Deploying a Django project involves several steps and can be achieved in different ways depending on your hosting environment. Here we outline one common approach, deploying a Django project on an Apache server with mod\_wsgi.
1. Set Up Your Project For Deployment: First, ensure that your settings.py file is configured appropriately for production (Django Project, 2021). This may involve tasks such as setting DEBUG = False, configuring your DATABASES settings, or setting up logging.
1. \*\*Install Apache and mod_wsgi\*\*: On your server, install Apache and mod_wsgi. mod\_wsgi is an Apache module that provides a WSGI compliant interface for hosting Python based web applications under Apache. WSGI is the Web Server Gateway Interface which is a standard interface between web servers and web apps (Graham Dumpleton, 2020).
1. Configure the Apache Server: Configure your Apache server to point at your Django application. This generally involves creating a new file in your Apache configuration directory. To handle HTTP traffic, the Apache HTTP Server, by the Apache Software Foundation, is commonly used because of its robustness, rich feature set, and active development (opensource.com, n.d.).
1. Update your wsgi.py File: The final step on the Django side is to ensure that your wsgi.py (Web Server Gateway Interface) file is correct. The purpose of the wsgi.py file is to help your Django application communicate with the server, using the WSGI interface specification.
1. Collect Static Files: Django comes with a static file handling system which can manage the files for production so that you don’t have to. You can use ‘python manage.py collectstatic’ to collect all the static files in your STATIC\_ROOT directory.
1. Restart Apache: After completing the above steps, restart your Apache server so that your Django application can start up in production.
These are the general steps you would take to deploy a Django project using Apache and mod\_wsgi, although different deployment needs or environments might require variations on this guide (e.g., deploying on different web servers like Nginx).
References:
- Django Software Foundation.(2021). Deploying Django. Django Documentation. https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.1/howto/deployment/
- Graham Dumpleton. (2017). “mod\_wsgi”. Read the Docs. https://modwsgi.readthedocs.io/en/develop/
- Opensource.com. (n.d.).What is Apache HTTP Server? https://opensource.com/resources/what-is-apache-http-server
