Deploying Django with Gunicorn, Nginx and MySQl on Ubuntu 18.04

Setting up software

Update ubuntu software repository
Install
1. nginx - Serve our website
2. mysql-server and libmysqlclient-dev - For database
3. Python 3
4. ufw - Firewall for our system
5. virtualenv - Virtual environment for our python application

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install nginx mysql-server python3-pip python3-dev libmysqlclient-dev ufw virtualenv

Installing python libraries

Create a directory to hold all django apps (Eg. django)
Create a virtual environment
Install django
Install mysql client for python
Install gunicorn to interact with our python code

$ mkdir django
$ cd django
$ virtualenv venv
$ source venv/bin/activate
$ pip install mysqlclient django gunicorn

Also install any other dependencies needed

Setting up the firewall

We'll disable access to the server on all ports except 8800 for now. Later on we'll remove this give access to all ports that nginx needs

$ sudo ufw default deny
$ sudo ufw enable
$ sudo ufw allow 8800

Setting up database

Install mysql and give root password
Create database for the application
Create a user for the application and give all access to the database

$ sudo mysql_secure_installation

Give password for root user

$ sudo mysql -u root -p
$ CREATE DATABASE <app database name> CHARACTER SET 'utf8';
$ CREATE USER <app username>
$ GRANT ALL ON <app database name>.* TO '<app username>'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY '<app user password>';
$ quit

Setting up the django project

In the same folder (Eg. django) where the virtual environment is present, make a django project or move the existing project here.

Current Folder structure

\home\<user>\django\
|
|--- venv
|
|--- django_project
    |
    |--- manage.py
    |--- django_project
        |
        |--- __init__.py
        |--- urls.py
        |--- settings.py
        |--- wsgi.py

Modify the settings.py file to use the newly created database.

DEBUG = False

ALLOWED_HOSTS = ['127.0.0.1', 'domain.name', 'ip-address']

...

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
         'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.mysql',
         'OPTIONS': {
             'sql_mode': 'traditional',
         },
         'NAME': '<app database name>',
         'USER': '<app username>',
         'PASSWORD': '<app user password>',
         'HOST': 'localhost',
         'PORT': '3306', 
     }
}

...

STATIC_URL = '/static/'
STATIC_ROOT=os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'static/')

MEDIA_URL='/media/'
MEDIA_ROOT=os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'media/')

Add appropriate ip address or domain name to allowed hosts.

Make database migrations

(venv) $ python manage.py makemigrations
(venv) $ python manage.py migrate
(venv) $ python manage.py collectstatic

These commands create all required tables in the new database created and also collects all static files to a static folder under django_project directory.

Run the development server to check whether everything is working fine.

(venv) $ python manage.py runserver

Setting up Gunicorn

Test gunicorn with django by running the following command inside the django project folder

(venv) $ gunicorn --bind 0.0.0.0:8800 django_project.wsgi:application

Now if you visit 0.0.0.0:8800/admin you'll see that there is no css or js files. Thats because we are not yet serving static files. Kill gunicorn and exit the virtual environment.

Lets daemonise the gunicorn

Open a new gunicorn.service file

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

Copy the following lines with appropriate modifications

[Unit]
Description=gunicorn service
After=network.target

[Service]
User=<user>
Group=www-data
WorkingDirectory=/home/<user>/django/django_project/
ExecStart=/home/<user>/django/venv/bin/gunicorn --access-logfile - --workers 3 --bind unix:/home/<user>/django/django_project/django_project.sock django_project.wsgi:application

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Enable the daemon

$ sudo systemctl enable gunicorn.service
$ sudo systemctl start gunicorn.service
$ sudo systemctl status gunicorn.service

If something went wrong, do
```
$ journalctl -u gunicorn
```
If journalctl isnt found, sudo apt install journalctl
If you do any changes to your django application, reload the gunicorn server by
```
$ sudo systemctl daemon-reload
$ sudo systemctl restart gunicorn
```

Thats all for gunicorn

Setting up Nginx

Create a new configuration file for nginx

$ sudo gedit /etc/nginx/sites-available/django_project

Copy following lines with appropriate modifications

server {
       listen 80;    
       server_name 127.0.0.1;
       location = /favicon.ico {access_log off;log_not_found off;} 
    
        location /static/ {
            alias /home/<user>/django/django_project/static/;    
        }

        location /media/ {
            alias /home/<user>/django/django_project/media/;
        }
    
        location / {
            include proxy_params;
            proxy_pass http://unix:/home/<user>/django/django_project/django_project.sock;
        }
     }

listen 80 tell nginx which port to listen to. server_name 127.0.0.1 tells that we are using 127.0.0.1 as the address to access our website. This can be set to the ip address of the machine.

Link the configuration so that nginx can recognise

$ sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/django_project /etc/nginx/sites-enabled

Check whether everything is fine

$ sudo nginx -t

If it returns without any errors, then everything is fine. If not go through the configuration once more and debug.

Once everything is done, restart nginx

$ sudo systemctl restart nginx

Now that all setup is done, lets delete the testing firewall rule we had put for 8800 and allow all ports necessary for nginx

$ sudo ufw delete allow 8800
$ sudo ufw allow 'Nginx Full'

And thats it! If everything worked fine, you should be able to access your django application on 127.0.0.1 or any other ip address you gave on nginx configuration

Final Folder structure

\home\<user>\django\
|
|--- venv
|
|--- django_project
    |
    |--- manage.py
    |--- django_project
    |    |
    |    |--- __init__.py
    |    |--- urls.py
    |    |--- settings.py
    |    |--- wsgi.py
    |
    |--- static
    |
    |--- media
    |
    |--- django_project.sock

Suhas-G/Deploying Django with Gunicorn, Nginx and MySQL on Ubuntu 18.04.md