Building a Project Budget Manager with Django - Part 4: Deployment and Production Setup On Ubuntu Server

In this final part of our series, we'll prepare our Project Budget Manager for production deployment. We'll cover security configurations, performance optimizations, and deployment steps.

Production Settings

1. Update config/settings/production.py with production-specific settings:

from .base import *

# SECURITY WARNING: don't run with debug turned on in production!
DEBUG = False

# SECURITY WARNING: configure the secret key for production
SECRET_KEY = os.environ.get('DJANGO_SECRET_KEY')

# Database configuration
DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.mysql',
        'NAME': os.environ.get('DB_NAME'),
        'USER': os.environ.get('DB_USER'),
        'PASSWORD': os.environ.get('DB_PASSWORD'),
        'HOST': os.environ.get('DB_HOST'),
        'PORT': os.environ.get('DB_PORT', '3306'),
        'OPTIONS': {
            'init_command': "SET sql_mode='STRICT_TRANS_TABLES'",
            'charset': 'utf8mb4',
        }
    }
}

# Email settings
EMAIL_BACKEND = 'django.core.mail.backends.smtp.EmailBackend'
EMAIL_HOST = os.environ.get('EMAIL_HOST', 'smtp.gmail.com')
EMAIL_PORT = int(os.environ.get('EMAIL_PORT', 587))
EMAIL_USE_TLS = True
EMAIL_HOST_USER = os.environ.get('EMAIL_HOST_USER')
EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD = os.environ.get('EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD')
DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL = os.environ.get('DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL', EMAIL_HOST_USER)

# Security settings
SECURE_PROXY_SSL_HEADER = ('HTTP_X_FORWARDED_PROTO', 'https')
SECURE_SSL_REDIRECT = True
SESSION_COOKIE_SECURE = True
CSRF_COOKIE_SECURE = True
SECURE_BROWSER_XSS_FILTER = True
SECURE_CONTENT_TYPE_NOSNIFF = True

# Static files configuration
STATIC_URL = '/static/'
STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'staticfiles')
STATICFILES_DIRS = [
    os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'static'),
]

# Enable WhiteNoise for static file serving
MIDDLEWARE.insert(1, 'whitenoise.middleware.WhiteNoiseMiddleware')
STATICFILES_STORAGE = 'whitenoise.storage.CompressedManifestStaticFilesStorage'

# Site settings
SITE_ID = 1
ALLOWED_HOSTS = os.environ.get('ALLOWED_HOSTS', '').split(',')
USE_X_FORWARDED_HOST = True

Environment Variables

Create a production .env file template (.env.example):

# Django settings
DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE=config.settings.production
DJANGO_SECRET_KEY=your-secret-key-here
ALLOWED_HOSTS=your-domain.com,www.your-domain.com

# Database settings
DB_NAME=budget_db
DB_USER=budget_user
DB_PASSWORD=your-secure-password
DB_HOST=localhost
DB_PORT=3306

# Email settings
EMAIL_HOST=smtp.gmail.com
EMAIL_PORT=587
EMAIL_HOST_USER=[e-mail]
EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD=your-app-specific-password
DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL=[e-mail]

# Security settings
SECURE_SSL_REDIRECT=True
SESSION_COOKIE_SECURE=True
CSRF_COOKIE_SECURE=True

Production Dependencies

Update requirements.txt with production dependencies:

Django==5.0.2
django-allauth==0.61.1
django-crispy-forms==2.3
mysqlclient==2.2.4
whitenoise==6.9.0
python-dotenv==1.0.1
gunicorn==21.2.0

Setting Up MySQL Database

1. Install MySQL server:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install mysql-server

1. Create database and user:

CREATE DATABASE budget_db CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;
CREATE USER 'budget_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'your-secure-password';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON budget_db.* TO 'budget_user'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Nginx Configuration

1. Install Nginx:

sudo apt install nginx

1. Create Nginx configuration (/etc/nginx/sites-available/project-budget):

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name your-domain.com www.your-domain.com;

    location = /favicon.ico { access_log off; log_not_found off; }

    location /static/ {
        root /path/to/your/project;
    }

    location /media/ {
        root /path/to/your/project;
    }

    location / {
        include proxy_params;
        proxy_pass http://unix:/run/gunicorn.sock;
    }
}

1. Enable the site:

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/project-budget /etc/nginx/sites-enabled
sudo nginx -t
sudo systemctl restart nginx

Gunicorn Service

1. Create a systemd service file (/etc/systemd/system/gunicorn.service):

[Unit]
Description=gunicorn daemon
Requires=gunicorn.socket
After=network.target

[Service]
User=your-user
Group=www-data
WorkingDirectory=/path/to/your/project
ExecStart=/path/to/your/venv/bin/gunicorn \
    --access-logfile - \
    --workers 3 \
    --bind unix:/run/gunicorn.sock \
    config.wsgi:application

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

1. Create socket file (/etc/systemd/system/gunicorn.socket):

[Unit]
Description=gunicorn socket

[Socket]
ListenStream=/run/gunicorn.sock

[Install]
WantedBy=sockets.target

1. Start and enable the service:

sudo systemctl start gunicorn.socket
sudo systemctl enable gunicorn.socket

SSL Certificate with Let's Encrypt

1. Install Certbot:

sudo apt install certbot python3-certbot-nginx

1. Obtain SSL certificate:

sudo certbot --nginx -d your-domain.com -d www.your-domain.com

Deployment Checklist

1. Prepare the environment:

# Create and activate virtual environment
python -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate

# Install dependencies
pip install -r requirements.txt

1. Set up the database:

python manage.py migrate
python manage.py createsuperuser

1. Collect static files:

python manage.py collectstatic --noinput

1. Set up environment variables:

cp .env.example .env
# Edit .env with your production values

1. Test the application:

python manage.py check --deploy

Monitoring and Maintenance

1. Set up logging in production settings:

LOGGING = {
    'version': 1,
    'disable_existing_loggers': False,
    'handlers': {
        'file': {
            'level': 'ERROR',
            'class': 'logging.FileHandler',
            'filename': '/path/to/django-error.log',
        },
    },
    'loggers': {
        'django': {
            'handlers': ['file'],
            'level': 'ERROR',
            'propagate': True,
        },
    },
}

1. Regular maintenance tasks:

# Backup database
mysqldump -u budget_user -p budget_db > backup.sql

# Check for updates
pip list --outdated

# Monitor logs
tail -f /path/to/django-error.log

Performance Optimization Tips

1. Enable caching:

CACHES = {
    'default': {
        'BACKEND': 'django.core.cache.backends.redis.RedisCache',
        'LOCATION': 'redis://127.0.0.1:6379/1',
    }
}

1. Use database connection pooling:

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        # ... other settings ...
        'CONN_MAX_AGE': 60,
    }
}

Resources

• Django Deployment Checklist
• Nginx Documentation
• Gunicorn Documentation
• Let's Encrypt Documentation

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This article is part of the "Building a Project Budget Manager with Django" series. Check out Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 if you haven't already!