Coding for Entrepreneurs

Prepare Django for Digital Ocean App Platform

By Justin

Prepare Django for Digital Ocean App Platform
This post is a reference guide for the Try Django 3.2 series.

Step 1. Clone Project with Git

mkdir try-djangoP
cd try-django
git clone --depth 1 -b 31-start https://github.com/codingforentrepreneurs/Try-Django-3.2 .
We use branch 31-start (-b 31-start) for this guide to ensure we're all using the same code. Modify it as you need.

Step 2. Update requirements.txt

Update the file requirements.txt contain at least:
django>=3.2,<3.3
gunicorn
psycopg2-binary

Step 3. Create runtime.txt

Create a file named runtime.txt right next to manage.py with:
python-3.6.13

Step 4. Update settings.py

In trydjango/settings.py let's update a few configuration items for production environment variables including:
  • DEBUG
  • DJANGO_ALLOWED_HOST
  • DJANGO_SECRET_KEY
  • POSTGRES_DB
  • POSTGRES_HOST
  • POSTGRES_USERNAME
  • POSTGRES_PASSWORD
  • POSTGRES_PORT

1. Import os

We'll be using the python os package for the environment variables from above.
python
import os
import pathlib
Django 3.2 does no longer uses import os on the settings module by default.

2. Update Debug

python
DEBUG=str(os.environ.get('DEBUG'))=='1'

3. Update ALLOWED_HOSTS

python
ENV_ALLOWED_HOST = os.environ.get('DJANGO_ALLOWED_HOST') or None
ALLOWED_HOSTS = []
if ENV_ALLOWED_HOST is not None:
    ALLOWED_HOSTS = [ ENV_ALLOWED_HOST ]

4. Update DJANGO_SECRET_KEY

python
SECRET_KEY = os.environ.get('DJANGO_SECRET_KEY') or 'j8go-s#xppcsm%$p@%q5we7u)l^%*z34ulo!o0-h%mx8%@q1-o'
Use python -c 'from django.core.management.utils import get_random_secret_key; print(get_random_secret_key())' from this post.

5. Add PostgreSQL Settings

Just after the default DATABASE configuration add this:
python
POSTGRES_DB = os.environ.get("POSTGRES_DB")
POSTGRES_PASSWORD = os.environ.get("POSTGRES_PASSWORD")
POSTGRES_USER = os.environ.get("POSTGRES_USER")
POSTGRES_HOST = os.environ.get("POSTGRES_HOST")
POSTGRES_PORT = os.environ.get("POSTGRES_PORT")

POSTGRES_READY = (
    POSTGRES_DB is not None
    and POSTGRES_PASSWORD is not None
    and POSTGRES_USER is not None
    and POSTGRES_HOST is not None
    and POSTGRES_PORT is not None
)

if POSTGRES_READY:
    DATABASES = {
        "default": {
            "ENGINE": "django.db.backends.postgresql",
            "NAME": POSTGRES_DB,
            "USER": POSTGRES_USER,
            "PASSWORD": POSTGRES_PASSWORD,
            "HOST": POSTGRES_HOST,
            "PORT": POSTGRES_PORT,
        }
    }

Next step: Deploy

The above configuration is already in the branch production-1 on https://github.com/codingforentrepreneurs/Try-Django-3.2 so we'll actually use that branch to deploy. Go to the Deploy Django on App Platform post for details on how to do this.
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