Django is a python based full stack framework. This framework works based on the model-template-view architectural patterns. Django is considered to be one of the popular web based development frameworks for developing Python’s server applications.

The high profile websites that use Django are Disqus, Instagram, MacArthur Foundation, National Geographic channel, Knight Foundation, Pinterest, Open knowledge foundation, and open stack software.

We will be installing Django application in a Python virtual environment. It is very useful because it allows developers to run and develop an application with different python versions.

Step 1: Update Operating System

Update your Ubuntu 22.04 operating system to the latest version with the following command:

# apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

Step 2: Install Apache with mod_wsgi Module

To setup Django to production we will install Apache and the Apache mod_wsgi module.

You can install them via apt package manager by executing the following command:

# apt install apache2 libapache2-mod-wsgi-py3

Once all the packages are installed, you can start the Apache service and configure it to run on startup by entering the following commands:

# systemctl start apache2
# systemctl enable apache2

Verify the status of the Apache service using systemctl status command:

# systemctl status apache2

Output:

● apache2.service - The Apache HTTP Server
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/apache2.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running)
       Docs: https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/
   Main PID: 39757 (apache2)
      Tasks: 55 (limit: 2200)
     Memory: 15.2M
        CPU: 206ms
     CGroup: /system.slice/apache2.service
             ├─39757 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
             ├─39761 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start
             └─39762 /usr/sbin/apache2 -k start

Step 3: Install MySQL and create a database

You can install the MySQL server and libmysqlclient-dev (MySQL database development files) with the following command:

# apt install mysql-server libmysqlclient-dev

Start the database server daemon, and also enable it to start automatically at the next boot with the following commands:

# systemctl start mysql
# systemctl enable mysql

Verify the status of the MySQL service using systemctl status command:

# systemctl status mysql

Output:

● mysql.service - MySQL Community Server
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/mysql.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running)
   Main PID: 41039 (mysqld)
     Status: "Server is operational"
      Tasks: 39 (limit: 2200)
     Memory: 358.9M
        CPU: 1.070s
     CGroup: /system.slice/mysql.service
             └─41039 /usr/sbin/mysqld

Once the database server is installed, log into the MySQL prompt:

#  mysql -u root

To create a database, database user, and grant all privileges to the database user run the following commands:

mysql> CREATE DATABASE django_db;
mysql> CREATE USER 'django_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'Pa$$word';
mysql> GRANT ALL ON django_db.* TO 'django_user'@'localhost';
mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
mysql> EXIT

Step 4: Install Pip on Ubuntu 22.04

Python comes already installed by default on Ubuntu 22.04. You can verify it by checking its version:

# python3 -V

Output:
Python 3.10.6

Use the following command to install pip and venv on Ubuntu 22.04:

# apt install python3-venv python3-pip

Verify your Pip installation by checking its version:

# pip3 --version

Output:
pip 22.0.2 from /usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/pip (python 3.10)

Step 5: Install Django Using Virtualenv

First, create a directory and switch to it with the commands below:

# mkdir /var/www/django_project 
# cd /var/www/django_project

Before you install Django, you first need to create a Python virtual environment.

# python3 -m venv django_env

Next, activate the virtual environment with the following command:

# source django_env/bin/activate

Next, install the latest  Django version using the following command:

(django_env) # pip install django

You will get the following output:

Collecting django
  Downloading Django-4.1.1-py3-none-any.whl (8.1 MB)
     ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 8.1/8.1 MB 3.3 MB/s eta 0:00:00
Collecting asgiref<4,>=3.5.2
  Downloading asgiref-3.5.2-py3-none-any.whl (22 kB)
Collecting sqlparse>=0.2.2
  Downloading sqlparse-0.4.3-py3-none-any.whl (42 kB)
     ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 42.8/42.8 kB 2.0 MB/s eta 0:00:00
Installing collected packages: sqlparse, asgiref, django
Successfully installed asgiref-3.5.2 django-4.1.1 sqlparse-0.4.3

Verify the Django version with the following command:

