Get started with Django

To get started, we suggest the following steps:

Step 1. Create a new Django project

• First, create a new folder to store your Django projects, such as the /opt/bitnami/projects directory, and give write permissions for the current system user. Replace the PROJECT placeholder with the name of your project in this and all subsequent commands.

    $ sudo mkdir -p /opt/bitnami/projects/PROJECT
    $ sudo chown -R $USER /opt/bitnami/projects
  

• Then, initialize a new Django project with the following command:

    $ django-admin startproject PROJECT /opt/bitnami/projects/PROJECT
  

Configure database credentials

If you wish to configure a database for your project, you will need to configure the database credentials in the settings.py file. The examples below show how to configure the database connection with a database called “PROJECT”.

NOTE: Replace the USERNAME and PASSWORD placeholders with your database user and password, respectively. Learn how to obtain the database credentials.

• SQLite:

    DATABASES = {
        'default': {
            'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.sqlite3',
            'NAME': os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'db.sqlite3'),
        }
    }
  

• MariaDB:

    DATABASES = {
        'default': {
            'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.mysql',
            'NAME': 'PROJECT',
            'HOST': '/opt/bitnami/mariadb/tmp/mysql.sock',
            'PORT': '3306',
            'USER': 'USERNAME',
            'PASSWORD': 'PASSWORD'
        }
    }
  

• PostgreSQL:

    DATABASES = {
        'default': {
            'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql_psycopg2',
            'NAME': 'PROJECT',
            'HOST': '/opt/bitnami/postgresql',
            'PORT': '5432',
            'USER': 'USERNAME',
            'PASSWORD': 'PASSWORD'
        }
    }
  

Create project database and initialize the schema

To create the project database and initialize the schema for your Django project, change to your project directory and run the following command:

$ cd /opt/bitnami/projects/PROJECT
$ python manage.py migrate

Add a sample application with a welcome page

By default, Django does not add any application to your project. To add an application, follow the steps below:

• Create the helloworld application:

  $ cd /opt/bitnami/projects/PROJECT
  $ python manage.py startapp helloworld
  

• Edit the helloworld/views.py file and ensure it contains the following:

  from django.http import HttpResponse
  def index(request):
      return HttpResponse("Hello, world.")
  

• Create and edit the helloworld/urls.py file and ensure it contains the following:

  from django.urls import path
  from . import views
  urlpatterns = [
      path('', views.index, name='index'),
  ]
  

• Edit the PROJECT/urls.py file and ensure it contains the following:

  from django.contrib import admin
  from django.urls import include, path
  urlpatterns = [
      path('', include('helloworld.urls')),
      path('admin/', admin.site.urls),
  ]
  

Test your Django project

The Django project can be started by using this command from the /opt/bitnami/projects/PROJECT directory, and it will run on port 8000:

$ cd /opt/bitnami/projects/PROJECT
$ python manage.py runserver

To access the application, browse to http://SERVER-IP:8000/. To end the application, terminate the running Django process.

Step 2. Serve your application through the Apache Web server

For a production environment, it is recommended to configure Apache with the mod_wsgi module before serving your application. For more information, refer to these instructions.

Step 3: Create an HTTPS certificate for Apache

To learn how to create an HTTPS certificate for Apache, refer to the auto-configure a Let’s Encrypt certificate section.