# Running Sanic
Sanic ships with its own internal web server. Under most circumstances, this is the preferred method for deployment. In addition, you can also deploy Sanic as an ASGI app bundled with an ASGI-able web server, or using gunicorn.
# Sanic Server
After defining an instance of sanic.Sanic
, we can call the run method with the following keyword arguments:
Parameter | Default | Description |
---|---|---|
host | "127.0.0.1" | Address to host the server on. |
port | 8000 | Port to host the server on. |
unix | None | Unix socket name to host the server on (instead of TCP). |
debug | False | Enables debug output (slows server). |
ssl | None | SSLContext for SSL encryption of worker(s). |
sock | None | Socket for the server to accept connections from. |
workers | 1 | Number of worker processes to spawn. |
loop | None | An asyncio-compatible event loop. If none is specified, Sanic creates its own event loop. |
protocol | HttpProtocol | Subclass of asyncio.protocol. |
access_log | True | Enables log on handling requests (significantly slows server). |
In the above example, we decided to turn off the access log in order to increase performance.
# server.py
app = Sanic("My App")
app.run(host='0.0.0.0', port=1337, access_log=False)
Now, just execute the python script that has app.run(...)
python server.py
# Workers
By default, Sanic listens in the main process using only one CPU core. To crank up the juice, just specify the number of workers in the run arguments.
app.run(host='0.0.0.0', port=1337, workers=4)
Sanic will automatically spin up multiple processes and route traffic between them. We recommend as many workers as you have available processors.
The easiest way to get the maximum CPU performance is to use the fast
option. This will automatically run the maximum number of workers given the system constraints.
app.run(host='0.0.0.0', port=1337, fast=True)
$ sanic server:app --host=0.0.0.0 --port=1337 --fast
In older versions of Sanic without the fast
option, a common way to check this on Linux based operating systems:
$ nproc
Or, let Python do it:
import multiprocessing
workers = multiprocessing.cpu_count()
app.run(..., workers=workers)
# Running via command
# Sanic CLI
Sanic also has a simple CLI to launch via command line.
For example, if you initialized Sanic as app in a file named server.py
, you could run the server like so:
sanic server.app --host=0.0.0.0 --port=1337 --workers=4
Use sanic --help
to see all the options.
$ sanic --help
usage: sanic [-h] [--version] [--factory] [-s] [-H HOST] [-p PORT] [-u UNIX] [--cert CERT] [--key KEY] [--tls DIR] [--tls-strict-host]
[-w WORKERS | --fast] [--access-logs | --no-access-logs] [--debug] [-d] [-r] [-R PATH] [--motd | --no-motd] [-v]
[--noisy-exceptions | --no-noisy-exceptions]
module
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To start running a Sanic application, provide a path to the module, where
app is a Sanic() instance:
$ sanic path.to.server:app
Or, a path to a callable that returns a Sanic() instance:
$ sanic path.to.factory:create_app --factory
Or, a path to a directory to run as a simple HTTP server:
$ sanic ./path/to/static --simple
Required
========
Positional:
module Path to your Sanic app. Example: path.to.server:app
If running a Simple Server, path to directory to serve. Example: ./
Optional
========
General:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
--version show program's version number and exit
Application:
--factory Treat app as an application factory, i.e. a () -> <Sanic app> callable
-s, --simple Run Sanic as a Simple Server, and serve the contents of a directory
(module arg should be a path)
Socket binding:
-H HOST, --host HOST Host address [default 127.0.0.1]
-p PORT, --port PORT Port to serve on [default 8000]
-u UNIX, --unix UNIX location of unix socket
TLS certificate:
--cert CERT Location of fullchain.pem, bundle.crt or equivalent
--key KEY Location of privkey.pem or equivalent .key file
--tls DIR TLS certificate folder with fullchain.pem and privkey.pem
May be specified multiple times to choose multiple certificates
--tls-strict-host Only allow clients that send an SNI matching server certs
Worker:
-w WORKERS, --workers WORKERS Number of worker processes [default 1]
--fast Set the number of workers to max allowed
--access-logs Display access logs
--no-access-logs No display access logs
Development:
--debug Run the server in debug mode
-d, --dev Currently is an alias for --debug. But starting in v22.3,
--debug will no longer automatically trigger auto_restart.
