Deploying Django on Apache2 with mod_wsgi - Correct location for Django project?

Question

I am trying to deploy my first Django project on my webserver. I am both new to server configuration and Django so I have a hard time finding my errors.

In most tutorials I have seen online, the Django project on the production server is created in /var/www/myproject - however, the Django documentation recommends putting the code outside of /var/www/ for security reasons (see: https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.9/intro/tutorial01/).

So, I put my Django project in a subdirectory of my home folder, which is not accessible to Apache. I added no file to /var/www as no tutorial mentions that this would be necessary.

After setting up Django with mod_wsgi according to these tutorials:
(https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.9/howto/deployment/wsgi/modwsgi/ ,
https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-serve-django-applications-with-apache-and-mod_wsgi-on-ubuntu-14-04 ,
http://tutorial.djangogirls.org/en/deploy/)
when I access my webserver via browser all I see is the default index.html site. Running and accessing the development server of Django from my webserver does not work either. In both cases, when I try to access the admin page I get a standard 404 Error.

Am I supposed to put some files into /var/www/ after all?

Could it be an issue that I use a Let'sEncrypt certificate and during the setup with auto-certbot chose to automatically redirect http to https?

Some of my configured files (I left out parts that I didn't change/have nothing to do with Django):

/etc/apache2/apache2.conf

LoadModule wsgi_module /usr/lib/apache2/modules/mod_wsgi.so

/etc/apache2/sites-available/000-default.conf

    DocumentRoot /var/www/html

    Alias /static /home/me/django/mysite/app/static
    <Directory /home/me/django/mysite/app/static>
            Require all granted
    </Directory>

    <Directory /home/me/django/mysite/mysite>
            <Files wsgi.py>
                    Require all granted
            </Files>
    </Directory>

    WSGIDaemonProcess mysite python-path=/home/me/django/mysite:/home/me/django/djangoenv/lib/python2.7/site-packages
    WSGIProcessGroup mysite
    WSGIScriptAlias / /home/me/django/mysite/mysite/wsgi.py

/home/me/django/mysite/mysite/wsgi.py

import os
import sys

path = '/home/sirhys/django/mysite'  
if path not in sys.path:
    sys.path.append(path)

os.environ['DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE'] = 'mysite.settings'

from django.core.wsgi import get_wsgi_application
from django.contrib.staticfiles.handlers import StaticFilesHandler
application = StaticFilesHandler(get_wsgi_application())

/home/me/django/mysite/mysite/settings.py

DEBUG = False

ALLOWED_HOSTS = [
        'www.mysite.com',
        'mysite.com'
]

SITE_ROOT = os.path.dirname(os.path.realpath(__file__))
STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(SITE_ROOT, '..', 'app/static')
STATIC_URL = '/static/'

Thank you!

Edit:
In the end, I found the issue to be a conflict between the different out-of-the-box config files I have on my server. Apparently, the Let's Encrypt SSL config file was overriding all other files in /etc/apache2/sites-available. When I put the WSGI-config lines there, it worked like a charm.
I have my code in my home directory now, and it is working. I decided to put my static files into /var/www/static via collectstatic. This is working for me but it seems the exact location of code and static files is really irrelevant.

Answer 1

Your config only for one website, need use virtual host

Example deploy:

For python3 install mod_wsgi (debian based system)

apt-get install libapache2-mod-wsgi-py3

Put your project in standard apache location

/var/www/myproj 

where myproj = name you django project

Check project

python3 manage.py check

or/and run it

python3 manage.py runserver 0.0.0.0:8000

if your domain example.com, then http://example.com:8000/ or use server IP.

Allow apache2 read and write content

chown www-data:www-data /var/www/myproj -R

Config apache 2.4

cd /etc/apache2/sites-available
editor myproj.conf

and Apache2.4 minimal config (many sites)

<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName example.com
ServerAlias www.example.com

DocumentRoot /var/www/myproj

WSGIDaemonProcess example.com python-path=/var/www/myproj

WSGIScriptAlias / /var/www/myproj/myproj/wsgi.py \
    process-group=example.com application-group=%{GLOBAL}

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

# static
Alias /media/ /var/www/myproj/media/
Alias /static/ /var/www/myproj/static/
Alias /robots.txt /var/www/myproj/robots.txt
# logs
ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/myproj-error.log
LogLevel warn
CustomLog /var/log/apache2/myproj-access.log combined

</VirtualHost>

Virtualenv: python path + virtual, example

python-path=/path/www/myproj python-home=/path/to/venv

Using daemon mode exclusively, add to /etc/apache2/mods-available/wsgi.load

WSGIRestrictEmbedded On

Enable config

a2ensite myproj.conf

Check syntax

apachectl -t

Restart apache or reload

service apache2 restart

---

Example config apache2.4 with define variable. Django > 1.6. Set only domain, path, name project. In example path to dir /var/www/example.com/myproject/myproect/wsgi.py, static url /media/ and /static/

Define:

1. domain - your domain name (example.com)
2. path - full path to project, folder where manage.py (/var/www/example.com/myproj)
3. project - name project, folder name where wsgi.py (myproj)

https://gist.github.com/leotop/9a78c10c0961cdd2bbe9633d6ebf8a5b

<VirtualHost *:80>
Define domain example.com
Define path /var/www/${domain}/myproj
Define project myproj


ServerName ${domain}
ServerAlias www.${domain}

DocumentRoot ${path}

WSGIDaemonProcess ${domain} python-path=${path}

WSGIScriptAlias / ${path}/${project}/wsgi.py \
    process-group=${domain} application-group=%{GLOBAL}

<Directory ${path}/${project}>
    <Files wsgi.py>
        Require all granted
    </Files>
</Directory>


Alias /media/ ${path}/media/
Alias /static/ ${path}/static/
Alias /robots.txt ${path}/static/robots.txt
Alias /favicon.ico ${path}/static/favicon.ico

<Location "/media/">
    Options -Indexes
</Location>

<Location "/static/">
    Options -Indexes
</Location>

ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/${domain}-error.log
LogLevel warn
CustomLog /var/log/apache2/${domain}-access.log combined

</VirtualHost>