mod_wsgi¶Deploying Django with Apache and mod_wsgi is a tried and tested way to get Django into production.
mod_wsgi is an Apache module which can host any Python WSGI application, including Django. Django will work with any version of Apache which supports mod_wsgi.
The official mod_wsgi documentation is your source for all the details about how to use mod_wsgi. You’ll probably want to start with the installation and configuration documentation.
Once you’ve got mod_wsgi installed and activated, edit your Apache server’s httpd.conf file and add the following.
WSGIScriptAlias / /path/to/mysite.com/mysite/wsgi.py
WSGIPythonHome /path/to/venv
WSGIPythonPath /path/to/mysite.com
<Directory /path/to/mysite.com/mysite>
<Files wsgi.py>
Require all granted
</Files>
</Directory>
The first bit in the WSGIScriptAlias line is the base URL path you want to
serve your application at (/ indicates the root url), and the second is the
location of a “WSGI file” – see below – on your system, usually inside of
your project package (mysite in this example). This tells Apache to serve
any request below the given URL using the WSGI application defined in that
file.
If you install your project’s Python dependencies inside a virtual
environment, add the path using WSGIPythonHome. See the mod_wsgi
virtual environment guide for more details.
The WSGIPythonPath line ensures that your project package is available for
import on the Python path; in other words, that import mysite works.
The <Directory> piece ensures that Apache can access your wsgi.py
file.
Next we’ll need to ensure this wsgi.py with a WSGI application object
exists. As of Django version 1.4, startproject will have created one
for you; otherwise, you’ll need to create it. See the WSGI overview
documentation for the default contents you
should put in this file, and what else you can add to it.
Warning
If multiple Django sites are run in a single mod_wsgi process, all of them will use the settings of whichever one happens to run first. This can be solved by changing:
os.environ.setdefault("DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE", "{{ project_name }}.settings")
in wsgi.py, to:
os.environ["DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE"] = "{{ project_name }}.settings"
or by using mod_wsgi daemon mode and ensuring that each site runs in its own daemon process.
Fixing UnicodeEncodeError for file uploads
If you get a UnicodeEncodeError when uploading or writing files with
file names or content that contains non-ASCII characters, make sure Apache
is configured to support UTF-8 encoding:
export LANG='en_US.UTF-8'
export LC_ALL='en_US.UTF-8'
A common location to put this configuration is /etc/apache2/envvars.
Alternatively, if you are using mod_wsgi daemon mode
you can add lang and locale options to the WSGIDaemonProcess
directive:
WSGIDaemonProcess example.com lang='en_US.UTF-8' locale='en_US.UTF-8'
See the Files section of the Unicode reference guide for details.
mod_wsgi daemon mode¶“Daemon mode” is the recommended mode for running mod_wsgi (on non-Windows
platforms). To create the required daemon process group and delegate the
Django instance to run in it, you will need to add appropriate
WSGIDaemonProcess and WSGIProcessGroup directives. A further change
required to the above configuration if you use daemon mode is that you can’t
use WSGIPythonPath; instead you should use the python-path option to
WSGIDaemonProcess, for example:
WSGIDaemonProcess example.com python-home=/path/to/venv python-path=/path/to/mysite.com
WSGIProcessGroup example.com
If you want to serve your project in a subdirectory
(https://example.com/mysite in this example), you can add WSGIScriptAlias
to the configuration above:
WSGIScriptAlias /mysite /path/to/mysite.com/mysite/wsgi.py process-group=example.com
See the official mod_wsgi documentation for details on setting up daemon mode.
Django doesn’t serve files itself; it leaves that job to whichever web server you choose.
We recommend using a separate web server – i.e., one that’s not also running Django – for serving media. Here are some good choices:
If, however, you have no option but to serve media files on the same Apache
VirtualHost as Django, you can set up Apache to serve some URLs as
static media, and others using the mod_wsgi interface to Django.
This example sets up Django at the site root, but serves robots.txt,
favicon.ico, and anything in the /static/ and /media/ URL space as
a static file. All other URLs will be served using mod_wsgi:
Alias /robots.txt /path/to/mysite.com/static/robots.txt
Alias /favicon.ico /path/to/mysite.com/static/favicon.ico
Alias /media/ /path/to/mysite.com/media/
Alias /static/ /path/to/mysite.com/static/
<Directory /path/to/mysite.com/static>
Require all granted
</Directory>
<Directory /path/to/mysite.com/media>
Require all granted
</Directory>
WSGIScriptAlias / /path/to/mysite.com/mysite/wsgi.py
<Directory /path/to/mysite.com/mysite>
<Files wsgi.py>
Require all granted
</Files>
</Directory>
When django.contrib.staticfiles is in INSTALLED_APPS, the
Django development server automatically serves the static files of the
admin app (and any other installed apps). This is however not the case when you
use any other server arrangement. You’re responsible for setting up Apache, or
whichever web server you’re using, to serve the admin files.
The admin files live in (django/contrib/admin/static/admin) of the Django distribution.
We strongly recommend using django.contrib.staticfiles to handle the
admin files (along with a web server as outlined in the previous section; this
means using the collectstatic management command to collect the
static files in STATIC_ROOT, and then configuring your web server to
serve STATIC_ROOT at STATIC_URL), but here are three
other approaches:
Create a symbolic link to the admin static files from within your
document root (this may require +FollowSymLinks in your Apache
configuration).
Use an Alias directive, as demonstrated above, to alias the appropriate
URL (probably STATIC_URL + admin/) to the actual location of
the admin files.
Copy the admin static files so that they live within your Apache document root.
Django provides a handler to allow Apache to authenticate users directly against Django’s authentication backends. See the mod_wsgi authentication documentation.
Dec 25, 2023