Guide to serve Django apps in a Serverpilot server

django-serverpilot.md

Configure Django project in a Serverpilot server

Install dependencies (as root)

1. Install packages from repositories:

   # apt install python-pip python-MySQLdb python-dev libmysqlclient-dev supervisor

2. Install virtualenv using pip:

   # pip install virtualenv

Install project

Project files will be under folder /srv/users/{username}/private/{project-name}/

1. Clone project:

   $ cd /srv/users/{username}/private/  # Create private folder if it does not exist
   $ git clone {clone-url} {project-name}  # Clone project source code

2. Install project dependencies: within project folder, execute:

   $ virtualenv {project-name}-env  # Create virtualenv
   $ source {project-name}-env/bin/activate  # Activate virtualenv
   $ pip install django MySQL-python gunicorn  # Install project dependencies

3. Configure project settings:

   1. Copy settings file:

      $ cp {project_folder}/settings-dist.py {project_folder}/settings.py

   2. Ensure that the following pieces of code are configured within the settings.py file:

      SECRET_KEY = 'your-secret-key-here'
      …
      DEBUG = False
      ALLOWED_HOSTS = ['*']
      …
      DATABASES = {
          'default': {
              'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.mysql',
              'NAME': 'db-name',
              'USER': 'db-user',
              'PASSWORD': 'db-password',
              'HOST': '127.0.0.1',
          }
      }
      …
      EMAIL_HOST = 'host'  # smtp.gmail.com
      EMAIL_HOST_USER = 'user'  # user@gmail.com
      EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD = 'password'
      EMAIL_PORT = 587
      EMAIL_USE_TLS = True
      …
      STATIC_URL = '/static/'
      STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'static/')
      

   3. Create folder for static files:

      $ mkdir static
      $ chmod 777 static	

4. Execute Django commands:

   $ python manage.py migrate  # Execute database migration
   $ python manage.py collectstatic  # Copy static files to its folder
   $ python manage.py createsuperuser  # Create superuser (if needed)

5. Configure apache for application:

   1. Create file /srv/users/{username}/apps/{app-name}/public/.htaccess and add the following content:

      Options +FollowSymLinks
      
      RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^/static/(.*)
      RewriteRule . - [L]
      
      RewriteRule index.html http://127.0.0.1:{port}/ [P]
      RewriteRule (.*) http://127.0.0.1:{port}/$1 [P]  # Port will be used for gunicorn

   2. Create symbolic link for static files:

      $ ln -s /srv/users/{username}/private/{project-name}/static /srv/users/{username}/apps/{app-name}/public/static

Configure gunicorn (as root)

1. Create file /etc/supervisor/conf.d/{project-name} and add the following content:

   [program:gunicorn:{project-name}]
   command=/srv/users/{username}/private/{project-name}/{project-name}-env/bin/gunicorn -b 127.0.0.1:{port} {project_folder}.wsgi
   directory=/srv/users/{username}/private/{project-name}/
   user={username}
   autostart=true
   autorestart=true
   redirect_stderr=true
   

2. Restart supervisor:

   # service supervisor restart

Extra

Configure server time

# dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

In instructions above, you have asked to create project-name-env directory in private directory and in gunicorn config, you are referencing /srv/users/{username}/private/{project-name}/{project-name}-env/, is that okay or there is a typo?