(django_env) # django-admin --version

You will get the following output:

4.1.1

Since you are setting a production site ensure you’ve python mysqlclient installed:

(django_env) # pip install mysqlclient

You will get the following output:

Collecting mysqlclient
  Downloading mysqlclient-2.1.1.tar.gz (88 kB)
     ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 88.1/88.1 KB 1.3 MB/s eta 0:00:00
  Preparing metadata (setup.py) ... done
Using legacy 'setup.py install' for mysqlclient, since package 'wheel' is not installed.
Installing collected packages: mysqlclient
  Running setup.py install for mysqlclient ... done
Successfully installed mysqlclient-2.1.1

Step 6: Creating your Django project

Now you need to create Django project in django_project directory.

(django_env) # django-admin startproject django_app .

Next, modify settings.py file:

(django_env) # nano django_app/settings.py

Add the URL in ALLOWED_HOST List which is above INSTALLED_APPS.

ALLOWED_HOSTS = ['your_server_ip', 'your-domain.com']

The default database set in Django is SQLite. Replace SQLite database backend:

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

with MySQL database engine backend :

DATABASES = {
'default': {
'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.mysql',
'NAME': 'django_db',
'USER': 'django_user',
'PASSWORD': 'Pa$$word',
'HOST': '127.0.0.1',
'PORT' : '3306',
}
}

In order for our webserver to serve the static files add the following lines:

import os

STATIC_URL='/static/'
STATIC_ROOT=os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'static/') 

MEDIA_URL='/media/'
MEDIA_ROOT=os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'media/')

Once done, save the file and exit the text editor.

Now, You can migrate the initial database schema to our MySQL database using the management script:

(django_env) # ./manage.py  makemigrations
(django_env) # ./manage.py  migrate

Create an administrative user for the project by typing:

(django_env) # ./manage.py createsuperuser

You will have to provide a username, an email address, and choose and confirm a password.

Username (leave blank to use 'root'): admin
Email address: admin@your-domain.com
Password:
Password (again):
Superuser created successfully.

You can collect all of the static content into the directory location you configured by running the command:

(django_env) # ./manage.py collectstatic

This will collect all the project static files in static directory. It will give some output like this:

130 static files copied to '/var/www/django_project/static'.

To deactivate the virtual environment run the following command:

(django_env) # deactivate

Step 7: Configure Apache Web Server for Django

Navigate to /etc/apache2/sites-available directory and run the following command to create a configuration file for your installation:

# nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/django.conf

Add the following content:

<VirtualHost *:80>

        ServerAdmin admin@your-domain.com
        ServerName your-domain.com
        ServerAlias www.your-domain.com

        DocumentRoot /var/www/django_project/

        ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/your-domain.com_error.log
        CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/your-domain.com_access.log combined

        Alias /static /var/www/django_project/static
        <Directory /var/www/django_project/static>
                Require all granted
        </Directory>

        Alias /media /var/www/django_project/media
        <Directory /var/www/django_project/media>
                Require all granted
         </Directory>

        <Directory /var/www/django_project/django_app>
                <Files wsgi.py>
                        Require all granted
                </Files>
        </Directory>

        WSGIDaemonProcess django_app python-path=/var/www/django_project python-home=/var/www/django_project/django_env
        WSGIProcessGroup django_app
        WSGIScriptAlias / /var/www/django_project/django_app/wsgi.py

</VirtualHost>

Save the file and Exit.

Enable the Django virtual host:

# a2ensite django.conf

Restart the Apache web server.

# systemctl restart apache2

Step 8: Access Django Project

That’s it the production site has been setup. You can now access your application with your domain at e.g http://your-domain.com

To access the admin dashboard, add /admin/ to the end of your URL http://your-domain.com/admin This will take you to a log in screen:

Enter your Django admin user, password and click on the Log in. You will get the Django administration dashboard in the following screen:

Comments and Conclusion

That’s it. You have successfully installed Django on Ubuntu 22.04 with Apache and WSGI. For additional information, you can check the official Django documentation.

If you have any questions please leave a comment below.