Setting up a Django project on an Apache server

Question

I've started a project which I intend to set up on an Apache2 server running Ubuntu. I've created the skeleton of the Django project locally and pushed it to a repo on bitbucket. A friend who provided the server told me that Digital Ocean tutorials may be a good start, so I've been using this to set up wsgi. I deviated slightly from the wording and steps of the tutorial so I'll run through how I did it.

I created a directory at the path ~/public_html/clupus.com and changed into it.
I already had a previous skeleton so I cloned it into the current directory. The path now looked like ~/public_html/clupus.com/clupus where clupus is a directory containing the project files (manage.py etc.)

I created a new virtual host file at /etc/apache2/sites-available/clupus.com which contained the following definition:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName clupus.com
    ServerAlias www.clupus.com
    WSGIScriptAlias / /home/ubuntu/public_html/clupus.com/clupus.wsgi
</VirtualHost>

I then created the actual wsgi file at ~/public_html/clupus.com/clupus.wsgi which contained the following configuration:

import os
import sys
sys.path.append('~/public_html/clupus.com')
os.environ['DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE'] = 'clupus.clupus.settings'
import django.core.handlers.wsgi 
application = django.core.handlers.wsgi.WSGIHandler()

Finally I did sudo a2ensite clupus.com followed by sudo service apache2 reload. When I went to access the URL at which the server was located I was met with the default welcome page. Assuming I had to de-activate the default page I did sudo a2dissite 000-default followed by a reload which now, understandably, gives me a 500 error.

My question is what is the URL I use to access my Django project? I feel like I've set everything up correctly and I'm just not pointing to the right URL.

Also, in the line os.environ['DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE'] = 'clupus.clupus.settings' should it be clupus.clupus.settings or just clupus.settings given the hierarchy is ~/public_html/clupus.com/clupus/clupus/settings.py

Not related to your problem, but you shouldn't be putting your Django code in public_html. — Daniel Roseman
– Daniel Roseman, Commented Jan 14, 2014 at 12:55

ndpu · Accepted Answer · 2014-01-14 17:24:18Z

1

According to directory list that you posted and your comments:

ubuntu@ip-10-137-27-87:~/public_html/clupus.com$ ls ~/public_html/clupus.com/ -la
total 16
drwxrwxr-x 3 ubuntu ubuntu 4096 Jan 14 11:13 .
drwxrwxr-x 3 ubuntu ubuntu 4096 Jan 14 10:38 ..
drwxr-xr-x 7 ubuntu ubuntu 4096 Jan 14 10:43 clupus
-rw-rw-r-- 1 ubuntu ubuntu  219 Jan 14 14:09 clupus.wsgi
ubuntu@ip-10-137-27-87:~/public_html/clupus.com$

you should change full path here (you can use os.path.expanduser to convert ~ (tilde) to home path):

#sys.path.append('~/public_html/clupus.com'
sys.path.append('/home/ubuntu/public_html/clupus.com/clupus')

To fix this ImportError: Could not import settings 'clupus.settings' check var DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE. Path 'clupus.settings' should work after changing sys.path (supposed that settings.py located in /home/ubuntu/public_html/clupus.com/clupus/clupus directory):

#os.environ['DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE'] = 'clupus.clupus.settings'
os.environ['DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE'] = 'clupus.settings'

edited Jan 14, 2014 at 17:24

answered Jan 14, 2014 at 12:48

ndpu

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7 Comments

Nanor Over a year ago

I've done that and reloaded Apache. Whenever I visit the IP it still gives me the internal server error. Should I be visiting a sub-directory of the IP?

Nanor Over a year ago

ImportError: Could not import settings 'clupus.settings'

yuvi Over a year ago

I think it's looking for a python model called com inside clupus instead of referencing it as a whole. I have never faced such a problem, but do try this: '"clupus.com".settings' (notice the " and ' difference)

kfirbreger Over a year ago

I think adding ~/public_html/clupus.com/clupus to you python path will solve your problem.

ndpu Over a year ago

@Nanor try change path: sys.path.append('/home/ubuntu/public_html/clupus.com/clupus')

|

Naster · Accepted Answer · 2014-01-14 13:41:26Z

0

Are you sure apache user have permission to ~/public_html/clupus.com ?

Could you do

ls ~/public_html -la
ls ~/public_html/clupus.com -la

answered Jan 14, 2014 at 13:41

Naster

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2 Comments

Naster Over a year ago

sudo usermod -a -G www-data ubuntu

Nanor Over a year ago

The problem has been fixed above. Thanks though!

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