/site-packages/setuptools/build_meta.py", line 304, in _get_build_requires

      self.run_setup()

    File "/tmp/pip-build-env-9ngbd8f1/overlay/lib/python3.10/site-packages/setuptools/build_meta.py", line 320, in run_setup

      exec(code, locals())

    File "<string>", line 437, in <module>

    File "/tmp/pip-build-env-9ngbd8f1/overlay/lib/python3.10/site-packages/setuptools/__init__.py", line 117, in setup

      return distutils.core.setup(**attrs)

    File "/tmp/pip-build-env-9ngbd8f1/overlay/lib/python3.10/site-packages/setuptools/_distutils/core.py", line 186, in setup

      return run_commands(dist)

    File "/tmp/pip-build-env-9ngbd8f1/overlay/lib/python3.10/site-packages/setuptools/_distutils/core.py", line 202, in run_commands

      dist.run_commands()

    File "/tmp/pip-build-env-9ngbd8f1/overlay/lib/python3.10/site-packages/setuptools/_distutils/dist.py", line 1002, in run_commands

      self.run_command(cmd)

    File "/tmp/pip-build-env-9ngbd8f1/overlay/lib/python3.10/site-packages/setuptools/dist.py", line 999, in run_command

      super().run_command(command)

    File "/tmp/pip-build-env-9ngbd8f1/overlay/lib/python3.10/site-packages/setuptools/_distutils/dist.py", line 1021, in run_command

      cmd_obj.run()

    File "/tmp/pip-build-env-9ngbd8f1/overlay/lib/python3.10/site-packages/setuptools/command/egg_info.py", line 312, in run

      self.find_sources()

    File "/tmp/pip-build-env-9ngbd8f1/overlay/lib/python3.10/site-packages/setuptools/command/egg_info.py", line 320, in find_sources

      mm.run()

    File "/tmp/pip-build-env-9ngbd8f1/overlay/lib/python3.10/site-packages/setuptools/command/egg_info.py", line 543, in run

      self.add_defaults()

    File "/tmp/pip-build-env-9ngbd8f1/overlay/lib/python3.10/site-packages/setuptools/command/egg_info.py", line 581, in add_defaults

      sdist.add_defaults(self)

    File "/tmp/pip-build-env-9ngbd8f1/overlay/lib/python3.10/site-packages/setuptools/command/sdist.py", line 109, in add_defaults

      super().add_defaults()

    File "/tmp/pip-build-env-9ngbd8f1/overlay/lib/python3.10/site-packages/setuptools/_distutils/command/sdist.py", line 245, in add_defaults

      self._add_defaults_ext()

    File "/tmp/pip-build-env-9ngbd8f1/overlay/lib/python3.10/site-packages/setuptools/_distutils/command/sdist.py", line 329, in _add_defaults_ext

      build_ext = self.get_finalized_command('build_ext')

    File "/tmp/pip-build-env-9ngbd8f1/overlay/lib/python3.10/site-packages/setuptools/_distutils/cmd.py", line 334, in get_finalized_command

      cmd_obj.ensure_finalized()

    File "/tmp/pip-build-env-9ngbd8f1/overlay/lib/python3.10/site-packages/setuptools/_distutils/cmd.py", line 135, in ensure_finalized

      self.finalize_options()

    File "<string>", line 315, in finalize_options

    File "<string>", line 237, in get_gdal_config

  __main__.gdal_config_error: Traceback (most recent call last):

    File "<string>", line 91, in fetch_config

    File "/opt/python/3.10.16/lib/python3.10/subprocess.py", line 971, in __init__

      self._execute_child(args, executable, preexec_fn, close_fds,

    File "/opt/python/3.10.16/lib/python3.10/subprocess.py", line 1863, in _execute_child

      raise child_exception_type(errno_num, err_msg, err_filename)

  FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'gdal-config'

  

  During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

  

  Traceback (most recent call last):

    File "<string>", line 231, in get_gdal_config

    File "<string>", line 94, in fetch_config

  gdal_config_error: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'gdal-config'

  

  Could not find gdal-config. Make sure you have installed the GDAL native library and development headers.

  [end of output]

note: This error originates from a subprocess, and is likely not a problem with pip.

error: subprocess-exited-with-error

× Getting requirements to build wheel did not run successfully.

│ exit code: 1

╰─> See above for output.

note: This error originates from a subprocess, and is likely not a problem with pip.

root@94276ae1d814:/home/site/wwwroot#

Please assist. I am stuck at GDAL so not even trying GRASS GIS yet.

Shree Hima Bindu Maganti 3,675 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff

2025-03-13T16:39:49.65+00:00

@Hi Dhananjay Agarwal,
Apology for your inconvenience.
To successfully deploy our Python web application, which depends on GDAL and GRASS GIS, on Azure Web Apps, we need to ensure these system-level dependencies are properly installed. Since Azure App Service does not natively support these libraries, the best approach is to use a custom Docker container. We will create a container based on an Ubuntu image, install GDAL (version 3.10.2) and GRASS (version 8.4.0), and configure the required environment variables. This container will then be deployed to Azure App Service via Azure Container Registry (ACR) or Docker Hub. If using a Docker container is not feasible, an alternative is to use an Azure Virtual Machine (VM) or Azure Container Apps, where we have full control over the environment and can manually install the dependencies. Additionally, we will ensure that all required Python dependencies are included in the requirements.txt file and set environment variables such as GDAL_DATA and LD_LIBRARY_PATH in the Azure Web App settings. This approach will allow us to run our script smoothly while maintaining scalability and compatibility with Azure’s infrastructure.
You can installing a custom GDAL wheel for Linux since the web app is installed on Linux. In the requirements.txt file, I replaced:

Copy

GDAL==3.7.0

with

Copy

./wheelhouse/GDAL-3.4.1-cp39-cp39-manylinux_2_5_x86_64.manylinux1_x86_64.whl

And then stored the file "GDAL-3.4.1-cp39-cp39-manylinux_2_5_x86_64.manylinux1_x86_64.whl" in a folder called "wheelhouse" inside the project.
let mi know if you have any further assisstences.
Dhananjay Agarwal 0 Reputation points

2025-03-13T19:23:47.0566667+00:00

I currently have 3 webapps (dev, qa and prod) running on a Basic B3 App Service Plan. I deploy using Actions on Github to them. I am open to using Docker Containers or Azure Containers, however, would like to know the impact to costs.

For experiment, I created a new webapp but chose for Publish "Container" instead of "Code". Is this what you mean by Azure Container Apps? Can you assist with this route on how I would go about installing GDAL and GRASS GIS on it? When I used sudo command in the SSH console, I got a message sudo not found. The linux flavor was Debian and not Ubuntu here.
Dhananjay Agarwal 0 Reputation points

2025-03-13T19:26:10.01+00:00

Also, in the past I was able to talk to a person and do screen share with my current support plan. Is that possible or do I need to upgrade to the higher plan for a little more handholding?

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Install GDAL and GRASS on python Web App

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