Django startapp workflow with docker - django

Question

I am confused with how to work with Django apps (create/using) when using Docker. Some of the tutorials suggest using command startapp after starting the web docker container (I'm using docker-compose to up the containers). But since the files are created inside that container, how do I go about adding code to that from my local dev machine? and moreover, this does not seem right to create apps like this to edit code...
I've been using this following structure as is so far which starts up the container and works fine. But with just one "app" which is todo
(taken from https://github.com/realpython/dockerizing-django)
.
├── README.md
├── docker-compose.yml
├── nginx
│   ├── Dockerfile
│   └── sites-enabled
│   └── django_project
├── production.yml
├── tmp.json
└── web
├── Dockerfile
├── Pipfile
├── Pipfile.lock
├── docker_django
│   ├── __init__.py
│   ├── apps
│   │   ├── __init__.py
│   │   └── todo
│   │   ├── __init__.py
│   │   ├── admin.py
│   │   ├── models.py
│   │   ├── static
│   │   │   └── main.css
│   │   ├── templates
│   │   │   ├── _base.html
│   │   │   ├── dashboard.html
│   │   │   └── home.html
│   │   ├── tests.py
│   │   ├── urls.py
│   │   └── views.py
│   ├── settings.py
│   ├── urls.py
│   └── wsgi.py
├── manage.py
├── requirements.txt
├── shell-script.sh
└── tests
├── __init__.py
└── test_env_settings.py
When I use the above structure, I am not able to create apps locally as we have to use manage.py to create apps, but I need to navigate to apps folder to do that but manage.py is not accessible. So, I try to give full abs path to manage.py, but it complains about SeTTINGS_MODULE SECRET_KEY error.
What is the proper way to work with django apps when using Docker-Compose?
Do I need to change the above structure? or should I change my workflow?
EDIT:
my docker-compose:
version: '3.7'
services:
web:
restart: always
build: ./web
expose:
- "8000"
links:
- postgres:postgres
- redis:redis
volumes:
- web-django:/usr/src/app
- web-static:/usr/src/app/static
env_file: .env
environment:
DEBUG: 'true'
command: /usr/local/bin/gunicorn docker_django.wsgi:application -w 2 -b :8000
nginx:
restart: always
build: ./nginx/
ports:
- "80:80"
volumes:
- web-static:/usr/src/app/static
links:
- web:web
postgres:
restart: always
image: postgres:latest
ports:
- "5432:5432"
volumes:
- pgdata:/var/lib/postgresql/data/
pgadmin:
restart: always
image: fenglc/pgadmin4
ports:
- "5050:5050"
volumes:
- pgadmindata:/var/lib/pgadmin/data/
environment:
DEFAULT_USER: 'pgadmin4#pgadmin.org'
DEFAULT_PASSWORD: 'admin'
redis:
restart: always
image: redis:latest
ports:
- "6379:6379"
volumes:
- redisdata:/data
volumes:
web-django:
web-static:
pgdata:
redisdata:
pgadmindata:
My Dockerfile inside web folder:
FROM python:3.7-slim
# Set environment variables
ENV PYTHONDONTWRITEBYTECODE 1
ENV PYTHONUNBUFFERED 1
RUN mkdir -p /usr/src/app
WORKDIR /usr/src/app
ADD Pipfile /usr/src/app
ADD Pipfile.lock /usr/src/app
RUN python -m pip install --upgrade pip
RUN python -m pip install pipenv
COPY requirements.txt requirements.txt
RUN pipenv install --system
COPY . /usr/src/app

Answer 1

you structure is correct. what you are looking for is a volume, to make your django project on the host to be available inside the container, you can create whatever you like in your project, and the changes will take effect on the container.
for example:
the structure is :
.
├── django
│   ├── Dockerfile
│   └── entireDjangoAppFiles
└── docker-compose.yml
say this is my django dockerfile
FROM python:3
ENV PYTHONUNBUFFERED 1
RUN mkdir /code
WORKDIR /code
RUN pip install Django psycopg2
EXPOSE 8000
CMD python manage.py runserver 0.0.0.0:8000
and my docker compose:
version: '3.7'
services:
django:
build:
context: django
dockerfile: Dockerfile
ports:
- "8000:8000"
volumes:
- "./django:/code"
now any change i do in my django directory will be applied to the container's /code dir as well
EDIT
our docker-compose files are not similar... you are using named volumes
instead of usual mounting. those volumes are being created docker own volumes directory and the containers can use them, but nothing tell docker that you want those volume to contain your apps- so they are empty. to fix this, you may just remove them from the volumes option in your docker-compose, and prefer mount-volumes:
version: '3.7'
services:
web:
restart: always
build: ./web
expose:
- "8000"
links:
- postgres:postgres
- redis:redis
volumes:
- .web:/usr/src/app #mount the project dir
- .path/to/static/files/dir:/usr/src/app/static #mount the static files dir
env_file: .env
environment:
DEBUG: 'true'
command: /usr/local/bin/gunicorn docker_django.wsgi:application -w 2 -b :8000
nginx:
restart: always
build: ./nginx/
ports:
- "80:80"
volumes:
- web-static:/usr/src/app/static
links:
- web:web
postgres:
restart: always
image: postgres:latest
ports:
- "5432:5432"
volumes:
- pgdata:/var/lib/postgresql/data/
pgadmin:
restart: always
image: fenglc/pgadmin4
ports:
- "5050:5050"
volumes:
- pgadmindata:/var/lib/pgadmin/data/
environment:
DEFAULT_USER: 'pgadmin4#pgadmin.org'
DEFAULT_PASSWORD: 'admin'
redis:
restart: always
image: redis:latest
ports:
- "6379:6379"
volumes:
- redisdata:/data
volumes:
#web-django:
#web-static:
pgdata:
redisdata:
pgadmindata:
a note about the other named volumes - if you wondered why do you have to use them - they are the databases volumes, which supposed to be populated by the containers.