I run a small VPS with 512M memory of memory that currently hosts 3 very low traffic PHP sites and a personal email account.
I have been teaching myself Django over the last few weeks and am starting to think about deploying a project.
There seem to be a very large number of methods for deploying a Django site. Given the limited resources I have available, what would be the most appropriate option?
Will the VPS be suitable to host both python and PHP sites or would it be worth getting a separate server?
Any advice appreciated.
Thanks.
There aren't really a great number of ways to do it. In fact, there's the recommended way - via Apache/mod_wsgi - and all the other ways. The recommended way is fully documented here.
For a low-traffic site, you should have no trouble fitting it in your 512MB VPS along with your PHP sites.
Django has documentation describing possible server arrangements. For light weight, yet very robust set up, I'd recommend Nginx setup. It's much lighter than Apache.
I run several low-traffic Django sites on a 256 VPS without problem. I have Nginx setup as a reverse proxy and to serve static files (javascript, CSS, images) and Apache using mod_wsgi for serving Django as described in the documentation.
Running PHP sites as well may add a little overhead, but, if you're talking about low-traffic "fun" sites then you should be fine.
Related
So far, the only websites I've put in a hosted domain were with PHP. But since I work with Django I wonder if there would be any "barrier" or trouble when it comes about hosting a project, since Linux and IOS have Python installed by default but Windows not. Also it would be necessary to install tools such as Django itself, pillow, mysqlclient, etc...
I just want to know any possible barrier before going ahead. Thanks!
Everything depends on the server, if you have the necessary permissions to install and configure everything, you will not have any problem. How can be gunicorn, supervisor, nginx, etc.
For example services that you will not have any problem can be Amazon EC2, digitalocean, or any similar provider.
When I started with Django about 4 years ago I didn't know anything about servers, nginx and very little about databases but I found Djangoeurope on which I put my first websites.
They have managed databases (PostgreSQL and MySQL), one-click Django installs, reasonable prices and a very helpful staff.
I've since transitioned to using Docker on GCP, but for a beginner I can't recommend them enough: you can just concentrate on your Django code and you don't have to learn everything else at the same time.
I have a site that I want to expose to a bunch of colleagues that serves as an interface for some Machine learning tools.
I’ve made the site in Django 2.0 and would like to serve it from a small windows PC under my desk, and then from a more dedicated server once it’s operational.
I’ve had a look around and it looks like my options are using uWSGI or Django it self to serve the site. Obviously Django is mich slower, but on a PC with an i5 i recon it should be able to handle a couple of requests a minute, which is the peak traffic I’m expecting.
FastCGI appears to be depreciated, so what other options, prioritizing ease of confit on my part are there?
So anyone in a similar situation:
I ended up using waitress as the server and whitenoise to serve the static files.
This appears to work sufficiently fast and requires little configuration, once you have have worked out how to get the static files going with whitenoise.
Django itself can serve pages to other machines on your network. SImply start the local server with this command
python manage.py runserver 0.0.0.0:8000
Then, you can access the local website by requesting http://<dev_machine_ip>:8000. Obviously, this is a very simple and inefficient solution if you want to provide this website to many users connected all at the same time. But for tests/demo purpose, it is very handy
So I am beginner Django Developer and have been learning by developing local apps. I am looking to finally deploy something so people can use it. I have been looking around at various hosting providers and I am wondering what it's like using Digital Ocean for Django hosting. Specifically what exactly is involved/required with managing a Django app on Digital Ocean. Hostgator, which is another host I've been looking at, does not offer any "one-click" install for stuff like Nginx or anything else which I noticed Digital Ocean does have, so I would have to install that that as well as anything else I'd need myself. I guess my question is after that one click install what is involved with managing a Django app on Digital Ocean? Do I have to learn how to do a ton of other stuff regarding managing a server and dealing with Nginx (I would have to do that on HostGator) or does that One-click install for Django handle all that? Also other than Django, are there any skills that I have to learn in order to be able to do this?
Digital Ocean is more than a hosting service, it's a development platform. Digital Ocean works around the element of "droplets", where each droplet is a virtual machine typically running a UNIX system. Basically if you are looking for a service where you can both host a website and do some development, Digital Ocean may be the way to go, but it is not free. But yes, you would have to configure everything yourself with regards to setting-up Django, proxies, and other network-related tasks.
If you are looking for an easier, alternative solution, you might want to take a look at Django on Heroku.
As far as I know, there are no one-click solutions for Django. There is an official tutorial, though, which is where I would start, along with a quick read in the Django docs.
My experience hosting small Django apps on DO has generally been good. DO is very stable nowadays with no noticeable downtime (unless you must guarantee HA to your users, which I don't).
