I'm a rookie to Django and Django CMS but definitely enjoying the framework thus far.
I have a question regarding deploying a Django CMS project on Ubuntu Server. When we deploy it on the Ubuntu desktop version, the project works just fine without any issues, but on the server, we run into trouble with the CMS admin interface. Although the content of the sidebar is functional, it does not collapse anymore and once we select an option from the CMS toolbar, the modal window that pops up is unresponsive.
Initially i thought there was an issue with my project, but then we just installed a basic django CMS project on the server itself, without any other apps, and the issue still persisted. I am using Django 1.7.3, Django CMS 3.0.9, and Ubuntu Server 14.04. I am unable to determine what the issue is and no errors are thrown. Tried searching the web for this issue, but we couldn't find any similar issues.
UPDATE:
So i was able to narrow down the problem here to some extent. Found out that the problem was with the browser. A few versions of chrome were giving me these issues. IE and Firefox were working just fine.
UPDATE 2:
As #mkoistinen suggested, this problem had been occuring on devices with touch-screens and mouse capabilities. Please look at this issue.
I run Django and CMS, etc. on Ubuntu servers all day long, so there is not an issue with the OS for sure.
Having said this, running Django locally can be very different than running it in a production environment. Locally, runserver takes care of a lot of things you have to address yourself on a server under the WSGI implementation of your choice.
It sounds like you have WSGI configured well enough to get Django to respond, but you may be having trouble with your STATIC and MEDIA paths. Definitely check the settings for these items.
Another thing to look at is, did you run python manage.py collectstatic on the server? If not, the static files from your packages will not have been copied into your STATIC_ROOT, which could easily lead to the condition you describe above.
If your client is both touch- and mouse-capable, please note that this is an issue that is fixed in 3.0.10.
Related
I've never worked with Django before so forgive me if a question sounds stupid.
I need to develop a web application, but I do not want to deploy it on a server. I need to package it, so that others would "install" it on their machine and run it. Why I want to do it this way? There are many reasons, which I don't want to go into right now. My question is: can I do it? If yes, then how?
This is possible. However, the client machine would need to be equipped with the correct technologies for this to work.
When you launch a web app on a server (live), the server is required to have certain settings and installs. For example, a Django web app: the server must have a version of Django installed.
Hence, whichever machine is running your web app, must have Django installed. It presumably also needs to have the database too. It might be quite a hassling process but it's possible.
Just like as a developer, you may have multiple users working on 1 project. So, they all need to have that project 'installed' on their devices so they can run it locally.
You need to either use a python to executable program, with Django already in it. The website files you can place into the dist folder or whatever folder has the executable in it. Then you can compress it and share it with others (who have the same OS as you).
For an example:
You have this script in Django (I'm too lazy to actually write one), and you want to share it with someone who doesn't have Python and Django on his/her computer.
Comming from PHP(without frameworks), I don't quite understand how deploying works in Python. I have completed my simple Django version: (1, 10, 1, 'final', 1) blog project and all I have to do is put it online. I am using linux openSUSE distro and virtualenv
I have access to a mysql database with phpmyadmin and I have some space, accessed with filezilla. hosting site: https://host.bg/
But then I started researching of how to deploy my project and I stumbled upon stuf like apache, Nginx, wsgi and other stuff I haven't used in the project and not quite familiar how they work.
So my question is: Can I make my project into a folder with some files in it, copy->paste them in filezilla and have a working site and if not, how does django deployment really work and what should I do from here ?!
I would recommend you to use Git instead of FTP protocol. As you are using Linux you can easily connect to your SO using ssh.
About the deployment, I would recommend you to use GUnicorn for a WSGI way.
It's not hard to deploy with, but if you get in trouble you can use the official Django documentation for deploying Django with WSGI:
Link
Ps.: As you are using Linux, I would recommend to you to use VirtualEnv to allow you server many Django sites in the same Linux instance with the isolated environments
Check what version of Python is installed on the server hosting your account and if there's option for ssh access.
