I am completely new to this Django world. I haven't tried it ever before.
Now the problem is as below;
One of my clients was hosting his site somewhere else that I don't know and they built the site using Django. The host company doesn't allow to make any changes on their server, instead they provided the zip file for all the files in the site to me; so that now I can host my client's site.
As I don't know anything about Django, can someone please shed a light where I should start from?
Thanks in advance.
Cheers.
Sach
First of all, install Django on the development machine. Start by trying to get the development server run on your machine.
Gather requirements: check the settings.py for installed apps against the default Django settings.py file. See if there are any popular django apps that site depends on. If there are any, then you probably will have to install them, too.
In which format was the database provided? Will you move to another more appropriate format? Python bindings for databases are required too.
Considering the fact that you have inherited this project and probably will need to make some changes, consider installing django-south, so you can easily make changes to the database schema.
If you get the site running properly on your own machine, consider deplyoment. Is there a lot of static content? (if so, consider nginx). Set up apache2 and install the mod_wsgi module. Deploy.
Work your way through the Django tutorial first. Then look into Django Book as has been mentioned. Django IRC channel (#django) on Freenode is also great for help.
Your best bet would be to learn about Django before trying to jump in head first - https://www.djangoproject.com/ contains documentation as well as tutorials on creating Django apps.
Django is fairly easy to setup if you already have the code written. You'll need to install the chosen database and then simply follow the tutorial on the Django website
Django comes with a built-in server so it's very easy to run the website for development without needing Apache, nginx or much else.
I learned using the Django Book. Django is an easy-to-use framework, you should be fine.
Also, in the short-term there's a file called views.py and separate folder containing templates. If you're familiar with MVC (MVT in Django) this contains the views for the site in function form. There's probably (but not always) a folder for templates which contains a lot of the HTML for the site. Just a good starting pointing for basic modifications.
You can perhaps start here. https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/howto/deployment/
First, find out the django version required by your client. Install that on a server (not a production one), setup apache and mod_wsgi. The zip files may go to a dir which can be included in the mod_wsgi configuration.
Find about the static files and setup apache or any other lightweight webserver to server it.
You may not be a developer, but have a try with the django book. It can give you a good idea how its structured.
Related
I already finished my project that I made with django, and I want to upload it. I already bought the domain, and they are about to host it for me.. once they give me the host, I just upload it and that's it? Or are there more steps to do within the code? What do I have to do?. that is, once everything is uploaded to the host, will everything be seen?
And the Admin will continue to work, when in the search engine put /admin/ ???.
that is, I wonder what are all the steps to follow so that once I host my page everything can be seen.
that is, what things would have to be configured in the congif.py, and other things.
I would appreciate a lot if you give me advice/tips/solutions..
What I know is that I have to change the debug to DEBUG=False ...
And I don't know anything else, once they pass me the port and other host information, I simply upload the files of my project to the host and that's it, nothing more? Isn't it necessary to write more code to show it?
Excuse me, I have never displayed a page
There are a lot of steps involved in deploying your code to production. I suggest you check out a guide like this to get a better idea of what you need to do in order to deploy your website. Additionally, you can run the command python manage.py check --deploy for a quick, though insufficient, review of your code to see if it is ready to be pushed to production.
Django is an excellent choice for developing basic to more advanced websites. The web framework works well in local and production environments. Just the same way the local environment server is not suitable for a production environment, there are things you need to configure before deploying your Django website. Take a look at the links below
Https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/4.1/howto/deployment/checklist/
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/4.1/howto/deployment/
https://github.com/vintasoftware/django-production-launch-checklist/blob/master/checklist-en.md
I have a requirement where I need to develop a Point of Sale system.
I want to know if it is possible to install that small point of sale app
on some machine without source code ?
Thanks for all suggestions.
I just thought I'd mention this for anybody that finds this question useful in the future.
There was a discussion about turning a Django webapp into a local app here:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/django-users/-VGqvHew35g
They provide some interesting solutions for converting the webapp into a local/desktop app.
Django is a web framework. There's no need to install any code on a client machine, since you would access it via a web browser.
Help! I think i've gone in a bit over my head. I'm making a website for a friend who has already got a domain/hosting on the website 123reg. Keen to learn them i've been picking up python and django as i go, figured getting it online would be no problem because 123reg supports python (unspecified version).
So far i've been doing everything with the django test-server locally, i went to look into uploading it somewhere as a test and realised there's an awful lot i don't know and even with google its a bit overwhelming.
