Assuming you are in root
Make sure the locale is set to UTF-8
locale-gen UTF-8
Create a .bash_profile in the ~/ with the following entries
export LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8
export LANG=en_US.UTF-8
Update your packages repository apt-get update --force-yes -y && apt-get upgrade --force-yes -y
We will be using uwsgi, nginx, virtualenv.
What's nginx? It is a web server software like apache. What's uwsgi? It is a swiss army knife for all kinds of network applications What's virtualenv? It allows virtual environment for what you need to run your applications.
Why nginx and uwsgi? Because nginx is faster than apache web server. Uwsgi is needed for nginx to work with python files.
Why virtualenv? Because we may need to have different versions of Python to run different apps.
You need to realize that
the web client <-> the web server <-> the socket <-> uwsgi <-> Django
is how things work.
Install all python 2.7 required libraries to have virtualenv
apt-get install python-virtualenv --force-yes -y ## for virtualenv
apt-get install python-virtualenv --force-yes -y ## for virtualenv
apt-get install python-setuptools --force-yes -y ## for python2.7 or above
apt-get install python-dev --force-yes -y ## because ubuntu 14.04 does not have dev version of python 2
apt-get install build-essential --force-yes -y ##
I assume nginx is installed and www-data is the user for nginx
Create a folder to hold all the virtualenvs
Using www-data as user, mkdir virtualenvs under ~/
Now we create a single python 2.7 environment
Inside virtualenvs, mkdir py2.7
Inside virtualenvs, virtualenv -p /usr/bin/python2 py2.7
In English, use this folder ~/virtualenvs/py2.7 as the virtual env holder for python2 libraries. The python2 libraries are in
/usr/bin/python2.
To turn on the virtual env for python2, go inside ~/virtualenvs/py2.7 and run source/bin activate.
You will notice a (py2.7) in front of your command line.
Something like this
(py2.7)www-data@server:
To turn off, simply run deactivate anywhere in the file system.
Configure uwsgi.ini for django apps
- Where to put the uwsgi.ini?
Typically you need to place uwsgi.ini inside your django project folder. In other words, it should be in the same folder as the manage.py
Let me show you a sample django app project folder setup.
weasyprint_site
|---------db.sqlite3
|---------manage.py
|---------test.py
|---------uwsgi.ini
|---------weasyprint_site
|---------settings.py
|---------urls.py
|---------wsgi.py
- How to configure uwsgi.ini?
This is the sample uwsgi.ini for the above folder structure.
[uwsgi]
socket=/tmp/uwsgi.sock
chmod-socket=666
uid = www-data
gid = www-data
chdir=/var/virtual/WebApps/virtualenvs/WeasyPrintProject/weasyprint_site
virtualenv=/var/virtual/WebApps/virtualenvs/WeasyPrintProject
module=weasyprint_site.wsgi:application
master=true
pidfile=/var/virtual/WebApps/virtualenvs/WeasyPrintProject/weasy_print.pid
vacuum=true
Let me run through each line in the uwsgi.ini
socket
this should be the socket meant for the uwsgi. For ubuntu 14.04, it should be /tmp/uwsgi.sock
chmod-socket permissions on the socket. Typically use 666
uid
user id of the operating system user account that will execute the socket.
Because we are using nginx, it should be www-data
gid
group id of the operating system user account that will execute the socket.
Because we are using nginx, it should be www-data
chdir which django app to chdir into. in this case, the path is to the folder where the manage.py is at
virtualenv the folder where the virtualenvs is
module the Django app module
master no idea what this is. Just set as true.
pidfile no idea what this is. Just set as to the django app pid file
vacuum no idea what this is. just set as true.
- how to configure nginx?
Typically nginx after installed into ubuntu, will have two folders.
/etc/nginx/sites-available and /etc/nginx/sites-enabled
Typically, you use root user to create a .conf file inside sites-available
Then as root, you create a symbolic link inside sites-enabled
and then you restart the nginx service. In Ubuntu this is usually
service nginx restart
In this case, I created a django.conf inside sites-available and the corresponding
symbolic link inside sites-enabled.
# nginx.conf
# inside the config file, the # sign is for comments
# this is uwsgi unique
upstream django {
server unix:///tmp/uwsgi.sock; # this is pointing to the uwsgi socket we saw earlier.
}
# this is more nginx related
# you need to type something like this even if you don't use uwsgi
server {
listen 80;
server_name weasyprint.django.dev; # this refers to the domain url you expect.
charset utf-8;
error_log /var/log/nginx/django-weasyprint.log;
# this is more uwsgi related
# not too sure what they mean, but it works.
location / {
uwsgi_pass django;
include /etc/nginx/uwsgi_params;
}
}
- How to run uwsgi and the django app
Go to the folder holding the uwsgi.ini
uwsgi --ini uwsgi.ini
When you run this you will notice that the uwsgi is started and you cannot do anything else unless you kill it.
I suggest screen inside Ubuntu 14.04
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install screen
type screen so you can create a new terminal window.
Now go to the start the virtualenv you wanted.
source bin/activate
at the desired virtualenv.
Followed by
uwsgi --ini uwsgi.ini
at the right folder.
To go back to the previous window, you type
Ctrl+a followed by c
Ctrl+a followed by n to go back to window where you were running the uwsgi