SaltyCrane Blog

Notes on Python, Django, and web development on Ubuntu Linux

Django Blog Project #2: Django Webfaction deployment

Date: 2008-06-06 | Modified: 2008-10-20 | Tags: blogproject, django

I mentioned in my previous Django post that I'd write about hosting my new Django blog site on Webfaction. As promised, here it is.

I had some problems deploying my first site at Webfaction. First I got an error about pysqlite. I tried using Postgresql, and then I got an error about something else when trying to do a python2.5 manage.py syncdb. I think that they didn't set me up with a current Django installation. Luckily the support was prompt and helpful. I ended up reinstalling the Django application from the Webfaction Control Panel. Here are the steps I took to deploy my less than fledgling site.

Sign up for a shared hosting plan at Webfaction

I signed up for Webfaction's lowest plan at $9.50/month with no commitment. Here is their pricing plans.

Play with new account

I got a welcome email within 24 hours with the details about my account. sofeng.webfactional.com was a domain name which they provided. Visiting this address in my browser showed my the It worked! Django new project page. I also ssh'd into my shell account by using ssh sofeng.webfactional.com. The OS is CentOS5 which, I think, is based on Red Hat. It was a little different than the Ubuntu that I'm used to. I copied some of my configuration files over to make me feel more at home. On my home machine:

$ scp .bashrc sofeng@sofeng.webfactional.com:
$ scp .screenrc sofeng@sofeng.webfactional.com:
$ scp .emacs sofeng@sofeng.webfactional.com:

Reinstall Django

Note, if your Webfaction account is set up properly with Django, you shouldn't need to take these steps. Like I mentioned earlier, I had some problems with my Django installation. So I ended up reinstalling Django. It's not as hard as it sounds-- just a few clicks in the Control Panel.

In my browser, I went to the Webfaction Control Panel at https://panel.webfaction.com/.
Under "> Domains / websites", I selected "Applications".
I removed my current Django installation by clicking the icon with the minus sign.
I clicked the icon with the plus sign to add a new application.
I filled in the following information:
"Name:": django
"App type:": Django 0.96.2/mod_python 3.3.1/Python 2.5
Then I clicked the "Create" button.
Finally, I needed to specify which URL path I want to use with my Django application.
Under "> Domains / websites", I selected "Websites".
I selected the icon with the pencil to edit the website settings.
In the "Site apps:" section, I selected the icon with the plus sign to add a new App and path. I selected "django" as my "App:" and entered "/" (without the quotes) in the "URL path" field. Then I clicked "Update".
After a couple minutes, I was able to view the Django It worked! page at http://sofeng.webfactional.com.

Upload my project

The welcome message recommends using sftp, but I used rsync instead because I'm more familiar with it:
```
sofeng@home:~ $ rsync -avz ~/src/django/myblogsite sofeng@sofeng.webfactional.com:webapps/django
```

Deploy

I ssh'd into my webfaction shell account:

sofeng@home:~ $ ssh sofeng@sofeng.webfactional.com

I set the PYTHONPATH. (I actually put this in my .bash_profile)
```
sofeng@web36:~ $ export PYTHONPATH=$HOME/webapps/django
```

sofeng@web36:~ $ cd ~/webapps/django/myblogsite

I tried to do a python2.5 manage.py syncdb, but got a database error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "manage.py", line 11, in 
    execute_manager(settings)
  File "/home/sofeng/webapps/django/lib/python2.5/django/core/management.py", line 1672, in execute_manager
    execute_from_command_line(action_mapping, argv)
  File "/home/sofeng/webapps/django/lib/python2.5/django/core/management.py", line 1571, in execute_from_command_line
    action_mapping[action](int(options.verbosity), options.interactive)
  File "/home/sofeng/webapps/django/lib/python2.5/django/core/management.py", line 504, in syncdb
    cursor = connection.cursor()
  File "/home/sofeng/webapps/django/lib/python2.5/django/db/backends/sqlite3/base.py", line 58, in cursor
    self.connection = Database.connect(**kwargs)
sqlite3.OperationalError: unable to open database file

I needed to edit my settings.py file. I changed the following lines:

DATABASE_NAME = '/home/sofeng/webapps/django/myblogsite/mydatabase.sqlite3'
TEMPLATE_DIRS = (
    '/home/sofeng/webapps/django/myblogsite/templates',
)

I tried python2.5 manage.py syncdb again:

$ python2.5 manage.py syncdb
Loading 'initial_data' fixtures...
No fixtures found.

It worked.

The next step was to set up the Apache configuration.
```
$ cd ~/webapps/django/apache2/conf
```

I edited the following line in httpd.conf:

    SetEnv DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE myblogsite.settings

Then I restarted the Apache server:
```
$ ~/webapps/django/apache2/bin/restart
```

In my browser, I went to http://sofeng.webfactional.com/myview1, but got an error:

ImportError at /myview1/
No module named blog.models
Request Method:  GET
Request URL:  http://sofeng.webfactional.com/myview1/
Exception Type:  ImportError
Exception Value:  No module named blog.models
Exception Location:  /home/sofeng/webapps/django/lib/python2.5/django/core/urlresolvers.py in _get_urlconf_module, line 177

I guess I need my project on the Python path. I edited the following line in httpd.conf:

    PythonPath "['/home/sofeng/webapps/django/myblogsite', '/home/sofeng/webapps/django', '/home/sofeng/webapps/django/lib/python2.5'] + sys.path"

Then I went back to http://sofeng.webfactional.com/myview1 and saw my page. Success!

Install Mercurial

Update 6/7/2008: By default Webfaction doesn't come with Mercurial installed, but they do allow you to do a user installation. I decided it would be useful to have Mercurial so I could pull and merge changes with greater control. Here are my steps.This will do a user-wide (as opposed to system-wide) installation of Mercurial in ~/bin and ~/lib.

sofeng@home:~/incoming $ wget http://www.selenic.com/mercurial/release/mercurial-1.0.1.tar.gz

sofeng@home:~/incoming $ scp mercurial-1.0.1.tar.gz sofeng@sofeng.webfactional.com:

sofeng@web36:~ $ mv mercurial-1.0.1.tar.gz ~/tmp

```
$ cd tmp
```
```
$ tar zxvf mercurial-1.0.1.tar.gz
```
```
$ cd mercurial-1.0.1
```
```
$ make install-home
```
```
$ export PYTHONPATH=$HOME/lib/python:$PYTHONPATH
```
Note: you will need to put this in your .bashrc instead of your .bash_profile because Mercurial only executes .bashrc on a remote hg push by default.

$ hg version
Mercurial Distributed SCM (version 1.0.1)

Copyright (C) 2005-2008 Matt Mackall  and others
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions. There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Other Errors

No module name django.core.management

$ python manage.py syncdb
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "manage.py", line 2, in ?
    from django.core.management import execute_manager
ImportError: No module named django.core.management

You need to set the PYTHONPATH:

$ export PYTHONPATH=$HOME/webapps/django

You may get this if you use python manage.py syncdb instead of python2.5 manage.py syncdb.


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Django Blog Project #2: Django Webfaction deployment

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