Deploying GeoDjango applications on heroku: Easy workthrough

Motivation

Recently, I was in the position to quickly prototype a location-based application. Since Django is pretty awesome for quick scaffolding with all other requirements still intact, I went straight for it using its extenstion GeoDjango¹. The development process was pretty interesting 😌. However, deploying the prototyped application on Heroku was a huge pain 😢 since resources were sparse and those available were seemingly outdated.

This guide tends to provide an updated workthrough to overcoming this hurdle.

Assumption

It is assumed that you have a GeoDjango¹ application available for deployment. If not, go through ¹ or Make a Location-Based Web App With Django and GeoDjango². Another assumption is that you have chosen to host your application on Heroku and your database is PostgreSQL.

Content

Let's get started. Having configured your application for Heroku deployment³, append the following to your settings.py file.

...
DATABASES['default']['ENGINE'] = 'django.contrib.gis.db.backends.postgis'

If you follow Django Tutorial Part 11: Deploying Django to production³, it should come directly after:

# Heroku: Update database configuration from $DATABASE_URL.
import dj_database_url
db_from_env = dj_database_url.config(conn_max_age=500)
DATABASES['default'].update(db_from_env)

The added code instructs Heroku to use a spatial database extension called postgis. In most cases, failure to include that line results in this error:

AttributeError: 'DatabaseOperations' object has no attribute 'geo_db_type'

Next, we need to add a custom buildpack to our project on heroku. By default, all Python applications are automatically given heroku/python official buildpack. However, since our application needs more than just a python runtime environment — our application needs GDAL, GEOS, and PROJ in addition to a python runtime environment — we must get the additional environment in place for our application to compile. There are various buildpacks out there for this, however Heroku Buildpack Geo worked seemlessly.

NOTE: It should be noted that this buildpack only provides the runtime environments for GIS related projects therefore, it cannot be used alone. You still need a python runtime environment for your applications to run.

Doing this is pretty easy with Heroku since it supports multiple buildpacks.

To add this custom buildpack — after you created your heroku application using heroku create application_name — follow the steps below:

• Set the official python buildpack:
  

  heroku buildpacks:set heroku/python
  

• Insert the custom heroku-geo-buildpack:
  

  heroku buildpacks:add --index 1 https://github.com/heroku/heroku-geo-buildpack.git
  

  This will insert the heroku-geo-buildpack buildpack at the first position in the order of buildpack execution, and move the other buildpacks that are ahead of it down one position.⁴

NOTE: Ensure heroku-geo-buildpack buildpack comes first! It installs the basic requirements of a GIS application.

You can confirm it has been included by issuing the following command in your terminal:

heroku buildpacks

You can now happily deploy your application 😊㊗️🎈.

Ran into some issues? The comment session is live 🤗.

Attribution

• Cover image: https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DR9ZJZtHY7RY&psig=AOvVaw1PEbujb86dE7nkyQJAv5gU&ust=1624852485065000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAwQ3YkBahcKEwiw6ee39bbxAhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAw

---

1. GeoDjango Tutorial - by Official Django Docs ↩

2. Make a Location-Based Web App With Django and GeoDjango - by Ahmed Bouchefra ↩

3. Django Tutorial Part 11: Deploying Django to production - by MDN ↩

4. Using Multiple Buildpacks for an App - by Heroku ↩

Comments

[Micheal Ojemoron]

battling serious issues with deploying to heroku: dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/up...

[John Owolabi Idogun]

Worked locally?

[Micheal Ojemoron]

yes

[John Owolabi Idogun]

Did you put GDAL buildpack before python's? Did you configure your production database as specified in the post?

[Micheal Ojemoron]

yes I did,
dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/up...
is there a way we can have a google meet, i would be very grateful for this, i have spent the week debugging the issues

[John Owolabi Idogun]

Before doing that, do you mind sending links to the screenshots of your settings.py? Ensure all sensitive data are properly hidden.

[John Owolabi Idogun]

Also, can you let me see the output of heroku buildpacks?

[Micheal Ojemoron]

thats the first link i sent: dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/up...

[Micheal Ojemoron]

from sentry_sdk.integrations.celery import CeleryIntegration
from sentry_sdk.integrations.redis import RedisIntegration

from .base import *
import django_heroku
import sentry_sdk
from sentry_sdk.integrations.django import DjangoIntegration

Build paths inside the project like this: os.path.join(BASE_DIR, ...)

