Anmol

Install Django on Yunohost

Anmol

Tue, 20 Oct 2020 17:41:30 -0700 last edited: Sun, 07 Mar 2021 18:34:30 -0800

Yunohost is a self hosting solution for users who want to run there own servers without have knowledge of the server administration. To know more about Yunohost see here.

I am using custom web app for the installation of the Django because Yunohost do not have an official package for installing Django.

Install the custom web app:

$ yunohost app install https://github.com/YunoHost-Apps/my_webapp_ynh --debug

In-order to have Django within virtual environment we need to execute virtualenv command. We can install virtualenv through pip. First we install pip and then trough pip install virtualenv.
```
$ sudo apt-get install python-pip  
$ sudo pip install virtualenv
```
We have our virtualenv ready, so we can go to our project directory to execute it.

$ cd /var/www/my_webapp/www/

Remove the index.html in the project directory.

$ rm index.html

Within this project directory, create a Python virtual environment for Python by typing:

$ virtualenv myproject_env

By executing this command a folder named myproject_env will be created in the directory. It will be used to install and configure different python environments.

Now to activate this virtual environment, execute following command:

$ source myproject_env/bin/activate

With your virtual environment activated. We can move forward and install, Gunicorn.

$ pip install django gunicorn

Now with virtual environment been activated. Start Django project using Django management command.

$ django-admin.py startproject myproject .
Note: Don't ignore the trailing dot in the end.

Now we edit the settings.py file located inside myproject folder. We use Nano to do it.
```
$ cd myproject 
$ nano  settings.py
```
Replace the following code inside settings.py.

ALLOWED_HOSTS = ['domain_where_custom_web_app_installed.tld',] STATIC_URL = '/static/' STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'static/')

Use ctrl+x to close the Nano. Save the file by typing "y" when asked.

We will need to install the Python and MySQL development headers and libraries:

$ sudo apt-get install python-dev libmysqlclient-dev      
$ pip install mysqlclient

Open again settings.py file located under myproject folder.
Enter your database details which are available in /var/www/my_webapp/db_access.txt

$ cat /var/www/my_webapp/db_access.txt

Copy the database password from here.

Open the settings.py again.

$ sudo nano settings.py

Replace the password which you got from above command at the place of PASSWORD.
DATABASES = { 'default': { 'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.mysql', 'NAME': 'my_webapp', 'USER': 'my_webapp', 'PASSWORD': 'password in db_access.txt', 'HOST': 'localhost', 'OPTIONS': { 'init_command': "SET sql_mode='STRICT_TRANS_TABLES'", }, 'PORT': '', } }

Run commands:

$ ./manage.py makemigrations ./manage.py migrate ./manage.py createsuperuser ./manage.py runserver 0.0.0.0:8000

For testing in web browser, enter example.com:8000 and press enter or in command line do:

$ curl example.com:8000

Once you had finished exploring recently created project, hit ctrl+c.

Now letâ€™s test Gunicorn interface.

$ gunicorn --bind 0.0.0.0:8000 myproject.wsgi:application

This will start Gunicorn on same interface on which our earlier development server was working.Test the Gunicorn as described in step 13.

Now type this command to deactivate the virtual environment:

$ deactivate

Now we have to create Gunicorn systemd service file.This service file will be used to start or stop our application server. Open the gunicorn systemd service file using this command.

$ sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/gunicorn.service

Add these lines to the service file.

[Unit]
Description=gunicorn daemon
After=network.target

[Service]
User=root
Group=www-data
WorkingDirectory=/var/www/my_webapp/www
ExecStart=//var/www/my_webapp/www/myproject_env/bin/gunicorn --workers 3 --bind unix:/var/www/my_webapp/www/myproject.sock myproject.wsgi:application

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Save and close the file. Start the Gunicorn service using following command.
```
$ sudo systemctl start gunicorn  
$ sudo systemctl enable gunicorn
```
This will create socket file inside your project directory. Always check that the socket file has www-data group and this group should have ownership for the group.

Edit etc/nginx/conf.d/domain_where_custom_web_app_installed.tld.d/my_webapp.conf

location / { 
                  include proxy_params;

                    proxy_pass http://unix:/var/www/my_webapp/www/myproject.sock;

              # Prevent useless logs

                location = /favicon.ico {

                    log_not_found off;

                    access_log off;

                }

                  location /static/ {

                    root /var/www/my_webapp/www;

                }

                location = /robots.txt {

                    allow all;

                    log_not_found off;

                    access_log off;

                }



              #Deny access to hidden files and directories

            # location ~ ^/(.+/|)\.(?!well-known\/) {

              #  deny all;

            }

        # Include SSOWAT user panel.

            include conf.d/yunohost_panel.conf.inc;

        }

Test Nginx configuration for syntax errors by typing:

$ sudo nginx -t

If no error is found, restart Nginx by typing:

$ sudo systemctl restart nginx

That's it!
Now you should have a running instance of the Django on Yunohost.

Note: Components which are installed under virtual environment are isolated from other os global environments. After adding each static file in your app migrate it with:

$ sudo python manage.py collectstatic
$ sudo service gunicorn restart

I have not tested the backup and restore script. So backup manually all your project before trying the web app backup and restore.

#yunohost #Django #Python #Hosting

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