Django Application

Step 1 - Installing python and nginx

Let's update the server's package index using the command below:

sudo apt update

sudo apt install python3-pip python3-dev nginx

This will install python, pip and nginx server

Step 2 - Creating a python virtual environment

sudo pip3 install virtualenv

Copy

This will install a virtual environment package in python. Let's create a project directory to host our Django application and create a virtual environment inside that directory.

mkdir ~/projectdir
cd ~/projectdir

virtualenv env

A virtual environment named env will be created. Let's activate this virtual environment:

source env/bin/activate

Step 3 - Installing Django and gunicorn

pip install django gunicorn

This installs Django and gunicorn in our virtual environment

Step 4 - Setting up our Django project

At this point you can either copy your existing Django project into the projectdir folder or create a fresh one as shown below:

django-admin startproject textutils ~/projectdir

Add your IP address or domain to the ALLOWED_HOSTS variable in settings.py.

If you have any migrations to run, perform that action:

~/projectdir/manage.py makemigrations
~/projectdir/manage.py migrate

Let's test this sample project by running the following commands:

sudo ufw allow 8000

This opens port 8000 by allowing it over the firewall. Let's start our Django development server to test the setup so far:

~/projectdir/manage.py runserver 0.0.0.0:8000

Step 5 - Configuring gunicorn

Lets test gunicorn's ability to serve our application by firing the following commands:

gunicorn --bind 0.0.0.0:8000 textutils.wsgi

This should start gunicorn on port 8000. We can go back to the browser to test our application. Visiting http://ip-address:8000 shows a page like this:

Deactivate the virtual environment by executing the command below:

deactivate

Let's create a system socket file for gunicorn now:

sudo vim /etc/systemd/system/gunicorn.socket

Paste the contents below and save the file

[Unit]
Description=gunicorn socket

[Socket]
ListenStream=/run/gunicorn.sock

[Install]
WantedBy=sockets.target

Next, we will create a service file for gunicorn

sudo vim /etc/systemd/system/gunicorn.service

Paste the contents below inside this file:

[Unit]
Description=gunicorn daemon
Requires=gunicorn.socket
After=network.target

[Service]
User=harry
Group=www-data
WorkingDirectory=/home/harry/projectdir
ExecStart=/home/harry/projectdir/env/bin/gunicorn \
          --access-logfile - \
          --workers 3 \
          --bind unix:/run/gunicorn.sock \
          textutils.wsgi:application

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Lets now start and enable the gunicorn socket

sudo systemctl start gunicorn.socket
sudo systemctl enable gunicorn.socket

Step 6 - Configuring Nginx as a reverse proxy

Create a configuration file for Nginx using the following command

sudo vim /etc/nginx/sites-available/textutils

Paste the below contents inside the file created

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name www.codewithharry.in;

    location = /favicon.ico { access_log off; log_not_found off; }
    location /static/ {
        root /home/harry/projectdir;
    }

    location / {
        include proxy_params;
        proxy_pass http://unix:/run/gunicorn.sock;
    }
}

Activate the configuration using the following command:

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/textutils /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

Restart nginx and allow the changes to take place.

sudo systemctl restart nginx

Your Django website should now work fine! Happy Coding