deploying django site (wsgi) - django

Trying to use 2 different settings file for production and dev.
I set DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE='mysite.settings_production'
Works perfectly when running server with runserver
When I run it with apache though, apache doesn't seem to use the setting in the ~/.bash_profile and instead use os.environ.setdefault("DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE", "mysite.settings") in the wsgi.py file
I guess it's maybe because apache is running on different user , not mine..
ok.. so it seems it's running as www-data on my ec2 ubuntu.
So I have to create the /home/www-data/.bash_profile and set the env variable?
It seems like so much hassle to use a different settings file.
Is there an obviously easier way to do this?
(I don't want to change the wsgi.py file, because it's source controlled)

Using bash_profile is completely the wrong way to do this.
The correct way is to use the wsgi.py file. However, since you don't want to do this (although I don't understand what it being version-controlled has to do with anything) then you can set environment variables directly in your Apache configuration using SetEnv:
SetEnv DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE mysite.settings

Well, it's really wrong way. Common method to have separate settings for different environment is to store environment-dependent in local_settings.py (or whatever you name it) and imprort from settings.py
from local_settings.py import *
don't put local_settings.py under project repository as you will override it with each commit. If you want to keep a sample of local settings, put into a separate file, e.g. local_settings.py.example
You can import local settings at the beginning of settings.py (so settings.py settings would override local settings), or at the end, or have two local settings files for both cases.

Related

Set debug mode to false during an automatic deployment of a django website

What is the expected process when one wants to deploy a django website automatically by means of a continuous integration process: how can we set debug mode to false without editing the configuration file?
Generally there are three very common approaches to switch between production and development environments in Django applications:
Create a separate settings.py file with a different name and point to it using the DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE environment variable. Once setting a value to it, the expected settings file within the project folder will be ignored.
Use Python conditional statements to check for variables specific to your environment like if settings.DEBUG: and decide for other ones within that block of code.
Make a settings directory inside the project folder and create three additional files; one for common settings variables like common.py, and another two for local and production specific variables such as dev.py and prod.py. You can specify your __init__ to always import common.py and try to import one of the others if they are found.
Generally, you don't change anything in your code repository when deploying to production. It's the same code as on your local machine. The only difference is that your app server (gunicorn or uwsgi) is running with a different DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE environment variable.

Heroku Config Vars and Django

I want to make specific settings for each environment (local vs staging). I set up Config Vars in my heroku staging app and set DEBUG setting to false to try it out, but it didn't work. Am I missing something or making it wrong?
My seetings.py file
Config Vars in the staging app
Result when I tried somthing wrong
You should create a directory where your current settings.py file is located and name it settings. Then create a base.py, dev.py, and prod.py file in this directory.
Also create an __init__.py in the same location as these 3 settings files and inside that __init__.py put from your_project_name.settings.base import *. In base.py you'll have all the shared settings between prod and dev, and in prod.py and dev.py you would just from .base import * to 'inherit' the settings from the base.py file. This is one of the only cases where it's recommended to import like this.
Then you can set the DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE environment variable in production to use my_project_name.settings.prod instead of the default settings variable.
DEBUG in the settings file needs to be set via the environment variable, if available.
So change DEBUG = True to DEBUG = os.environ.get('DEBUG', True) and you should be fine. This is usually called a feature flag (pattern).
Responding:
If you are using a "two scoops" pattern, #wjh18 is on the right path.
The pattern I outlined is solid, in use for years.
Can you see what the python terminal grabs on Heroku via heroku run bash --app APPNAME, then python then import os then os.environ.get('DEBUG'). The should match your settings on Heroku. If so, there may be something in the stack that is inhibiting settings (lazy load) from working correct.
A number of gotcha exist in Django is you deviate from established patterns.
Just in case, the env var is ONLY for the Django settings page, otherwise access the Django DEBUG via proper import of settings (from django.conf import settings).

Where do I set environment variables for Django?

