Deploy Django web application to Heroku
Introduction
Heroku is a cloud application platform, it facilitates the deployment of a web application.
They support several programming languages, include Python.
Install Heroku Toolbet
To install Heroku Toolbet Sign up to heroku,
Then install the Heroku Toolbet it is a very powerful command-line tool it will help you to manage your application.
After installing the Toolbet, open your Terminal/CMD and login to your account :
$ heroku login
Enter your Heroku credentials.
Email: your email
Password (typing will be hidden):
Authentication successful.
Preparing our application
place into your application
$ cd my-application/
Here is the list of things you will probably need to add to your project:
- Add a Procfile in the project root;
- Add requirements.txt file with all the requirements in the project root;
- Add Gunicorn to requirements.txt;
- A runtime.txt to specify the correct Python version in the project root;
- Configure whitenoise to serve static files.
The Procfile
- Create a file named Procfile in the project root
- Add the following content :
web: gunicorn my-application.wsgi --log-file -
Note: change my-applicatio with the name of your Django project.
The requirements.txt
Run this command, this command will list all dependencies :
$ pip freeze > requirements.txt
You should see somthing like this :
dj-database-url==version
Django==version
gunicorn==version
psycopg2==version
psycopg2-binary==version
pytz==version
whitenoise==version
The runtime.txt
Create a file named runtime.txt in the project root, and put the specific Python version your project use:
python 3.8
Set Up The Static Assets
Configure the STATIC-related parameters on settings.py:
# Static files (CSS, JavaScript, Images)
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/2.2/howto/static-files/
STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'staticfiles')
STATIC_URL = '/static/'
STATICFILES_DIRS = [
os.path.join(BASE_DIR, "static")
]
Configure Whitenoise
Install Whitenoise
$ pip install whitenoise
Add the Whitenoise to your Django application in the wsgi.py file:
"""
WSGI config for repertoire project.
It exposes the WSGI callable as a module-level variable named ``application``.
For more information on this file, see
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/2.2/howto/deployment/wsgi/
"""
import os
from whitenoise.django import DjangoWhiteNoise
from django.core.wsgi import get_wsgi_application
os.environ.setdefault('DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE', 'my-application.settings')
application = get_wsgi_application()
application = DjangoWhiteNoise(application)
Update the settings.py
STATICFILES_STORAGE = 'whitenoise.django.GzipManifestStaticFilesStorage'
Add whitenoise middleware at the top of the middleware list in settings.py
Deploy the application
Update Database Configuration in settings.py (at the bottom of the file)
import dj_database_url
prod_db = dj_database_url.config(conn_max_age=500)
DATABASES['default'].update(prod_db)
Create App in Heroku from terminal
$ heroku create myapplication
Creating ⬢ myapplication... done
https://myapplication.herokuapp.com/ | https://git.heroku.com/myapplication.git
Choose any name for your app. Heroku will inform you if the name already exists
Add your app domain name to ALLOWED_HOSTS in settings.py.
ALLOWED_HOSTS = ['myapplication.herokuapp.com']
Initialize Git and connect your new app (or existing one) to Heroku Git remote repository and push the application.
in your terminal / CMD :
$ git init
$ heroku git:remote -a myapplication
$ git add .
$ commit -m "Initial commit"
$ git push heroku master
If you get an error message with collectstatic, simply disable it by instructing Heroku to ignore running the manage.py collecstatic command during the deployment process.
$ heroku config:set DISABLE_COLLECTSTATIC=1
Then, run :
$ git push heroku master
Migrate the database :
$ heroku run python manage.py migrate
Let me know in the comment section if you've any error.
Thank you for reading.
Top comments (5)
Awesome tutorial, Ousseynou! I would suggest on the Procfile that instead of placing this
web: gunicorn my-application.wsgi --log-file -
Do this so you won't have to run migrations after it gets deployed
release: python manage.py migrate
web: gunicorn my-application.wsgi:application
I hope this helps!
Thank you, very helpful!
Super tutoriel, Ousseynou diop
Thank you M. Thiam
STATICFILES_STORAGE = 'whitenoise.django.GzipManifestStaticFilesStorage' does not work for me. Instead I use STATICFILES_STORAGE = 'whitenoise.storage.CompressedManifestStaticFilesStorage'