sevenearths / installing-django-on-ubuntu-18-04

A useful guide for deploying Django on an Ubuntu server on the Internet

Intro

Django (https://docs.djangoproject.com/) is a fantastic web framework that allows you to develop web sites and web apps at pace, but rolling it out on Ubuntu (https://ubuntu.com/) can still be a bit of a pain. That is why I created this file.

Notes

Each line is prefixed by the environment you should run it in. A dollar ($) is Bash\shell\terminal. Triple greater-than (>>>) is the python shell (or the django shell). A hash (#) is the shell for Postgres.

$ something
$ something

$ something else

Spaces (or 'new line spaces' if you like) exist between different bits of work (project setup, installing packages, apache, etc...)

...

Dots with empty lines before and after indicate that this is not a necessary step but you might want to do it (They are found towards the bottom. E.g. setting up postgres (https://postgresql.org/), setting up certbot (https://certbot.eff.org/))

Instructions

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt upgrade
$ sudo apt install git apache2 python3-pip libapache2-mod-wsgi-py3 libpq-dev
$ dpkg -S mod_wsgi
$ ps -e | grep apache
$ sudo ufw allow 'Apache Full'

$ cd /var/www/
$ sudo mkdir some_project
$ sudo chown local_user:local_user some_project
$ git clone https://github.com/some_account/some_project.git
$ cd some_project
$ git config credential.helper store
$ git pull origin master
$ cd some_project
$ cp settings.py.example settings.py
$ python3
>>> import random, string
>>> ''.join([random.SystemRandom().choice(string.ascii_letters + string.digits + string.punctuation) for _ in range(50)])
...
>>> exit()
$ vim settings.py
...
SECRET_KEY = '...'
ALLOWED_HOSTS = ['...']
...
TEMPLATES = [
    {
        ...
        'DIRS': [
            '/var/www/django/some_project/some_project/templates',
            '/var/www/django/some_project/some_app/templates',
            '/var/www/django/some_project/some_other_app/templates',
            '...',
        ],
        ...
...

$ cd /var/www
$ pip3 install virtualenv
$ python3 -m virtualenv venv
$ source venv/bin/activate
(venv) $ pip3 install -r requirements.txt
(venv) $ cd django
(venv) $ python some_project/manage.py collectstatic
(venv) $ deactivate
$ ...

$ sudo cp /etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf /etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf.OLD
$ sudo vim /etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf
...
WSGIDaemonProcess www-data python-path=/var/www/django/some_project python-home=/var/www/venv
WSGIProcessGroup www-data
WSGIScriptAlias / /var/www/django/some_project/some_project/wsgi.py

<VirtualHost *:80>

    <Directory /var/www/venv/django/some_project/some_project>
        <Files wsgi.py>
            Require all granted
        </Files>
    </Directory>

    Alias /static /var/www/django/some_project/static
    <Directory /var/www/django/some_project/static>
        Require all granted
    </Directory>

    Alias /media /var/www/django/some_project/media
    <Directory /var/www/django/some_project/media>
        Require all granted
    </Directory>

    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:443>

    <Directory /var/www/venv/django/some_project/some_project>
        <Files wsgi.py>
            Require all granted
        </Files>
    </Directory>

    Alias /static /var/www/django/some_project/static
    <Directory /var/www/django/some_project/static>
        Require all granted
    </Directory>

    Alias /media /var/www/django/some_project/media
    <Directory /var/www/django/some_project/media>
        Require all granted
    </Directory>

    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

</VirtualHost>
...

$ sudo service apache2 restart
$ tail -f /var/log/apache2/error.log

...

$ sudo apt-get install postgresql postgresql-contrib
$ sudo -i -u postgres
$ createuser --interactive
Enter name of role to add: db_user
Shall the new role be a superuser? (y/n) n
Shall the new role be allowed to create databases? (y/n) y
Shall the new role be allowed to create more new roles? (y/n) n
$ exit
$ sudo -i -u postgres psql
=# ALTER USER db_user WITH PASSWORD 'db_password';
=# \q
$ sudo -i -u postgres createdb db_name
$ cd /var/www/django/some_project/some_project
$ vim settings.py
...
DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql',
        'NAME': 'db_name',
        'USER': 'db_user',
        'PASSWORD': 'dp_password',
        'HOST': 'localhost',
        'PORT': '5432',
    }
}
...
$ ...

...

$ sudo su
$ apt-get update
$ apt-get install software-properties-common
$ add-apt-repository universe
$ add-apt-repository ppa:certbot/certbot
$ apt-get update
$ apt-get install certbot python3-certbot-apache
$ certbot --apache
...