Configuring Django on Apache with mod_wsgi
Configuring Django on Ubuntu and Apache with mod_wsgi

Published on May 13, 2013 by nick

Tags: django, ubuntu, mod_wsgi, apache

This post is very similar to the one that includes virtualenv. So if you want to just get this going without virtual Python environments, use these instructions. However, most will agree, you should probably set up virtualenv, as this is considered the "pro" way to do it.

Thanks to Ayman Farhat for the starting points.

First thing you need is a server running Ubuntu 12.04. I created an account at Digital Ocean and then made myself a droplet with Ubuntu 12.04 64-bit. This VM is ready to go with Python 2.7 pre-installed.

I'm running as root on the VM so I will leave out sudo but keep in mind that if you aren't running as root, the sudo command will be required in some cases.

Start by updating the repository:

apt-get update

I use vim throughout, so make sure your editor is installed:

apt-get install vim

Then let's install PIP:

apt-get install python-pip python-dev build-essential

You may need to run with --fix-missing if the command doesn't work.

Let's update PIP:

pip install --upgrade pip

You will also need MySQL or another SQL database. Check Django's docs for databases. I'm using MySQL for this tutorial:

apt-get install mysql-server

If required, follow the prompts to set up your MySQL database. Later on, we will create a database and user, if required, for the Django project.

At this point you are ready to install Django or upload existing Django projects and then install Django. Let's run through this briefly.

To install Django with PIP:

pip install Django==1.5.1

To verify Django was installed, launch the interactive python shell and run these commands:

>>> import django
>>> print(django.get_version())
1.5.1

Let's create a project now. Create and change directory into where you want to store your projects. I chose /home/django_projects. Then, use Django to create the project files:

mkdir /home/django_projects
cd /home/django_projects
django-admin.py startproject mysite

Pretty much the first thing you want to do next is set up your database.

First, log in to MySQL and create a database:

mysql -u root -p******

At the MySQL command prompt:

CREATE DATABASE mysite;
SHOW DATABASE;

Then edit your project's settings.py file (from where you were):

vim mysite/mysite/settings.py

NOTE: Sometimes it's easier to cd into the base of the project and then work from there. The commands would be this instead:

cd /home/django_projects/mysite
vim mysite/settings.py

Edit the settings.py file with the database information we want:

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.mysql', # Using 'mysql' for this tutorial.
        'NAME': 'mysite',                     # Database name.
        'USER': 'root',
        'PASSWORD': '******',
        'HOST': '',                           # Empty for localhost.
        'PORT': '',                           # Empty string for default.
    }
}

Be sure to read the section notes on MySQL on the Django website. This gives information about installing the Python module for MySQL, MySQLdb.

Briefly, you need to run these commands:

apt-get install python-mysqldb
pip install mysql-python
apt-get install libmysqlclient-dev

For the INSTALLED_APPS to function in Django, you need database tables for them:

python manage.py syncdb

Now, let's install and configure Apache and mod_wsgi:

apt-get install apache2 apache2.2-common apache2-mpm-prefork apache2-utils libexpat1
apt-get install libapache2-mod-wsgi

This should automatically restart Apache but just to be sure, issue this command:

service apache2 restart

We need to now create a virtual host and set up WSGI. First, let's create the site in the Apache configuration:

vim /etc/apache2/sites-available/mysite

The contents of this file should look like this:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerAdmin [email protected]
    ServerName mysite.com
    ServerAlias www.mysite.com
    WSGIScriptAlias / /var/www/mysite/index.wsgi

    Alias /static/ /var/www/mysite/static/
    <Location "/static/">
        Options -Indexes
    </Location >
</VirtualHost >

Now we need to create the WSGI file that's accessed for our Django project:

mkdir /var/www/mysite
vim /var/www/mysite/index.wsgi

In it, add these lines:

import os
import sys
import site

# Add the site-packages of the chosen virtualenv to work with
site.addsitedir('~/.virtualenvs/mysiteenv/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages')

# Add the app's directory to the PYTHONPATH
sys.path.append('/home/django_projects/mysite')
sys.path.append('/home/django_projects/mysite/mysite')

os.environ['DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE'] = 'mysite.settings'

import django.core.handlers.wsgi
application = django.core.handlers.wsgi.WSGIHandler()

Let's set where static files go for Django:

mkdir /var/www/mysite/static
vim /var/www/mysite/mysite/settings.py

Make sure these lines are set:

STATIC_ROOT = '/var/www/mysite/static/'
STATIC_URL = '/static/'

Next, we need to tell Django to collect the static files for use on the site:

python manage.py collectstatic

Restart Apache again and you should be good to go:

service apache2 restart