everyone!
Django 1.11 + PostgreSQL 9.6 + Gunicorn + Ubuntu 16.04 in AWS
I want to set environment variables for sensitive info.(django secret key, DB password...)
I studied many articles about setting ways.
But when I tried os.environ['env_name'],
.bashrc: Not working
.bash_profile: Not working
.profile: Not working
/etc/environment: Not working
Gunicorn script file.(systemd): I set them in gunicorn systemd script. It work very well.
But because I want to use the environment variables in other program too, I set them among 1~5 configurations. I don't understand why 1~5 configurations didn't work. Is there scope or priority of setting environment variables?
EDIT:
I use Ubuntu 16.04 server. I can't restart terminal session.
I tried 'source .bashrc' and logout/login. But It didn't work.
Of cource, 'echo $some_env_var' is working, I say, django can't read.
.bashrc will work for local development but not for a production environment. I just spent quite a bit of time looking for the answer to this and here's what worked for me:
1) Create a file somewhere on your server titled settings.ini. I did this in /etc/project/settings.ini
2) Add your config data to that file using the following format where the key could be an environmental variable and the value is a string. Note that you don't need to surround the value in quotes.
[section]
secret_key_a=somestringa
secret_key_b=somestringb
3) Access these variables using python's configparser library. The code below could be in your django project's settings file.
from configparser import RawConfigParser
config = RawConfigParser()
config.read('/etc/project/settings.ini')
DJANGO_SECRET = config.get('section', 'secret_key_a')
Source: https://code.djangoproject.com/wiki/SplitSettings (ini-style section)
The simplest solution is as already mentioned using os.environ.get and then set your server environment variables in some way (config stores, bash files, etc.)
Another slightly more sophisticated way is to use python-decouple and .env files. Here's a quick how-to:
1) Install python-decouple (preferably in a venv if not using Docker):
pip install python-decouple
2) Create a .env file in the root of your Django-project, add a key like;
SECRET_KEY=SomeSecretKeyHere
3) In your settings.py, or any other file where you want to use the configuration values:
from decouple import config
...
SECRET_KEY = config('SECRET_KEY')
4) As you probably don't want these secrets to end up in your version control system, add the file to your .gitignore. To make it easier to setup a new project, you could have a .env_default checked into the VCS containing default/dummy-values that's not used in production.
create a file called .bashrc in your server
export('the_name_in_bashrc', some_value)
then in the settings.py
import os
some_variable = os.environ.get('the_name_in_bashrc')
If you're using a virtual ENV you can add the environment variables to that specific environment. You can use export KEY=VALUE in your terminal but that will not persist. If you would like your values to persist you can edit the file:
sudo nano your_environment/bin/activate
Then at the bottom add the values you want e.g.:
export MY_KEY="12345"
And save. Remember to restart your ENV for changes to take effect.
pip install python-dotenv
Go To settings.py
import os
from dotenv import load_dotenv
load_dotenv('.env')
SECRET_KEY = os.getenv('SECRET_KEY')
Go To .env file
SECRET_KEY = your_secret_key

Django and loading config file before server starts

My django app is communicating with external server and before running django server i would like load some config file. Variables from this file are going to be used by some module while app is running
Problem is that config file can be located in many places.
My dream would be to run manage.py --cfg "/path/to/cfg/file.cfg" or
manage.py runserver --cfg "/path/to/cfg/file.cfg"
and some variables (like globals?) are going to be loaded and they are going to be avaible for django modules to be used. After django server shutdown those variables can dissapear
Is there some nice way to accomplish this?
There seem to be two parts to your problem:
How do I support changing which set of variables (as defined in a config file) are used for a given run
How can I load these variables such that they are visible to all the modules of my application.
The standard mechanism for doing the 2nd is to put stuff in settings.py.
If you do FOO="bar" in settings.py, in your module you can do:
from django.conf import settings
if settings.FOO == "bar":
# Do something
As far as how you can support multiple configurations, the first thing I could come up with is to rename your real settings.py to be real_settings.py and then create a series of config1_settings.py, config2_settings.py, config3_settings.py ... which look like:
from real_settings.py import *
from path_to_configX.py import *
where configX.py has all the values for whatever variables you want for configuration X.
You would then start django's built in server via:
manage.py runserver --settings=configX_settings.py
Note that doing this for a production server (where you can't as easily just pass something on the command line to kick it off) may be a bit trickier, but you're going to need to provide more use case details for that.

My Django secret key is in an environment variable but I can't do syncdb

I'm setting up a Django project with different files for local and production settings. I can confirm that my Django secret key is successfully in an environment variable in virtualenv and when I do runserver I get no error. However when I try manage.py syncdb I get
django.core.exceptions.ImproperlyConfigured: The SECRET_KEY setting must not be empty.
I don't understand why I can successfully browse to the site after runserver but I can't sync the database. When I run env I can see that the secret key is there and in my base settings file (imported into local settings) I am doing this:
SECRET_KEY = os.environ.get('MY_SECRET_KEY')
Any help debugging this would be greatly appreciated.
Euan
I'm not sure why the runserver command is working while syncdb isn't, but you can sort it out by adding a environment variable for DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE in the same way you did for the SECRET_KEY. The only difference is that you don't need to reference DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE within the django code anywhere. I'm running my own setup in exactly that way and the only problem I run into is forgetting to change the settings module when I switch between projects :-)
EDIT: I didn't realise that you were adding --settings=myapp.settings.local to runserver as well as syncdb. The reason you need to do this is that you are using settings on a different path from the default so python can't find them. Also, although you set the DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE in the wsgi file, this is only fired when the site is accessed via your webserver. When running a manage command the wsgi file is ignored (AFAIK) so adding DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE to your environment variables in the same way as SECRET_KEY makes your settings file available to the manage command.
Hope that helps
Somewhat similar situation here, using virtualenv running an outer script which involves django models.
To make this work please make sure:
Your sys.path list has a path to your virtualenv site-packages. For me it's: sys.path.append('/home/user/.virtualenvs/Project/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages')
Your django settings variable is added to os.environ. Eg: os.environ.setdefault("DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE", "Project.settings")