I have been using Digital Ocean/DO for my Django deployment last 6 months and have a great experience.
I use Django On Click Django 1.8.7 in Ubuntu 16.04 Image for all my website development.
Do provides extensive tutorials/documentations and very developer/tinker friendly. I was able to config my Do box Nginx to host 4 different websites on one single box and even manage to run a Ethereum node on it.
I wrote this tutorial on How to Deploy Multiple Websites on 1 single DO Droplets - Tutorial Link
I'm a complete newbie when it comes to sysadmin/deployment. Here's what I'm hoping to accomplish:
Have domain.com be a normal WordPress site.
Have either domain.com/app or app.domain.com be a Django webapp.
Hosting on Linode.
Quick and easy updates of the Django webapp code.
From what I can tell, gunicorn is an elegant way to serve the Django webapp, while WordPress fits most naturally with Apache. Meanwhile, nginx is recommended as a proxy in front of gunicorn and also seems to be used to improve performance of WordPress sites.
So what I'm thinking is: use nginx as a proxy server that routes all incoming web requests to either gunicorn (for the Django wepapp) or Apache (for the WordPress site). The Linode host would be running nginx, gunicorn, and Apache simultaneously.
Meanwhile, for updates of the Django webapp, I can simply update to the latest version of the code via github.
Does all that make sense? Am I even understanding things conceptually correctly? Or barking up the wrong tree entirely? (For instance can/should I just use a single Apache server to route requests to either WordPress or the Django app based on URL?) What gotchas and issues should I keep in mind as I research how to get this running nice and smoothly?
UPDATE: I've side-stepped all of this by (1) using Heroku to host my Django app, (2) using a CNAME record to map app.domain.com to the Heroku-hosted Django app, and (3) leaving (for now) the WordPress site on its existing host at domain.com. Thankfully, after gaining great new respect for what sysadmins and db admins do as I investigated all this, now I can get back to coding!
#Ghopper21
+1 for your question first.
Now, This is really interesting to know how it's possible in real time execution. I checked with some of my geek friends and I found tremendous response, here are some of suggestion with reference I got after brainstorming with them.
First of all check this link for deploying & running WP altogether with Django on Nginx +uWSGI...
These two threads of support forums from Webfaction.com gives you more idea about how they are recommending it to their client...
Deploying Django and Wordpress in same domain
wordpress + django on same account - advisable or not?
Hey, I got one support ref. of Stack Overflow itself, which is explaining how to achieve it on APACHE server...
How do I run Django and PHP together on one Apache server?
And last but not least, the one where a geek like us integrated WP with Django...
Integrate WordPress and Django
I'm going to setup a simple Django app running in a production environment on a Linux box. The app will have very little traffic - less that 100 page loads per day. Is it okay to use the builtin Django webserver for this or should I install Apache and mod_wsgi? If so, what are the reasons for this? Security perhaps?
UPDATE
OK it is clear I shouldn't be using the builtin server. Some of the alternatives to Apache look interesting. Is there one that is more popular/more frequently used with Django perhaps?
Is it okay to use the builtin Django webserver for this
No.
Should I install Apache and mod_wsgi?
Yes.
If so, what are the reasons for this? Security perhaps?
Partly.
More importantly, the little toy Django server is single-threaded and any hangup in your code hangs the server. This means that when two users click almost at the same time, user one's query must go all the way through Django before user two's query can even starts.
And this will have to include the insanely slow download speed to the desktop.
Apache (like all the alternatives, lighttpd or nginx) is multi-threaded. The slowest part of the transaction is the download from Apache to the desktop. You don't want Python code (and Django) handling this in a single-threaded manner. Even for just a few users.
Also, you don't what Django serving static media (i.e., CSS and JS library files.)
A single slow spot in your application won't effect the overall system throughput if Apache and mod_wsgi are in place. One request 's output page can be slowly downloading to a PC desktop in parallel with another user's output.
DO NOT USE THIS (the builtin Django webserver) SERVER IN A PRODUCTION SETTING. It has not gone through security audits or performance tests.
http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/ref/django-admin/#runserver-port-or-address-port
But you don't have use Apache if you don't want to. You could directly use Spawning, Gunicorn etc.
Cherokee is also easy to setup.
Use nginx + gunicorn.
Nginx: five lines of configuration. Gunicorn: two lines of configuration. That's easy and efficient. For better control you can spawn the gunicorn process using supervisord.
Both gunicorn and supervisord are available to install with pip, and nginx is available in almost any distribution in the default package pool.
The built in Django server was not built for production. There are many reasons why, mainly security and efficiency.
The recommended way is to use mod_wsgi which is covered in the docs here