Installing Django with Apache and mod_wsgi on Ubuntu 10.04
By Kevan Stannard | Published: December 11, 2010

Step by step instructions for installing Django with Apache and mod_wsgi on Ubuntu 10.04.

PART 1 – Prepare the server

Update the server

> sudo apt-get update
> sudo apt-get upgrade

Install Apache and mod_wsgi

> sudo apt-get install apache2 libapache2-mod-wsgi

Install setup tools and pip

> sudo apt-get install python-setuptools
> sudo apt-get install python-pip

Install Django

> sudo pip install django

Create a folder for storing our sites

I’ll be placing our sites in the /srv/www directory. The /srv directory should already exist so we just need to create the /www directory

> sudo mkdir /srv/www

PART 2 – Add host entries for testing

We will set up two domains for testing the configuration
- one for testing that WSGI is working, and
- one for testing that Django is working.

My test virtual machine’s IP address is 172.16.52.130 so I’ll set up the following in my local hosts file (not on the server)

> sudo nano /etc/hosts

And add the following

172.16.52.130 djangoserver
172.16.52.130 wsgi.djangoserver
172.16.52.130 hello.djangoserver

PART 3 – Test WSGI is working

Create our wsgi test site content

> sudo mkdir /srv/www/wsgi
> sudo nano /srv/www/wsgi/app.wsgi

And add the content

def application(environ, start_response):
status = ’200 OK’
output = ‘Hello World!’

response_headers = [('Content-type', 'text/plain'),
('Content-Length', str(len(output)))]
start_response(status, response_headers)

return [output]

Create a new apache site

> sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/wsgi

And add the content

ServerName wsgi.djangoserver
DocumentRoot /srv/www/wsgi

Order allow,deny
Allow from all

WSGIScriptAlias / /srv/www/wsgi/app.wsgi

And activate the site

> sudo a2ensite wsgi
> sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 reload

Then open your web browser and browse to

http://wsgi.djangoserver

You should see a ‘Hello World!’ message
PART 4 – Test Django is working

Create a new Django site

> cd /srv/www
> sudo django-admin.py startproject hello

Create a wsgi file for the site

> sudo mkdir /srv/www/hello/apache
> sudo nano /srv/www/hello/apache/django.wsgi

And add the content

import os
import sys

path = ‘/srv/www’
if path not in sys.path:
sys.path.insert(0, ‘/srv/www’)

os.environ['DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE'] = ‘hello.settings’

import django.core.handlers.wsgi
application = django.core.handlers.wsgi.WSGIHandler()

Create a new apache site

> sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/hello

And add the content

ServerName hello.djangoserver
DocumentRoot /srv/www/hello

Order allow,deny
Allow from all

WSGIDaemonProcess hello.djangoserver processes=2 threads=15 display-name=%{GROUP}
WSGIProcessGroup hello.djangoserver

WSGIScriptAlias / /srv/www/hello/apache/django.wsgi

And activate the site

> sudo a2ensite hello
> sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 reload

Then open your web browser and browse to

http://hello.djangoserver

You should see the Django default installation message.
Notes

NOTE 1 – Running in daemon mode

Our test Django site is configured to run in daemon mode – because of these two lines:

WSGIDaemonProcess hello.djangoserver processes=2 threads=15 display-name=%{GROUP}
WSGIProcessGroup hello.djangoserver

So if we modify the code then rather than restarting apache we can just touch the wsgi file and the changes will be picked up:

> sudo touch /srv/www/hello/apache/django.wsgi

NOTE 2 – Specify the application module name

It appears to be a good idea to specify the application module when specifying the DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE. So rather than writing this:

os.environ['DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE'] = ‘settings’

We should write this:

os.environ['DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE'] = ‘hello.settings’

Useful Commands

Error log file

If you get errors, check the apache log file

> tail /var/log/apache2/error.log

Test using development mode

If your app does not seem to be working using wsgi, then check if it is working via the development server.

> cd /srv/www/hello
> python manage.py runserver 0:8080

The in your web browser go to

http://hello.djangoserver:8080

Reference:

http://blog.stannard.net.au/2010/12/11/installing-django-with-apache-and-mod_wsgi-on-ubuntu-10-04/

http://thecodeship.com/deployment/deploy-django-apache-virtualenv-and-mod_wsgi/