How to deploy your Django app on Linode | Part 2 - Deploy your project

This is part 2 of How to deploy your Django app on Linode. You can read Part 1 here

Configure settings.py like so

Step 1. Add the following lines in your proj/settings.py

BASE_URL = 'https://YOU_DOMAIN.com'

ALLOWED_HOSTS = ['buildwebsite.io', 'localhost']

CSRF_TRUSTED_ORIGINS = ['https://buildwebsite.io', 'http://localhost:8000']

Debug = False # Make sure to change this to False

Step 2. Upload your code onto a Github repo

Step 3. Run the following command from your Linode

cd /var/www/django_app/

git clone YOUR_REPO

Step 4. My app is called “django-demo”, and I have cloned it into my Linode. Install any necessary packages or dependencies. Be sure to run it in virtual env

# Activate the virtual env
source /var/www/django_app/djangoenv/bin/activate

cd /var/www/django_app/YOUR_DJANGO_APP/

pip install -r requirements.txt

python manage.py migrate

Install Node if necessary (side quest)

My app uses the django-tailwind package and it requires Node to be installed. Since this is a fresh VPS, I will need to install Node

This is the error message I got

Just before we go any further, I’d do a quick check to see everything is working fine by running

python manage.py runserver IP:PORT

Back to the main quest

Set up Gunicorn and Nginx

Step 5. Run the following command to install gunicorn

pip install gunicorn

Step 6. Check that Nginx is installed (it should)

nginx -v

If you get the version number, then Nginx is there. If not, running the following commands

sudo apt update
sudo apt install nginx

sudo systemctl start nginx
sudo systemctl enable nginx

Step 7. You need a gunicorn service file for each app at /etc/systemd/system/YOUR_APP_NAME.service

In my case, my app is called “django-demo”, I’d create /etc/systemd/system/django_demo.service file

Notice I am not using hyphen (-) in the nomenclature. Run the following command

sudo vim /etc/systemd/system/django_demo.service

Include the following in the file

[Unit]
Description=Gunicorn instance to serve django_demo
After=network.target

[Service]
User=root
Group=www-data
WorkingDirectory=/var/www/django_app/django-demo
ExecStart=/var/www/django_app/djangoenv/bin/gunicorn --access-logfile - --workers 3 --bind unix:/var/www/django_app/django_demo.sock proj.wsgi:application

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Replace “django-demo”, “django_demo” with your app name

Step 8. Each application needs its own Nginx conf

Run:

sudo vim /etc/nginx/sites-available/django-demo

And add the following to the file:

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name buildwebsite.io;

    location / {
        include proxy_params;
        proxy_pass http://unix:/var/www/django_app/django_app.sock;
    }
}

Step 9: Create a master Nginx config file at /etc/nginx/conf.d/nginx.conf and add the following

include /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/*;

Step 10: Enable and start gunicorn service

sudo systemctl start django_demo.service
sudo systemctl enable django_demo.service

You can run this line to make sure gunicorn service is up and running

sudo systemctl status django_demo.service

If it’s running fine, you should be able to see this

Step 11. Enable, test and restart Nginx service by running the following commands

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/django-demo /etc/nginx/sites-enabled

sudo nginx -t
sudo systemctl restart nginx

You should be able to get

Set up SSL for the domain

Step 12. Install certbot

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ufw

sudo ufw allow ssh
sudo ufw allow http
sudo ufw allow https

sudo ufw enable

# Install snapd
sudo apt-get install snapd
sudo snap install core
sudo snap refresh core

# Install certbot
sudo apt-get remove certbot
sudo snap install --classic certbot
sudo ln -s /snap/bin/certbot /usr/bin/certbot

Step 13. Request an SSL certificate

sudo certbot --nginx -d buildwebsite.io

If that’s successful, you should be able to see:

Step 14. And viola! It’s done. If you type your domain name into the browser, you should be able to see it!

That’s it!

Hi, my name is George. My goal is to build apps, make money and quit my job. If you like to learn about copywriting, marketing and technical how-to’s like this blog post, be sure to subscribe to my newsletter!