The usual virtualenv/Django/gunicorn/nginx howto ... from my perspective

The usual virtualenv/Django/gunicorn/nginx howto … from my perspective

Install nginx

sudo apt-get install nginx

~~Install distribute (the new hotness!)~~ Merged with setuptools

~~curl -O http://python-distribute.org/distribute_setup.py~~
~~python distribute_setup.py~~

Install pip *

sudo apt-get install python-pip

* will also install the new python-setuptools

Install virtualenv (all time hotness)

pip install virtualenv

Create Virtual Environment

virtualenv –no-site-packages env_my_application

Activate Virtual Environment

source /home/user/env_my_application/bin/activate

Install required packages

pip install Django
pip install gunicorn

or if you already have a requirements.txt file

pip install -r requirements.txt

Change to your Django application folder

cd /home/user/my_application/

Test Django Application with Gunicorn

gunicorn my_application.wsgi:application -b 0.0.0.0:8000

Create gunicorn script

vim /home/user/guni_my_application.sh

add the following code

#!/bin/bash
set -e
LOGFILE=/home/user/logs/gunicorn.log
LOGDIR=$(dirname $LOGFILE)
NUM_WORKERS=9 #1 + 2 * CPUs
# user/group to run as
USER= user
GROUP= user
ADDRESS=127.0.0.1:8000
cd /home/user/my_application
source /home/user/env_my_application/bin/activate
test -d $LOGDIR || mkdir -p $LOGDIR
exec gunicorn -w $NUM_WORKERS –bind=$ADDRESS \
–user=$USER –group=$GROUP –log-level=debug \
–log-file=$LOGFILE 2>>$LOGFILE
my_application.wsgi:application

give proper privileges with

sudo chmod ug+x /home/user/guni_my_application.sh

create Upstart job

sudo vim /etc/init/your_service_name.conf

add the following

description “Your Service Name”
start on runlevel [2345]
stop on runlevel [06]
respawn
respawn limit 10 5
exec /home/user/guni_my_application.sh

create link to /etc/init.d

sudo ln -s /lib/init/upstart-job /etc/init.d/your_service_name

start your service

sudo service your_service_name start

Create nginx conf file for application

sudo vim /etc/nginx/sites-available/my_application.conf

add the following code

server {
listen 80 default_server;
#server_name my_application.mydomain.gr;
access_log /home/user/logs/nginx.access.log;
error_log /home/user/logs/nginx.error.log;
location /favicon.ico { # favicon.ico
alias /home/user/my_storage/my_application_static/media/favicon.ico;
expires 30d;
}
location /static/ { # STATIC_URL
alias /home/user/my_storage/my_application_static/static/; # STATIC_ROOT
expires 30d;
}
location /media/ { # MEDIA_URL
alias /home/user/my_storage/my_application_static/media/; # MEDIA_ROOT
expires 30d;
}
location / {
proxy_pass_header Server;
proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
proxy_redirect off;
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header X-Scheme $scheme;
proxy_connect_timeout 10;
proxy_read_timeout 10;
proxy_pass http://localhost:8000/;
}
}

Create symlink to sites-enabled folder

ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/my_application.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/my_application.conf

Make sure that nginx has access to your folders (that is if you get an error 13: Permission denied). Check the user is running under at /etc/nginx/nginx.conf, line 1!

Reload nginx configuration

sudo nginx -s reload

Start your service

sudo service my_application start

Enjoy!!!

The above steps were executed on an Ubuntu 12.04 LTS x64 with a user account with sudo privileges. It should run without any problem in any system

Information gathered by the following resources and tutorials

Update 07/Jun/2013: Added the favicon alias on nginx and added the forgotten upstart job create step.

Update 12/Nov/2013: Removed references to distribute since it is now merged with setuptools.