Deploy Django website project to ubuntu 18.0.4

Hey! Do you have a Django web project developed locally and want to deploy it to an ubuntu server and PostgreSQL database? if yes this post for you.

I will assume that you stand on this point and you already have the followings

1- Domain name.
2- Django project reside in Github.
3- ubuntu server with root access.
4- Internet 😁
5- Domain name A record point to the server real IP address

And you want to

1- Deploy the Django website on the ubuntu server.
2- Make the website accessible to the world.
3- You want free SSL and auto-redirect to https.
4- The same server may host several.

So let's assume that I want to deploy the following domain and repo

1- mallzaad.com
2- https://github.com/egyping/BlankDjangoProject.git

Brief of what we will be doing 

1- Change the default settings.py to prepare it for production.
2- Clone the repo to the correct project directory.
3- Install and configure Nginx, PostgreSql, Gunicorn, Supervisor, Git and lets Encrypt.


1- Edit the settings.py 

in the project, settings.py file do the following changes

a. change the database section as below and consider the spaces
these parameters will be configured at the PostgreSQL section

DATABASES = {

'default': {

'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql',

'NAME': 'mallzaad',

'USER': 'mallzaad',

'PASSWORD': 'password',

'HOST': 'localhost',

'PORT': '',

}

}

b. Make sure that the DEBUG mode turned off Fales

c. change the ALLOWED HOSTS too

ALLOWED_HOSTS = ['server ip address', '.mallzaad.com']

d. push the changes to github
git add .
git commit -am "settings"
git push origin master


2- Prepare the working directory 

login to the server
cd /var
mkdir www
cd www
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt install git
git clone https://github.com/egyping/BlankDjangoProject.git
mv BlankDjangoProject mallzaad
cd mallzaad

3- The virtual environment

a. Install the virtual environment and python set of tools

sudo apt-get install python3-pip python3-dev -y
sudo python3 -m pip install virtualenv

b. initiate new virtual env

virtualenv -p python3.6 .

now we have new folder bin under mallzaad, this bin folder will host all the addons we need it for this project.

source /bin/activate
pip install django
pip install psycopg2-binary

so now we installed django and PostgresSql binary and you can make sure of that if you run 

pip freeze
asgiref==3.2.3

Django==3.0.3

psycopg2-binary==2.8.4

pytz==2019.3

sqlparse==0.3.0

now we activate the virtual env and installed the necessary packages for your project to run


4- Postgresql

before installing anything on the server make sure that you run "sudo apt-get update"

now install postgresql
sudo apt-get install postgresql postgresql-contrib -y

highly recommended to give the current logged in user full authority on the progress

cd /tmp
sudo -u postgres createuser $USER
sudo -u postgres createdb $USER

Now let's create the database and user and rum some alters

sudo -u postgres psql
* create user
run these alters where mallzaad is the DB user

 * create database

postgres=# CREATE DATABASE mallzaad

postgres=# CREATE USER mallzaad WITH PASSWORD 'password';

* Run some Alters

postgres=# ALTER ROLE mallzaad SET client_encoding TO 'utf8';

ALTER ROLE

postgres=# ALTER ROLE mallzaad SET default_transaction_isolation TO 'read committed';

ALTER ROLE

postgres=# ALTER ROLE mallzaad SET timezone TO 'UTC';

ALTER ROLE

postgres=# GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON DATABASE mallzaad TO mallzaad;

GRANT

Now we have database server and database ready to be connected by
our django project so lets run the first migrate, make sure that the
env is activated.

python manage.py migrate

and let's create superuser if not created

python manage.py createsuperuser

5- Gunicorn and Supervisor
Your Django project works from port 8000 originally, so you need kind of tool stand between Django
and nginx to translate or to convert the traffic which comes to the domain at the nginx then it redirect it
to the django project, this tool is gunicorn.
gunicorn connect the nginx proxy to .sock file in the project, please check gunicorn documentation.
supervisor is such tool to automate the start and running of the gunicorn.


a. Install gunicorn in the virtual environment

pip install gunicorn 


b. Install supervisor to automate gunicorn process, and make sure it is up and running

sudo apt-get install supervisor -y
sudo service supervisor start

c. Verify Gunicorn works 
/var/www/myproject/bin/gunicorn --workers 3

  output should be like this
usage: gunicorn [OPTIONS] [APP_MODULE]
gunicorn: error: No application module specified.

