Deploying Django with Virtualenv and Apache

Question

I would like to deploy a site that was created with Django. The production environment is a rented virtual server.

I would like to deploy the application with Django. Therefore, I changed all settings according to the documentation (especially, created a folder from where all collected static files can be served) and tried it out on my local development machine.

Because the site is now ready I pushed the whole project to the virtual server. I use Ubuntu 14.04 LTS both on my development machine and on the virtual host. Although I tested the project on my local machine with the apache I experienced some difficulties during the deployment phase. The project is called kleyboldt. My virtualenv is stored in the /root directory and the project lives under /var/www. Here are the important files:

/etc/apache2/sites-available/mks.conf

WSGIDaemonProcess mathias-kleyboldt-stiftung.de python-path=/var/www/kleyboldt_homepage$
WSGIProcessGroup mathias-kleyboldt-stiftung.de

<VirtualHost *:80>
        DocumentRoot /var/html/kleyboldt_homepage
        WSGIScriptAlias / /var/www/kleyboldt.wsgi
        ServerName mathias-kleyboldt-stiftung.de
        ServerAlias www.mathias-kleyboldt-stiftung.de

        <LocationMatch "\.(jpg|css|gif|pdf|ico)$">
                SetHandler None
        </LocationMatch>

        Alias /media/ /var/www/kleyboldt_homepage/static/media/
        Alias /static/ /var/www/kleyboldt_homepage/static/static-only/

        <Directory /var/www/kleyboldt_homepage/>
                Require all granted
                Order allow,deny
                Allow from all
        </Directory>

        <Directory /var/www/kleyboldt_homepage/static/static-only>
                Require all granted
                Order allow,deny
                Allow from all
        </Directory>

        ErrorLog /var/www/kleyboldt_homepage/apache_error.log
        LogLevel debug
</VirtualHost>

/var/www/kleyboldt.wsgi

import os
import sys

sys.path.append('/var/www/kleyboldt_homepage')
os.environ['DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE'] = 'kleyboldt_homepage.settings'

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

The project structure under /var/www/kleyboldt_homepage:

root@somewhere:/var/www/kleyboldt_homepage# ls
apache_error.log  homepage      index.html          manage.py  static
db.sqlite3        homepage.log  kleyboldt_homepage  site.txt

To manage the dependencies for this project I used the virtualenvwrapper to create a env under /root/virtualenvs called kleyboldt-homepage:

root@somewhere:~/virtualenvs/kleyboldt-homepage/lib/python2.7/site-packages# ls
crispy_forms                               markdown2.pyc
django                                     markdown_deux
Django-1.6.5.dist-info                     _markerlib
django_crispy_forms-1.4.0-py2.7.egg-info   pagedown
django_grappelli-2.5.3-py2.7.egg-info      pip
django_markdown_deux-1.0.4-py2.7.egg-info  pip-1.5.4.dist-info
django_pagedown-0.1.0-py2.7.egg-info       pkg_resources.py
easy_install.py                            pkg_resources.pyc
easy_install.pyc                           setuptools
grappelli                                  setuptools-2.2.dist-info
markdown2-2.2.1-py2.7.egg-info             south
markdown2.py                               South-1.0-py2.7.egg-info

After reloading the apache2 server and refreshing the page I get a 500 Internal Server error. I looked it up in the debug file I specified in the apache conf file.