Host.bg and Bulgarian hosting providers in general fail to keep up with most things other than php and mysql. With shared plans they avoid installing anything new too.
I'd say contact support and see if they would be able to assist you with Apache configurations and whatever else is needed for your project.
I have my development environment setup on Win 7 like this:
Django development structure
Apache -server- C:\Program Files (x86)\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.4
PostgreSQL -database- C:\Program Files\PostgreSQL\9.2
Django -framework- C:\Python27\Lib\site-packages\django
Python -code- C:\Python27
Project -root- C:\mysite
|----------apps
|----------HTML
|----------CSS
|----------JavaScript
|----------assets
I am attempting to keep this extremely simple to start out. There are 5 main directories each with a distinct purpose. All the code resides in the project folder.
compared to WAMP structure:
C:\WAMP
|----------C:\Apache
|----------C:\MySQL
|----------C:\PHP
|----------C:\www
I like how Apache, MySQL, and PHP all reside in a neat directory. I know to keep the root project OUTSIDE in another directory in Django for security reasons.
Is it fine that Apache, PostgreSQL, and Python are installed all over the place in the Django environment?
Did I miss a core Django component and/or directory?
Will deploying and scaling be a problem?
I want this to be a guideline for beginning Django web programmers.
I can answer the question one by one:
Is if fine that Apache, PostgreSQL, and Python are installed all over the place in the Django environment?
All over the place sounds weird but yes it is totally fine.
Did I miss a core Django component and/or directory?
No you don't miss anything, Django core is in site-packages folder already and your site code is mysite, which can be located anywhere you want.
Will deploying and scaling be a problem?
No it won't be a problem with current structure. You will deploy your mysite only, the other will be installed separately.
Something you should get familiar with when starting with Django development:
Most likely when you deploy your project, it will be on a Linux server, so install and learn Linux maybe?
virtualenv: Soon you will have to install Django, then a bunch of external packages to support your project. virtualenv helps you isolate your working environment. Well it's "unofficial" a must when you start with python development.
virtualenvwrapper to make your life easier when working with virtualenv
git and github or bitbucket: if you don't know git yet, you should now.
Apache is just web server, it is used to serve files, but to make a website you do not necessary need it. Django comes with its own development server. See :
python manage.py runserver
Apache is required when you are developing PHP websites because your computer do not know how to compile and interpret it. But for Django, you use the Python language, and you have already install it if you are using Django.
Read https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.5/intro/tutorial01/
And where it will be the time to set up your own server using Apache look at :
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/howto/deployment/wsgi/modwsgi/.
Scaling will be a problem on windows. Python in Apache on windows gets 64 threads in one process. Couple this with the GIL and you will have scaling issues.
Python and Apache on Linux don't have this same problem. Under Linux wsgi can create multiple processes that have multiple threads each, minimizing GIL issues.
WSGI in Apache on windows is not a scalable solution in my opinion.
However you can develop there and move to linux for deployment, I do it all the time.
You will want to take advantage of the Apache Alias directive to serve all your static content like css, js, favicon.ico. This frees up python to only handle requests that require logic.
What I want to know are actually 2 things.
Part 1:
I have a developed source code for an application in python that uses Django framework.
What I want is to be able to run the code on a developer machine and see the result. What do I need for it?
(my guesses):
Python development enironment (Eclipse/PyDev/Aptana Studio 3 seem to be the better ones for windows not sure linux yet),
I also have a postgre database already setup (I know there's a file where I have to specify connection information)
- something installed from django or would this be already included in the code that I have?
Part II:
I also want to make a dev server accessible through internet.
- this is the major part of the question and the most important. How do I publish the app?
- I have a linux machine that I would do this on, but unsure of all the things I need. Apache server?
To answer your questions:
What you need: A list of requirements and instructions to get started with Django is available here: http://djangobook.com/en/2.0/chapter02/.
Database: that chapter also includes a section on configuring access to your database, with a specific section on postgreSQL.
Dev server: To start a basic development server, see this tutorial section
Deploying django (production): For instructions on how to deploy Django for production, see chapter on deploying Django.
