Django and Linux, port forwarding - django

Question

I'm developing my first Django application, I have installed allauth to permit openid login.
I'm trying to use no-ip dns to avoid the problem of the dynamic ip, for register my app on facebook and testing from my machine. But I don't know how to make my django test server visible from outside on port 80.
If I force it using sudo it gave me problems on logging to postgrel database, but if I not use sudo it says that I can't use that port (also if apache is off).
Thank you for your help.

Answer 1

One way is to create virtual host in apache, which will use mod_wsgi to talk to a Django app.
Example:
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName xxx.xxx.com
ServerAdmin webmaster#localhost
WSGIScriptAlias / /var/www/xxx/apache/xxx.wsgi
Alias /static/ /var/www/xxx/static/
DocumentRoot /var/www/xxx
LogLevel info
ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/xxx-error.log
CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/xxx-access.log combined
</VirtualHost>
Contents of xxx.wsgi:
import os, sys
apache_configuration = os.path.dirname(__file__)
project = os.path.dirname(apache_configuration)
workspace = os.path.dirname(project)
sys.path.append(workspace)
sys.path.append('/var/www/xxx')
os.environ['DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE'] = 'xxx.settings'
import django.core.handlers.wsgi
application = django.core.handlers.wsgi.WSGIHandler()

Answer 2

"Redirecting" port 80 to port 8000
You won't be able to bind to port 80 without using sudo, it's a protected port that only root can bind to. (Like any port below 1024)
Here's a simple iptables rules that will forward requests to port 8000 onto port 80, so you can "pretend" to access your server at port 80 while serving it at port 8000.
It only works for the loopback interface (e.g., you on your own computer talking to itself), but that should be what you need for development.
iptables -t nat -I OUTPUT --source 127.0.0.1 --destination 127.0.0.1 -p tcp --dport 80 -j REDIRECT --to-ports 8000
Should you need it, for an exterior client, the rule is:
iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -i eth0 -p tcp --dport 80 -j REDIRECT --to-port 8000 (edit the interface if needed)
Alternate solution
You can however have a look at this question: Is there a way for non-root processes to bind to "privileged" ports on Linux?, which indicates another solution to your issue.
Please do pay attention to the point concerning interpreted languages (such as python).
A word of warning
This is obviously only intended for development purposes. To run your app, you should be using nginx + gunicorn or apache + mod_wsgi.

Answer 3

I would use an nginx proxy pass. On Ubuntu, all you have to do is sudo apt-get install nginx, then sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/default. Change the location / block to this:
location / {
proxy_pass http://localhost:8080; #or whatever port you are using
proxy_set_header Host $host;
}
and uncomment the listen 80; line and change it to listen 127.0.0.1:80 (this will prevent your development site from accidentally being served to the entire internet on port 80). You may also have to change the server_name if you want to do anything with /etc/hosts to make your site think it is elsewhere.
sudo service nginx start and you'll be in business. Note that nginx may need to be manually started after boot; I don't think the default is for it to start on boot every time.