However, --dev will continue, effectively making it the
same as debug + auto_reload.
-r, --reload, --auto-reload Watch source directory for file changes and reload on changes
-R PATH, --reload-dir PATH Extra directories to watch and reload on changes
Output:
--motd Show the startup display
--no-motd No show the startup display
-v, --verbosity Control logging noise, eg. -vv or --verbosity=2 [default 0]
--noisy-exceptions Output stack traces for all exceptions
--no-noisy-exceptions No output stack traces for all exceptions
# As a module
It can also be called directly as a module.
python -m sanic server.app --host=0.0.0.0 --port=1337 --workers=4
FYI
With either method (CLI or module), you shoud not invoke app.run()
in your Python file. If you do, make sure you wrap it so that it only executes when directly run by the interpreter.
if __name__ == '__main__':
app.run(host='0.0.0.0', port=1337, workers=4)
# Sanic Simple Server
Sometimes you just have a directory of static files that need to be served. This especially can be handy for quickly standing up a localhost server. Sanic ships with a Simple Server, where you only need to point it at a directory.
sanic ./path/to/dir --simple
This could also be paired with auto-reloading.
sanic ./path/to/dir --simple --reload --reload-dir=./path/to/dir
# ASGI
Sanic is also ASGI-compliant. This means you can use your preferred ASGI webserver to run Sanic. The three main implementations of ASGI are Daphne (opens new window), Uvicorn (opens new window), and Hypercorn (opens new window).
WARNING
Daphne does not support the ASGI lifespan
protocol, and therefore cannot be used to run Sanic. See Issue #264 (opens new window) for more details.
Follow their documentation for the proper way to run them, but it should look something like:
uvicorn myapp:app
hypercorn myapp:app
A couple things to note when using ASGI:
- When using the Sanic webserver, websockets will run using the
websockets
package. In ASGI mode, there is no need for this package since websockets are managed in the ASGI server. - The ASGI lifespan protocol https://asgi.readthedocs.io/en/latest/specs/lifespan.html (opens new window), supports only two server events: startup and shutdown. Sanic has four: before startup, after startup, before shutdown, and after shutdown. Therefore, in ASGI mode, the startup and shutdown events will run consecutively and not actually around the server process beginning and ending (since that is now controlled by the ASGI server). Therefore, it is best to use
after_server_start
andbefore_server_stop
.
# Trio
Sanic has experimental support for running on Trio with:
hypercorn -k trio myapp:app
# Gunicorn
Gunicorn (opens new window) ("Green Unicorn") is a WSGI HTTP Server for UNIX based operating systems. It is a pre-fork worker model ported from Ruby’s Unicorn project.
In order to run Sanic application with Gunicorn, you need to use the special sanic.worker.GunicornWorker
for Gunicorn worker-class argument:
gunicorn myapp:app --bind 0.0.0.0:1337 --worker-class sanic.worker.GunicornWorker
If your application suffers from memory leaks, you can configure Gunicorn to gracefully restart a worker after it has processed a given number of requests. This can be a convenient way to help limit the effects of the memory leak.
See the Gunicorn Docs (opens new window) for more information.
WARNING
When running Sanic via gunicorn
, you are losing out on a lot of the performance benefits of async
/await
. Weigh your considerations carefully before making this choice. Gunicorn does provide a lot of configuration options, but it is not the best choice for getting Sanic to run at its fastest.
# Performance considerations
When running in production, make sure you turn off debug
.
app.run(..., debug=False)
Sanic will also perform fastest if you turn off access_log
.
If you still require access logs, but want to enjoy this performance boost, consider using Nginx as a proxy, and letting that handle your access logging. It will be much faster than anything Python can handle.
app.run(..., access_log=False)