I found this link which will help me later i'm sure but right now, could someone help me understand What is Apache? I thought the server was the hardware a site was physically hosted on but i can't understand it at all now.. So i download Apache and then what? Can i just copy it into the root directory for the website on 123reg? Is their an installer? Will 123reg allow it to "run" or "serve" or whatever word's appropriate or will there be permissions issues?
And then once that's sorted there's mod_wsgi to look into, a cursory glance at the installation guide shows commands to be run, which confuses me further as i was not aware that a standard host like 123reg have any sort of inbuilt console window to be run on in which case how are you expected to execute these commands?
And another thing I didn't really think through, I'm using the built in sqlite database technology.. How will i be able to install it on my webspace? and then how will that effect my django configuration? or maybe i'll have to change to MySql v5 which 123reg says it supports?
I know these must be idiotic questions, I just wasn't sure where best to ask for help and SO has one of the most helpful and knowledgeable communities around. I did try having a google but everything was a bit overly technical for me.
You can't upload a Django site using FTP on a shared hosting provider and expect it to run. You'll need to configure it to run with their installed Apache, including configuration like mod_wsgi.
I very much doubt that 123-reg support this. You are unlikely to be able to run a Django site there. You should look for a more Django-friendly site - I recommend Webfaction.
Apache is the webserver software. It's already running on their machines. Don't try and install it lol, or they will certainly laugh at you.
To "run commands" you need to get a remote shell (console). This is typically done via Secure Shell (SSH). See this page regarding 123reg specifically: How do I connect using SSH (Putty)?
Django supports different databases, including SQLite and MySQL. SQLite is typically for small, simple databases, as the "database" is really just a local file that is manipulated by the SQLite engine. MySQL is the database of choice for many websites.
I was presenting a Django demonstration to my brother and he asked me the following question(s): "Why Django static and media folders aren't pre-configured? It's purpose aren't to be a convention over configuration framework? Why I am supposed to configure these things every time I start a Django project?"
I couldn't answer to him. Does anyone can?
P.S: I don't mean to compare Django with other frameworks. I'm just trying to understand why these design decisions were made;
Django is very definitely not a convention over configuration framework. Your brother is perhaps thinking of Rails, which does follow that principle - but Django follows the Python principle of "explicit is better than implicit".
Because django shouldn't distribute media files anyway. When you read the documentation you can see that the static files should (and must) be distributed by your server engine and/or by some kind of CDN when you are in production. Django, is just here to process your pages but not your media. And when you are in development, indeed, you have to use django to distribute static files. But you can use a python script to generate it, and manage it. For me, one of the best is: Django mediagenerator. This will let your files like they are in dev mode, but this will optimize it in production.
I notice that the official recommended book "The Definitive Guide to Django" was written based on mod_python, for both editions.
However, I think most beginners would follow what most people use: mod_wsgi.
I followed their first tutorials, that is, display current time
I have the mod_wsgi and everything setup correctly. But I am still getting the default page regardless how I access to http://domain/time/
Is there any book that is written for mod_wsgi, or did t setup the environment incorrectly?
I know I can begin without using apache, but it would be a headache in the future to deploy apache again...
EDIT
I added the wsgi script and inclued that in the views.py. It seems to work. Is it the right way???
So what is the purpose of having a separate wsgi script anyway?
I know the official guide said that create a folder name such as /apache/ and create django.wsgi...
You don't need a full rewrite of the Django book for mod_wsgi. The ony thing that is different is the apache.conf and the script inside your cgi-bin directory (both aren't directly related to Django, so all the Django parts will apply for both).
But you might probably find it useful to read the general usage/configuration instructions for mod_wsgi, and probably the special notes about django too. If you have some troubles (e.g. some kind of error message in your apache.log) then you might look at the ConfigurationIssues page too.
So what is the purpose of having a separate wsgi script anyway?
Nearly all Python web applications are based on the WSGI specification, which allows your application to be used with CGI, FastCGI, mod_python, mod_wsgi, etc. So, you might have more than one of those scripts - one for each technology for example.
Another thing is, that you can also control a lot of configuration settings inside this script (e.g. forking of additional python processes for increased performance, path to additional python modules or different versions of existing modules) which are normally set by the server administrator (and not the application developer). Thats probably also the main reason why such scripts aren't included directly in the applications.
And the third thing is, that you might have several such wsgi scripts which are deploying the same application with different settings. For example, you might have your application deployed several times for different users, or with different database settings (e.g. production and testing).