d. let's create log folder for mallzaad, later on supervisor will log the gunicorn activity in this folder

mkdir /var/log/mallzaad

e. Create a Supervisor Process

touch /etc/supervisor/conf.d/mallzaad.conf

nano /etc/supervisor/conf.d/mallzaad.conf

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

root@vmi348053:/var/www/mallzaad/bin# cat /etc/supervisor/conf.d/mallzaad.conf

[program:mallzaad]

user=root

directory=/var/www/mallzaad/

command=/var/www/mallzaad/bin/gunicorn --workers 3 --bind unix:mallzaad.sock WebProject.wsgi:application

autostart=true

autorestart=true

stdout_logfile=/var/log/mallzaad/gunicorn.log

stderr_logfile=/var/log/mallzaad/gunicorn.err.log

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

if you notice in the supervisor conf file it executes the gunicorn command, the gunicorn command workers parameter is the number of the processor cores multiplied by 2 plus 1 as per guniorn documentation.

re initiate supervisor to detect gunicorn new worker

(mallzaad) root@vmi348053:/var/www/mallzaad# supervisorctl reread

mallzaad: available

(mallzaad) root@vmi348053:/var/www/mallzaad# supervisorctl update

mallzaad: added process group

check the status

(mallzaad) root@vmi348053:/var/www/mallzaad# sudo supervisorctl status

mallzaad                         RUNNING   pid 12832, uptime 0:00:46

check the logs

(mallzaad) root@vmi348053:/var/www/mallzaad# cat /var/log/mallzaad/gunicorn.log

(mallzaad) root@vmi348053:/var/www/mallzaad# cat /var/log/mallzaad/gunicorn.err.log 

[2020-02-23 20:55:23 +0100] [12832] [INFO] Starting gunicorn 20.0.4

[2020-02-23 20:55:23 +0100] [12832] [INFO] Listening at: unix:mallzaad.sock (12832)

[2020-02-23 20:55:23 +0100] [12832] [INFO] Using worker: sync

[2020-02-23 20:55:23 +0100] [12835] [INFO] Booting worker with pid: 12835

[2020-02-23 20:55:23 +0100] [12836] [INFO] Booting worker with pid: 12836

[2020-02-23 20:55:23 +0100] [12837] [INFO] Booting worker with pid: 12837

After configuring Nginx you will may need to reload the supervisor services or check the status
sudo supervisorctl start mallzaad
sudo supervisorctl stop mallzaad
sudo supervisorctl restart mallzaad

5- Nginx and firewall

ufw is firewall light and fast plus easy to use without complications,

a. install

sudo apt-get install nginx -y

sudo apt-get install ufw -y

b. Allow ssh and nginx

(mallzaad) root@vmi348053:/var/www/mallzaad# sudo ufw allow ssh

Rules updated

Rules updated (v6)

(mallzaad) root@vmi348053:/var/www/mallzaad# sudo ufw allow 'Nginx Full'

Rules updated

Rules updated (v6)

c. enable ufw

sudo ufw enable

sudo ufw status

Status: active

     To                         Action      From

     --                         ------      ----

[ 1] 22/tcp                     ALLOW IN    Anywhere                  

[ 2] Nginx Full                 ALLOW IN    Anywhere                  

[ 3] 22/tcp (v6)                ALLOW IN    Anywhere (v6)             

[ 4] Nginx Full (v6)            ALLOW IN    Anywhere (v6)  

d. configure nginx

nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/mallzaad.conf

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

server {

    server_name mallzaad.com www.mallzaad.com;

    listen 80;

    listen [::]:80;

    location / {

        include proxy_params;

        proxy_pass http://unix:/var/www/mallzaad/mallzaad.sock;

        proxy_buffer_size       128k;

        proxy_buffers           4 256k;

        proxy_read_timeout      60s;

        proxy_busy_buffers_size 256k;

        client_max_body_size    2M;

    }

}

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

e. link sites available with sites enabled

ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/mallzaad.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/mallzaad.conf

f. restart nginx

systemctl daemon-reload

below commands you may use to reload nginx and supervisor

systemctl daemon-reload

sudo systemctl reload nginx

sudo supervisorctl restart mallzaad

supervisorctl status mallzaad

Now if you browsed your domain it should be working, if you get bad request please make sure of the gunicorn process working by validating the supervisor process manager.

cross check the configuration files and paths mentioned in these files.

also supervisor has log files in /var/log check these logs too

6- Add SSL

a. Install certbot




sudo add-apt-repository ppa:certbot/certbot

sudo apt-get install python-certbot-nginx -y

b. Run Let's Encrypt

sudo certbot --nginx -d mallzaad.com -d www.mallzaad.com

c. Verify auto renew is on

sudo certbot renew --dry-run

We have done! now your website is loading and SSL installed.

In fact, the article is touching the basic deployment, ideally, we should install CI tool so once you git push your changes to the server automatically.

Another point the Django settings should set up in such way base, local and production so it runs in both cases, not every time you change the configuration manually post or pre each and every push.

one last point if you are targeting performance you should consider load the statics from s3, not from the same server 

Many other points, but this post will make your project live to the world.

Good luck!