Django Installation & Configuration using Nginx+FastCGI+PosgtreSQL

Configuring PostgreSQL

1. Install PostgreSQL
2. Create a django user
   

   sudo -u postgres createuser -P django_user

   Also you can alter the user attributes as follow:

   sudo su -
     passwd postgres
     su postgres
     psql template1
     ALTER USER django_user WITH ENCRYPTED PASSWORD 'mypassword';
     

3. Create the Django project database::

   sudo -u postgres psql template1
   CREATE DATABASE django_db OWNER django_user ENCODING ‘UTF8’;

4. Give comoda access (pg_hba.conf):

local   django_db        django_user                      md5

Configuring access to PostgreSQL

1. Install psycopg2 Python package.
2. Verify the installation
   
   You should be all set now, but let’s verify this right away. Open the
   shell and run the following instructions inside the python shell (start
   off with the python command):

   >>> import django
   >>> print django.VERSION
   (0, 97, 'pre')
   >>> import psycopg2
   >>> psycopg2.apilevel
   '2.0'

3. Configure Django project settings (settings.py on the project directory):

   DATABASE_ENGINE = 'postgresql_psycopg2'           # 'postgresql_psycopg2', 'postgresql', 'mysql', 'sqlite3' or 'oracle'.
   DATABASE_NAME = 'django_db'             # Or path to database file if using sqlite3.
   DATABASE_USER = 'django_user'             # Not used with sqlite3.
   DATABASE_PASSWORD = 'XXXXXX'         # Not used with sqlite3.
   DATABASE_HOST = 'localhost'             # Set to empty string for localhost. Not used with sqlite3.
   DATABASE_PORT = '5432'             # Set to empty string for default. Not used with sqlite3.

4. Install Django Python package.
5. Run syncdb from Django project directory:

   python manage.py syncdb

Running Django project like FastCGI

1. Install Django and Flup Python packages.
2. You need also to start Django fastcgi server (from the project folder):

   python manage.py runfcgi host=127.0.0.1 port=8000 --settings=settings

   If you need to add something to pythonpath:

   python manage.py runfcgi host=127.0.0.1 port=8000 --settings=settings --pythonpath=/a/path/to/somewhere/

Configuring Nginx to serve the Django FastCGI service

1. Configure Nginx:

   server {
   listen   80;
   #server_name  localhost;

   location / {
   root   html;
   rewrite  ^ https://172.2.30.31$request_uri  redirect;
   }
   access_log  /var/log/nginx/localhost.access.log;
   }

   server {
   listen   443;
   # server_name  localhost;

   access_log  /var/log/nginx/localhost-ssl.access.log;

   ssl_prefer_server_ciphers   on;
   ssl  on;
   ssl_certificate      /etc/nginx/ssl/all_com.crt;
   ssl_certificate_key  /etc/nginx/ssl/all_com.key;
   ssl_session_timeout  5m;

   #ssl_protocols  SSLv2 SSLv3 TLSv1;
   #ssl_ciphers  ALL:!ADH:!EXPORT56:RC4+RSA:+HIGH:+MEDIUM:+LOW:+SSLv2:+EXP;

   location / {
   # host and port to fastcgi server
   fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:8000;
   fastcgi_param PATH_INFO $fastcgi_script_name;
   fastcgi_param REQUEST_METHOD $request_method;
   fastcgi_param QUERY_STRING $query_string;
   fastcgi_param CONTENT_TYPE $content_type;
   fastcgi_param CONTENT_LENGTH $content_length;
   fastcgi_pass_header Authorization;
   fastcgi_intercept_errors off;
   }

   #error_page  404  /404.html;

   # redirect server error pages to the static page /50x.html
   error_page   500 502 503 504  /50x.html;
   location = /50x.html {
   root   /var/www/nginx-default;
   }
   }

2. Access to http://<django-server>/.