/var/www/kleyboldt_homepage/apache_error.log

[Mon Aug 18 17:04:50.226000 2014] [authz_core:debug] [pid 966:tid 139697743423232] mod_authz_core.c(802): [client 92.224.193.119:56235] AH01626: authorization result of Require all granted: granted
[Mon Aug 18 17:04:50.226104 2014] [authz_core:debug] [pid 966:tid 139697743423232] mod_authz_core.c(802): [client 92.224.193.119:56235] AH01626: authorization result of <RequireAny>: granted
[Mon Aug 18 17:04:50.226227 2014] [authz_core:debug] [pid 966:tid 139697743423232] mod_authz_core.c(802): [client 92.224.193.119:56235] AH01626: authorization result of Require all granted: granted
[Mon Aug 18 17:04:50.226239 2014] [authz_core:debug] [pid 966:tid 139697743423232] mod_authz_core.c(802): [client 92.224.193.119:56235] AH01626: authorization result of <RequireAny>: granted
[Mon Aug 18 17:04:50.241584 2014] [:info] [pid 965:tid 139697924556544] [remote 92.224.193.119:14076] mod_wsgi (pid=965, process='mathias-kleyboldt-stiftung.de', application='mathias-kleyboldt-stiftung.de|'): Loading WSGI script '/var/www/kleyboldt.wsgi'.
[Mon Aug 18 17:04:50.242108 2014] [:error] [pid 965:tid 139697924556544] [remote 92.224.193.119:14076] mod_wsgi (pid=965): Target WSGI script '/var/www/kleyboldt.wsgi' cannot be loaded as Python module.
[Mon Aug 18 17:04:50.242118 2014] [:error] [pid 965:tid 139697924556544] [remote 92.224.193.119:14076] mod_wsgi (pid=965): Exception occurred processing WSGI script '/var/www/kleyboldt.wsgi'.
[Mon Aug 18 17:04:50.242137 2014] [:error] [pid 965:tid 139697924556544] [remote 92.224.193.119:14076] Traceback (most recent call last):
[Mon Aug 18 17:04:50.242161 2014] [:error] [pid 965:tid 139697924556544] [remote 92.224.193.119:14076]   File "/var/www/kleyboldt.wsgi", line 7, in <module>
[Mon Aug 18 17:04:50.242215 2014] [:error] [pid 965:tid 139697924556544] [remote 92.224.193.119:14076]     import django.core.handlers.wsgi
[Mon Aug 18 17:04:50.242233 2014] [:error] [pid 965:tid 139697924556544] [remote 92.224.193.119:14076] ImportError: No module named django.core.handlers.wsgi

The import of django.core.handlers.wsgi seems to fail. I checked my python path specified behind the WSGIDaemonProcess but everything seems to be fine. But the import is still failing. Does anybody know how to fix this?

check out my question I posted and the answer I got. This may be what you are looking for: stackoverflow.com/questions/24739643/… — Aaron Lelevier
– Aaron Lelevier, Commented Aug 18, 2014 at 22:26
But you have/had a different approach. I tried to use WSGIDaemonProcess which is the recommended method according to the official django documentation. Isn't there a solution for this approach. It worked on my local machine. — Nick Lehmann
– Nick Lehmann, Commented Aug 18, 2014 at 22:30
I don't think it's good idea to put your virtualenv in /root because your server processes will not be able to access it unless they are running with superuser permissions. — kchan
– kchan, Commented Aug 18, 2014 at 22:46
I have only one user, root. So my processes will also run under root — Nick Lehmann
– Nick Lehmann, Commented Aug 18, 2014 at 22:49

Mikko Ohtamaa · Accepted Answer · 2014-08-18 23:56:19Z

2

Two potential mistakes

Django settings file must be a Python module

Based on input you give, in your case it is not a Python module and your folder structure is wrong

 sys.path.append('/var/www/kleyboldt_homepage')
 os.environ['DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE'] = 'kleyboldt_homepage.settings'

Above means that .py files in folder /var/www/kleyboldt_homepage go to top level Python namespace. E.g. settings.py file is module "settings", not 'kleyboldt_homepage.settings'.

Virtualenv path must be in sys.path

Here is an example django.wsgi. Please take this as guidelining example, not a tested solution specific your deployment:

# Must be in the project root or production deployment does not work
import os
import sys

from os.path import abspath, dirname, join

# This is /srv/django/yoursite
PROJECT_PATH=abspath(join(dirname(__file__), "."))

import site
import os

# Assume virtualenv is in relative subdirectory "venv" to the project root
vepath = PROJECT_PATH+'/venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages'

prev_sys_path = list(sys.path)
# add the site-packages of our virtualenv as a site dir
site.addsitedir(vepath)


# reorder sys.path so new directories from the addsitedir show up first
new_sys_path = [p for p in sys.path if p not in prev_sys_path]
for item in new_sys_path:
        sys.path.remove(item)
sys.path[:0] = new_sys_path

# import from down here to pull in possible virtualenv django install
from django.core.handlers.wsgi import WSGIHandler
os.environ['DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE'] = 'myproject.settings'
application = WSGIHandler()

answered Aug 18, 2014 at 23:56

Mikko Ohtamaa

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1 Comment

user3062149 Over a year ago

The main contents of the suggested example are largely implemented by activate_this.py in the virtualenv bin folder. There are numerous questions/answers that discuss using activate_this.py. See, for example, link.

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