Coding for Entrepreneurs

Deploy Django to DigitalOcean App Platform

By Justin

Deploy Django to DigitalOcean App Platform
In Prepare Django 3 for DigitalOcean App Platform we used the production-1 branch which is what we'll use here.
The goal of this post is to deploy the first production-ready version of the Try Django 3.2 project.

Step 1: Deploy an App Component

This setup guide is a simple way to deploy your project without touching code.

1. Sign up on Digital Ocean (sign up a new account for a $100 promo)

2. Sign in or sign up for Github.

3. Fork Try Django 3.2 or click here to fork.

4. Create new app on App Platform

  1. Under Source, Select Github
  2. Click Next
  3. Under Repository, Select your forked Try Django 3.2 repo
  4. Under Branch. Select production-1 (this branch has been designed to handle everything in this guide with no code changes)
  5. Ensure Autodeploy code changes is selected
It's easy to change a branch later, but not any of the other settings.

5. Configure your app

Use the following settings:
Source Directory: / (no change needed)
Type: Web Services (no change needed)
Environment Variables: Leave blank. We'll add our environment variables as app-level environment variables.
Build Command: Leave blank. We'll create a job for running the various build commands later.
Run Command:
gunicorn --worker-tmp-dir /dev/shm trydjango.wsgi
trydjango.wsgi is from our Django project referencing trydjango/wsgi.py (code)
HTTP Port: 8080 (no change needed)
HTTP Request Routes: / (no change needed)

Step 2. Provision App-Level Environment variables.

App Platform treats your web application (like above) as one component of your entire app. Another component is your database. Another component is your static files server. Another is a data store like redis.
Given this, we have 2 places to add environment variables:
  • component-level
  • app-level
For Django projects, we're going to use the app-level environment variables.
Update App Settings
  1. Go to https://cloud.digitalocean.com/apps
  2. Click on your project (mine is try-django-3-2)
  3. Click Settings
  4. Scroll down to App-Level Environment Variables (if you don't see App-Level), you're in the wrong place.
  5. Click edit to add the following key/value pairs
  • DEBUG = 0
  • DISABLE_COLLECTSTATIC = 1
  • DJANGO_ALLOWED_HOST = .ondigitalocean.app
  • DJANGO_SECRET_KEY = create-a-secure-one (& choose encrypt)
  • DJANGO_SUPERUSER_EMAIL = [email protected]
  • DJANGO_SUPERUSER_USERNAME = yourusername
  • DJANGO_SUPERUSER_PASSWORD = create-a-secure-one (& choose encrypt)
To make secure keys/passwords, consider this post.
  1. Click Save.
After you change these settings your project will be rebuilt all over again (literally every time).

Step 3. Provision Database

Or, simply Add a Component to your project:
  1. Go to https://cloud.digitalocean.com/apps
  2. Click on your project (mine is try-django-3-2)
  3. Click Settings
  4. Click + Add Component.
  5. Click Database
  6. Under Choose Name you can leave the default db. If you change the name, be sure to remember the change for the next part.
  7. Click Create and attach
  8. Navigate back to update your App-Level Environment Variables with the following:
  • POSTGRES_DB = ${db.DATABASE}
  • POSTGRES_HOST = ${db.HOSTNAME}
  • POSTGRES_USER = ${db.USERNAME}
  • POSTGRES_PASSWORD = ${db.PASSWORD}
  • POSTGRES_PORT = ${db.PORT}
In each value above (ie ${db.HOSTNAME}), the db portion is directly related to the name you chose in step 6. So you if you used mydb update each database environment variable to reflect that (such as ${db.DATABASE} as ${mydb.DATABASE}).
  1. Click Save

Step 4. Create a pre-deploy Job

It's a good idea to run python manage.py migrate prior to deploying a new version of your code -- this ensures your database(s) and code are in sync.
In App Platform, we'll do this using a Job Component with your app project.
  1. Go to https://cloud.digitalocean.com/apps
  2. Click on your project (mine is try-django-3-2)
  3. Click Settings
  4. Click + Add Component.
  5. Click Job
  6. Under Choose Source, Click Github
  7. Under Repository, Select your forked Try Django 3.2 repo (this will be same source as Step 1 from above)
  8. Under Branch. Select production-1 (this branch has been designed to handle everything in this guide with no code changes)
  9. Click Next
  10. Under Type Jobs, click Edit and change When to Run to Before every Deploy
  11. Under Run command, click Edit and add:
python manage.py migrate --noinput
python manage.py createsuperuser --noinput --email [email protected]
The reason python manage.py createsuperuser --noinput --email <youremail> works, has to do with DJANGO_SUPERUSER_USERNAME, and DJANGO_SUPERUSER_PASSWORD in your app-level environment variables (see docs).
  1. Click Next
  2. Under Name your job* call it django migrate or something similar
  3. Click Next
  4. Select the minimum resources to run this job. (mine was Basic with $0.007/hr container size)
  5. Click Launch

Step 5. Force Rebuild & Deploy

  1. Go to https://cloud.digitalocean.com/apps
  2. Click on your project (mine is try-django-3-2)
  3. Under Actions click Force Rebuild.& Deploy
  4. Wait about 10-15 minutes
  5. Open your app and verify!

Next step: Static Files

** Coming soon*
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