BASE_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(file)))

SECURITY WARNING: don't run with debug turned on in production!

DEBUG = config('DEBUG', '', cast=bool)

Application definition

Database

docs.djangoproject.com/en/2.2/ref/...

DATABASES = {
'default': {
'ENGINE': 'django.contrib.gis.db.backends.postgis',
}
}

------------------- HEROKU----------------------

SECURE_PROXY_SSL_HEADER = ('HTTP_X_FORWARDED_PROTO', 'https')
SECURE_SSL_REDIRECT = config('SECURE_SSL_REDIRECT', default=False)
django_heroku.settings(locals())

--------------------------SENDGRID-----------------------

EMAIL_BACKEND = "sendgrid_backend.SendgridBackend"
SENDGRID_API_KEY = config('SENDGRID_KEY', '')
SENDGRID_SANDBOX_MODE_IN_DEBUG = False
SENDGRID_TRACK_CLICKS_HTML = False
SENDGRID_TRACK_CLICKS_PLAIN = False
DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL = 'Support Team [e-mail]'

----------------- SENTRY-------------------------

if not DEBUG:
sentry_sdk.init(
dsn="11add338ccc345c6a402cd8cb20d2bc1@o...",
integrations=[DjangoIntegration(), CeleryIntegration(), RedisIntegration()],

    # If you wish to associate users to errors (assuming you are using
    # django.contrib.auth) you may enable sending PII data.
    send_default_pii=True
)

django_heroku.settings(locals())
SIMPLE_JWT = {
"ACCESS_TOKEN_LIFETIME": timedelta(weeks=521), # 10 years
"REFRESH_TOKEN_LIFETIME": timedelta(weeks=521),
}

Your stuff...

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

REST_FRAMEWORK = {
'DEFAULT_AUTHENTICATION_CLASSES': (
'rest_framework_simplejwt.authentication.JWTAuthentication',
),
# Permission settings
'DEFAULT_PERMISSION_CLASSES': [
'rest_framework.permissions.IsAuthenticated'
],
}
DEFAULT_AUTO_FIELD = 'django.db.models.AutoField'
DJSTRIPE_USE_NATIVE_JSONFIELD = True

these are required by Herokuuu

GEOS_LIBRARY_PATH = '/app/.heroku/vendor/lib/libgeos_c.so' if os.environ.get('ENV') == 'HEROKU' else os.getenv('GEOS_LIBRARY_PATH')
GDAL_LIBRARY_PATH = '/app/.heroku/vendor/lib/libgdal.so' if os.environ.get('ENV') == 'HEROKU' else os.getenv('GDAL_LIBRARY_PATH')

[John Owolabi Idogun]

Your configurations don't conform with some of the details of this post. If you follow through, the following is not needed:

...
GEOS_LIBRARY_PATH = '/app/.heroku/vendor/lib/libgeos_c.so' if os.environ.get('ENV') == 'HEROKU' else os.getenv('GEOS_LIBRARY_PATH')
GDAL_LIBRARY_PATH = '/app/.heroku/vendor/lib/libgdal.so' if os.environ.get('ENV') == 'HEROKU' else os.getenv('GDAL_LIBRARY_PATH')

They are the prime suspects of your issues.

[Micheal Ojemoron]

I added that when i discovered the issue, removing it still reproduces the issue. I am on Django 3.2.1 and Heroku 20

[John Owolabi Idogun]

Did you add any buildpack aside the default one heroku gives?

[Micheal Ojemoron]

no

[John Owolabi Idogun]

GDAL can't work on heroku without you adding external buildpack to help you build Geospatial configurations. That is why I recommend you go through this article again and implement the stuff suggested. They are easy and not detrimental.

[John Owolabi Idogun]

The error you are getting sterms from directing heroku to look for buildpacks and runtimes in arbitary paths that do not really exist.

[Micheal Ojemoron]

i added this heroku buildpacks:add --index 1 github.com/heroku/heroku-geo-build...
according to your article

[John Owolabi Idogun]

In your settings.py, add this to the bottom of the file:

DATABASES['default']['ENGINE'] = 'django.contrib.gis.db.backends.postgis'

[Micheal Ojemoron]

in my settings, i already added Database Engine and the error i am getting is related to the library gdal

[John Owolabi Idogun]

What database are you using? And do you use heroku's dj_database_url?

[Daniel John]

Thank you very much. Followed the instructions and things went smoothly.