Publishing on internet: as for making your dev server accessible through the internet, ask on https://serverfault.com/. Make sure you provide more information about your network setup, what you've tried, what isn't working, etc. (Briefly, you need to make sure that the host you are running your server on is on a publicly accessible IP, or has port 80 forwarded to it from such a host. If in doubt, speak to your sys/network admin if you have one. Or use a django hosting service such as those listed on http://djangohosting.com)
IDE : Regarding IDE, it's down to personal preference. What you mentioned are fine and can run on Linux too.
As a first step, I suggest you follow the tutorial which guides you through the process of starting a development server and developing a basic app.
Even if your goal is to deploy an existing app, the tutorial will give you an idea of how the different components work together (apps, models, urls, templates, etc) which will help with debugging when something goes wrong with your deployment.
Good luck.
You need Python, Django, a WSGI container (e.g. mod_wsgi, uWSGI, Paste Deploy), and a database server. You make the Django project available as a WSGI app, bound to the appropriate interface on the machine.
I am developping a django app on Windows, SQLite and the django dev server . I have deployed it to my host server which is running Linux, Apache, FastCgi, MySQL.
Unfortunately, I have an error returned by the server on the prod while everything ok on the dev machine. I've asked my provider for a pre-production solution in order to be able to debug and understand the problem.
Anyway, what are according to you the most likely errors that can happen when moving a django app from dev to prod?
Best
Update: I think that a pre-prod is the best way to address this kind of problem. But I would like to build a check list of what must be done before to put in production.
Thanks for the very valuable answers that I received until now :)
Update: FYI, I 've implemented the preprod server and the email notification as suggested by shanyu and I can see that the error comes from the smart_if templatetag that I am using on this new version. Any trick with template tags?
Update: I think I've fixed the pb which was caused I think by the Filezilla FTP sending. I was using the "replace if newer" option which I guess is causing some unexpected results. Using the "replace all" option fix the issue. However, it was an opportunity for me to learn more about deployment. Thansk for your answers.
Problems I typically have include:
Misconfigured productions settings, whether in my production localsettings.py, wsgi/cgi, or apache site files in /etc/sites-available
Database differences. I use South for migrations and have run into some subtle issues when performing my migration on PostgreSQL when it worked smoothly in sqlite.
Static file hosting since I cheat and use the Django server in development
Permissions, both on the file system and within the database
Rare, but possible, network issues preventing me from getting my dependencies, whether on PyPi or some 3rd party site
Ways that I have mitigated these issues:
Use the same database in production and development (in your case, MySQL everywhere)
I've found it is useful to have a "test" environment which mimics production in every way possible (it can be on lower end hardware, or even the same machine). This way, if there are any issues in this "production-like" enivornment, I can solve them without taking my production server offline.
Script everything for repeatable deployments. I use fabric, but zc.buildout or Paver would also work. These tools help reduce typos while deploying and reduce the time to deploy my app.
Use version control (mercurial, git, subversion) and a schema migration tool (like South), so if something does go wrong when you deploy to production, you have the possibility of backing out the changes and allowing production to run on the old code with the old database schema.
I haven't set up an "egg proxy" yet, but I am considering it, to avoid issues when downloading dependencies.
I've found pip's freezing dependencies to be useful, in case a new, incompatible change to a library occurred since I downloaded it initially
Use a web testing framework like Windmill or Selenium to test my application in my "test" environment, so that I can get a lot of test coverage of my system very quickly.
Regarding your case, I can think of 2 simple things that may help you:
You can enable Django to send messages when exceptions occur giving details about them. Look at here for details.
You'll be better off if you set up a test environment on the prod server (say, test.example.com) so that you can check if things will go smoothly or not before you deploy the app.
I believe these were the podcasts I listened to recently (from Pycon 2009):
Locate Django in the Real World (PyCon 2009):
http://advocacy.python.org/podcasts/pycon.rss
Parts 1 to 3
Very good introduction to designing your apps for deployment, in particular for reuse and redeployment.
Regs.