Run Django on Apache

Alrighty, I took the time to set up my django installation to run on Apache. Here it is documented for you all to see. As a disclaimer, this is all written based on my Gentoo installation. Gentoo handles Apache very differently (much nicer) than other distro’s. It shouldn’t be hard to migrate to whatever you’re using. Also, you can most likely just deal with the built in development server as documented run server

Edit So, I cleaned this up a little bit to make it nicer. This will keep you able to run the development server or apache (or both).

Contents

• Setting up a subdomain that runs mod_python 127.0.0.2
• Linking the media directory in Django up to regular Apache for serving the files
• The original howto about mod_python on Apache

Localhost subdomain

1. Install mod-python
   • `emerge -v mod_python` or `apt-get install mod-python` (i’m just guessing about that, btw)

1. Tell Apache to use mod_python
   • Add “-D PYTHON” to your APACHE2_OPTS (in this file /etc/conf.d/apache2 on Gentoo)
   • if you don’t know where this is specified, try `grep -ir “APACHE2_OPTS” /etc/*`

1. Edit your hosts file (/etc/hosts) and add your new subdomain to 127.0.0.1
   

    127.0.0.1        localhost python.localhost 

1. Make the VirtualHost Directory
   

   mkdir  /var/www/python.localhost

1. Link the concert project
   

   ln -s /home/elserj/projects/Concert /var/www/python.localhost/htdocs

1. Make the new VirtualHost (probably /etc/apache2/httpd.conf )

<IfDefine DEFAULT_VHOST>

<VirtualHost 127.0.0.2:80>
    ServerName python.localhost
    DocumentRoot "/var/www/python.localhost/htdocs"
    SetEnv DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE concertapp.settings

    <Directory "/var/www/python.localhost/htdocs">

    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks

    AllowOverride All

    # Controls who can get stuff from this server.
    Order allow,deny
    Allow from all
</Directory>

    <Location />
        SetHandler python-program
        PythonHandler django.core.handlers.modpython
        SetEnv DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE concertapp.settings
        PythonOption django.root /concert
        PythonDebug On
        PythonPath "['/home/elserj/projects/Concert/'] + sys.path"
    </Location>

</VirtualHost>
</IfDefine> 

1. Restart apache
   

    # /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

Link media directory to normal Apache &nbsp

One thing that mod_python doesn’t do well on its own is serve static files. Since we have Apache to work with, let’s us that. This one is simple:

• Symlink the media directory of Concert (‘/Concert/concertapp/media/’) to your webroot
  

   # ln -s /home/elserj/projects/Concert/concertapp/media /var/www/localhost/media 

This will allow your documents to be served normally by Apache.

As a note, the address that Django will use as the URL is defined in /Concert/settings.py. By default, it is using ‘http://localhost/media’.

Old stuff, using one virtual host

Disclaimer This didn’t actually work as intended. The entire root was being served by mod_python for some reason. I came up with the earlier solution instead.

1. Install mod_python
   • `emerge -v mod_python` or `apt-get install mod-python` (i’m just guessing about that, btw)

1. Tell Apache to use mod_python
   • Add “-D PYTHON” to your APACHE2_OPTS
   • if you don’t know where this is specified, try `grep -ir “APACHE2_OPTS” /etc/*`

1. Symlink your project to your project
   • `ln -s /home/elserj/projects/Concert /var/www/localhost/htdocs/concert`

1. Tell Apache about the location you want served by mod_python
   • Add the following code to ‘/etc/apache2/modules.d/16_mod_python.conf’
     

     
     
     
     <Location /concert>
     	SetHandler python-program
     	PythonHandler django.core.handlers.modpython
     	SetEnv DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE concertapp.settings
     	PythonOption django.root /concert
     	PythonDebug On
     	PythonPath "['/home/elserj/projects/Concert/'] + sys.path"
     </Location>
     
     
     

   • Again, your mileage may vary when trying to find this file or figure out where your distribution puts this file.

1. Tell Apache about virtual host for this directory
   • On Gentoo this would go into a file in /etc/apache2/vhosts.d/ but in Ubuntu or Mint it would most likely just be put into /etc/apache2/httpd.conf (or wherever httpd.conf is located. i.e. `locate httpd.conf`)
     

     
     
     <IfDefine DEFAULT_VHOST>
     
     <VirtualHost *:80>
     
             ServerName localhost
     
             SetEnv DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE concertapp.settings
     
     	<Location /concert/media>
     
     		SetHandler None
     
     	</Location>
     
     </VirtualHost>
     
     </IfDefine>
     
     

1. Restart Apache
   • At this point, you need to restart Apache to have it reparse its configuration files
   • On gentoo `/etc/init.d/apace2 restart`