Coding for Entrepreneurs

Go Live with Django & Heroku

By Justin

Go Live with Django & Heroku
Make your Django project live using Heroku.com's web hosting services. This uses Heroku's standard build process.
Interested in Docker containers for Django on Heroku? Check it out here.
Updated on July 29th, 2020. Originally posted in 2017.

1. Stage Django Project for Production

Overall, you need to be able to use different settings modules at least 1 for development and production. Here's a useful guide on how to do it.
Here's another guide option for a production-ready Blank Django project.

2. Setup Production-ready Security Settings

When in production, you need a number of security settings setup. Here's our post on Django SSL/TLS in Production.

3. Add git for version control and deployment

You can do so with this guide or watch here.

4. In your project, ensure git repo exists:

$ cd /path/to/your/venv/mvp-landing/
$ ls
mvp_landing manage.py ...
$ git status
fatal: Not a git repository (or any of the parent directories): .git
If you see exactly above do this:
$ git init
$ git status
mvp_landing/
manage.py

5. Install Heroku CLI & Login

Download and install Heroku Command Line Interface (heroku cli): here
$ heroku login

6. Create Heroku Project

heroku create <your-project-name>
Creates a heroku project you declare so replace project-name below with yours.
$ heroku create project-name
https://project-name.herokuapp.com |  https://git.heroku.com/project-name.git
heroku create
Creates a random project name.
$ heroku create
https://remembrance-inukshuk-24674.herokuapp.com/ | https://git.heroku.com/remembrance-inukshuk-24674.git

7. Create .gitignore and Procfile

gitignore
is so you don't push all files your local system as 
Procfile
is for heroku projects that are not container-based.
$ echo ".py[cod]" > .gitignore
$ echo "web: gunicorn mvp_landing.wsgi" > Procfile

gitignore
: Add the contents from this gitignore to your .gitignore from above. Be sure to ignore any local, non-production, settings modules you may have.
Replace mvp_landing above with your project name or where the .wsgi file exists

8. Provision Database Add-on:

heroku addons:create heroku-postgresql:hobby-dev

9. Use Heroku Environment Variables for Django keys:

Create a one-off Django SECRET_KEY with this guide.
$ heroku config:set SECRET_KEY=<your-django-secret-key>
$ heroku config:set EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD = 'youremailpassword'

10. Update your Django Production Settings DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE to include:

python
DEBUG = False
ALLOWED_HOSTS =  ['project-name.herokuapp.com', '.yourdomain.com']
SECRET_KEY = os.environ.get('SECRET_KEY', 'SOME+RANDOM+KEY(z9+3vnm(jb0u@&w68t#5_e8s9-lbfhv-')  
EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD = os.environ.get('EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD')

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.sqlite3',
        'NAME': os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'db.sqlite3'),
    }
}

# add this
import dj_database_url
db_from_env = dj_database_url.config()
DATABASES['default'].update(db_from_env)
DATABASES['default']['CONN_MAX_AGE'] = 500

11. Scale Dyno:

heroku ps:scale web=1

12. Disable Collectstatic

Collectstatic runs on every push unless you disable it. I recommend disabling it.
I recommend using S3 for static files.
heroku config:set DISABLE_COLLECTSTATIC=1

13. Update requirements.txt

$ pip freeze > requirements.txt
$ git add requirements.txt
$ git commit -m "Updated requirements.txt"
Heroku requirements:
  • Django: pip install django
  • psycopg2: pip install psycopg2-binary
  • dj-database-url: pip install dj-database-url
  • gunicorn: pip install gunicorn
$ pip install django psycopg2-binary dj-database-url gunicorn
$ pip freeze > requirements.txt
You can absolutely use pipenv instead.

14. Add Python Runtime

$ python -V # notice the capital V
3.6.2
Create a file (next to manage.py and requirements.txt) called runtime.txt with the contents:
python-3.6.2
The numbers are directly releated to the python -V call

15. Commit & Push

$ git add --all
$ git commit -m "Initial Heroku commit"
$ git push heroku master

17. Run migrations

$ heroku run python manage.py migrate

18. Other common commands:

  • Create superuser: heroku run python manage.py createsuperuser
  • Enter Heroku's bash: heroku run bash for shell access
  • Live Python-Django shell: heroku run python manage.py shell

19. Get Heroku configuration:

$ heroku config

Custom Domains & SSL on Heroku

1. Add a Custom Domain (buy one here)

heroku domains:add <your-custom-domain.com>
heroku domains:add www.<your-custom-domain.com>

2. Update your DNS to what heroku says above

3. Upgrade your Hosting account with at least a Hobby account:

heroku ps:resize web=hobby

4. Enable Heroku to Handle Let's Encrypt Certificate

heroku certs:auto:enable
More on this from the Heroku docs here.

Video

Watch how this is done on youtube. This video is the older method on how to do for a newer one, consider the MVP Landing project's Heroku deployment tutorial.
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