Django Setup & Deployment Guide

1. Create the Django Project

1. Open VS Code and open the terminal (View > Terminal).
2. Navigate to your desired directory:
   • macOS/Linux:

   cd '/Users/davidhearl/Documents/08 - Programming/GitHub'

   • Windows:

   cd "C:\Users\davidhearl\iCloudDrive\Documents\Programming\GitHub"

3. Create the project directiory

mkdir myproject

cd myproject

4. Create a virtual environment:

python -m venv virtual_environment

5. Activate the virtual environment:
• Windows:

virtual_environment\Scripts\activate

• macOS/Linux:

source virtual_environment/bin/activate

6. Optional: Upgrade pip to the latest version to avoid warnings and improve package management:

python -m pip install --upgrade pip

7. Install Django and save requirements:

pip install Django

pip freeze > requirements.txt

8. Create a new Django project:

django-admin startproject myproject .

9. Migrate changes

python3 manage.py migrate

10. Optional: Open the project in Visual Studio Code:

code .

Note: This requires the 'code' command to be installed in your PATH.

11. Navigate into your project:

cd myproject

12. Run the development server:

python3 manage.py runserver

2. Create a Django App

1. Create the app:

python manage.py startapp myapp

2. Open the settings.py
3. Add 'myapp' to INSTALLED_APPS in settings.py.

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    ...
    'myapp',
]

4. Create a superuser:

   python manage.py createsuperuser

3. Django Settings to Change

Edit myproject/settings.py:

• Create a .env file in the project root using the terminal:

touch .env

echo "SECRET_KEY=your-very-secret-key" >> .env

• Install python-dotenv to load environment variables:

pip install python-dotenv

pip freeze > requirements.txt

• Turn off debug in production:

DEBUG = False

• Set allowed hosts:

ALLOWED_HOSTS = ['yourdomain.com', 'localhost']

• Adjust timezone and language:

TIME_ZONE = 'Europe/Dublin'
LANGUAGE_CODE = 'en-us'

• Use environment variable for secret key:

import os
from dotenv import load_dotenv

load_dotenv()

SECRET_KEY = os.getenv('SECRET_KEY')

4. Link the Project to GitHub

1. Initialize a Git repository:

git init

2. Create a .gitignore file in the project root and add:

touch .gitignore

3. Add items to the .gitignore files

virtual_environment/
__pycache__/
*.pyc
*.sqlite3
.env
.code

4. Install GitHub CLI
• macOS/linux

brew install gh

• Windows:

winget install --id GitHub.cli

5. Login to GitHub

gh auth login

6. Initialize Git and make the first commit:

git add .

git commit -m "Initial commit"

7. Create a new private or public repository on GitHub from the terminal:

gh repo create your-repo-name --public --source=. --remote=origin --push

This creates the repo, links it, and pushes your code in one step.

8. Optional: Rename branch to main if needed:

git branch -M main

git push -u origin main

5. Setting up the MVT

1. Create the first view in myapp/views.py:

from django.shortcuts import render
        
def home(request):
    return render(request, 'myapp/home.html')

2. Create the app-specific templates/myapp directory and home.html:

mkdir -p myapp/templates/myapp

touch myapp/templates/myapp/home.html

3. Update settings.py to look for templates in the project root:

TEMPLATES = [
    {
        'BACKEND': 'django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates',
        'DIRS': [BASE_DIR / 'templates'],
        ...
    },
]

4. Create a static directory and a CSS file for styling:

mkdir -p static/css

touch static/css/styles.css

5. Make sure settings.py is configured to find static files:

STATIC_URL = '/static/'
STATICFILES_DIRS = [BASE_DIR / 'static']

6. Create myapp/urls.py and define the route:

touch myapp/urls.py

from django.urls import path
from . import views

urlpatterns = [
    path('', views.home, name='home'),
]

7. Include the app URLs in your project-level urls.py:

from django.contrib import admin
from django.urls import path, include

urlpatterns = [
    path('admin/', admin.site.urls),
    path('', include('myapp.urls')),
]

6. Common Django Commands

python manage.py runserver

python manage.py makemigrations

python manage.py migrate

python manage.py startapp appname

python manage.py createsuperuser

python manage.py shell

python manage.py collectstatic

python manage.py check

Deploying a Django Application on Debian

1. System Update and Dependencies

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y
sudo apt install python3 python3-pip python3-venv git curl build-essential libpq-dev -y

2. Create a Dedicated User (Optional)

sudo adduser django
sudo usermod -aG sudo django
su - django

3. Clone Your Django Project

git clone https://github.com/yourusername/yourproject.git
cd yourproject

4. Set Up Python Virtual Environment

python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install --upgrade pip
pip install -r requirements.txt

5. Configure Django for Production

• Set DEBUG = False
• Set ALLOWED_HOSTS to match your server
• Use a secure SECRET_KEY

python manage.py collectstatic
python manage.py migrate

6. Create Gunicorn Systemd Service

[Unit]
Description=gunicorn daemon for Django project
After=network.target

[Service]
User=django
Group=www-data
WorkingDirectory=/home/django/yourproject
ExecStart=/home/django/yourproject/venv/bin/gunicorn --workers 3 --bind unix:/home/django/yourproject/gunicorn.sock yourproject.wsgi:application

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

sudo systemctl start gunicorn
sudo systemctl enable gunicorn

7. Install and Configure Nginx

sudo apt install nginx -y

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name your.server.ip.or.domain;

    location = /favicon.ico { access_log off; log_not_found off; }
    location /static/ {
        root /home/django/yourproject;
    }

    location / {
        include proxy_params;
        proxy_pass http://unix:/home/django/yourproject/gunicorn.sock;
    }
}

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/yourproject /etc/nginx/sites-enabled
sudo nginx -t
sudo systemctl restart nginx

8. Adjust Firewall (If Needed)

sudo ufw allow 'Nginx Full'

9. Set Up HTTPS with Certbot (Optional)

sudo apt install certbot python3-certbot-nginx -y
sudo certbot --nginx -d yourdomain.com

10. Final Checks

• Visit your IP or domain
• Ensure static files, admin panel, and views load
• Check logs:

  sudo journalctl -u gunicorn
  sudo journalctl -xe