Campbell Gunn

So, as you know my side project is working with Python and Django. Well I have all the applications that I want for my project and now it is a matter of putting them together in my project. But before I do that I would like to test to see how Django works on my hosting provide as sort of testing the water so to speak.

Some slight words of caution: some people have reported problems with Django on Dreamhost. It is listed an as “Django-friendly web host” on the Django website, though, and I’ve personally not had any trouble. Also, the Dreamhost/Django setup involves running Django under FastCGI. While this is an officially supported configuration for Django, it’s not the recommended one — Django’s website states that mod_python under Apache is the preferred way. All that having been said, Dreamhost should be a perfectly adequate place for you to install and try out Django.

Prepare your Dreamhost account for Django

We’ll need to configure your Dreamhost account for use with Django. You can do this right alongside your existing website if you have one. Django will exist separately of it, so there should be no conflicts.

Add a subdomain

First, you’ll want to create a new subdomain for your Django application server. This way, you can play with Django all you like without affecting your production site. To create the subdomain:

1. Open the Dreamhost administration panel.
2. Choose “Manage Domains” under the Domains menu.
3. Select “Add New Domain / Sub-Domain”
4. Choose a name for your subdomain. I’ve chosen django.campbellgunn.com and will be using that name in this tutorial.
5. Select both “Extra web security” and “Fast CGI Support”
6. Click the ‘Fully host this domain now!” button.

Create a MySQL database

We’ll also need to setup a MySQL database to use with Django (sadly, Dreamhost doesn’t support PostgreSQL). Follow these steps:

1. In the Dreamhost administration panel, choose “manage MySQL” under the Goodies menu.
2. Enter a database name for your new database. I’ve chosen django_db and will be using that name in the tutorial.
3. Enter a hostname for your database server. I’ve chosen djangodb.campbellgunn.com.
4. Enter a username and password for your database.
5. Click the “Add new database now!” button.

Create a few directories

We’ll need to create some directores for your Django install. You can do this however you like (shell, FTP, etc.), but it’s probably simplest to do it in the shell, as we’ll need the shell in a moment anyway. For these instructions, we’ll use the shell to create directories.

1. SSH into your Dreamhost server (for me, it’s riddler.dreamhost.com, but yours is likely different).
2. Make a new directory for Django-related bits: mkdir django
3. Change into your new directory: cd django
4. Create directories for templates and projects: mkdir django_templates and mkdir django_projects
5. Create a directory to store your media files (css, images, javascript, etc.). Be sure to use the subdomain you’ve chosen, instead of django.jeffcroft.com: mkdir ~/django.campbellgunn.com/media

Download and set up Django

We’ll be using the latest Django by checking it out from its Subversion repository.

1. In your ~/django directory (which you should already be in), check out the source: svn co http://code.djangoproject.com/svn/django/trunk/ django_src
2. Edit your ~/.bash_profile file, adding the following lines. This sets your Python path to include your Django directories, and puts Django’s utilities in your system path. You can edit the file however you like.

.bash_profile Bash shell

export PATH$PATH:$HOME/django/django_src/django/bin export PYTHONPATH=$PYTHONPATH$HOME/django/django_src:$HOME/django/django_projects

1. Activate your profile changes by “sourcing” the file: source ~/.bash_profile

Start a Django project

Django differentiates between “projects” and “applications.” A project can contain multiple apps. We’ll start by creating a project named “myproject.” If you choose a different name, you’ll need to modify the instructions accordingly.

1. Move into your Django projects directory: cd ~/django/django_projects
2. Start a new project, using Django’s command line utility. This creates a basic directory structure for the project and adds the necessary configuration files: django-admin.py startproject myproject
3. Ensure that only you can read and write to the settings file for your project. This is very important, as your database password will be in this file: chmod 600 myproject/settings.py
4. Edit the myproject/settings.py file with our configuration parameters. The parts of the file you’ll want to change are as follows:

Enter your name and e-mail address in the ADMINS setting:

settings.py 1 Python

ADMINS = (
# ('Your Name', 'your_email@domain.com'),
)

settings.py 2 Python

DATABASE_ENGINE = 'mysql'           # 'postgresql', 'mysql', 'sqlite3' or 'ado_mssql'.
DATABASE_NAME = 'django_db'             # Or path to database file if using sqlite3.
DATABASE_USER = 'cgunn'             # Not used with sqlite3.
DATABASE_PASSWORD = '123qwe'         # Not used with sqlite3.
DATABASE_HOST = 'djangodb.campbellgunn.com'             # Set to empty string for localhost. Not used with sqlite3.

settings.py 3 Python

# Local time zone for this installation. All choices can be found here:
# http://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/datetime-keywords.html#DATETIME-TIMEZONE-SET-TABLE
TIME_ZONE = 'America/Chicago'

# Put strings here, like "/home/html/django_templates".
# Always use forward slashes, even on Windows.
"/home/cgunn/django/django_templates"
)

MEDIA_ROOT='/home/cgunn/django.campbellgunn.com/media/'
MEDIA_URL='http://django.campbellgunn.com/media/'

Now, let’s edit your ~/.bash_profile file again, and add this line to the end of it.

export DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE=myproject.settings

#!/usr/bin/env python
import sys
sys.path += ['/home/cgunn/django/django_src']
sys.path += ['/home/cgunn/django/django_projects']
from fcgi import WSGIServer
from django.core.handlers.wsgi import WSGIHandler
import os
os.environ['DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE'] = 'myproject.settings'
WSGIServer(WSGIHandler()).run()

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^(media/.*)$ - [L]
RewriteRule ^(admin_media/.*)$ - [L]
RewriteRule ^(dispatch\.fcgi/.*)$ - [L]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ dispatch.fcgi/$1 [L]

ADMIN_MEDIA_PREFIX = '/admin_media/'

INSTALLED_APPS = (
'django.contrib.auth',
'django.contrib.contenttypes',
'django.contrib.sessions',
'django.contrib.sites',
'django.contrib.admin',
)

# Uncomment this for admin:
(r'^admin/', include('django.contrib.admin.urls')),