Distributing Django projects with unique SECRET_KEYs

Question

I have a Django project that I\'d like to distribute on a public repository like bitbucket or github. I\'d like it to be as easy to install as possible, so I\'m including t

Answer 1

I'd go about it this way:

Have the secret key in a separate file "secret_key.py". This file does not exist for a pristine installation. In your settings.py include something like:

try:
    from .secret_key import SECRET_KEY
except ImportError:
    SETTINGS_DIR = os.path.abspath(os.path.dirname(__file__))
    generate_secret_key(os.path.join(SETTINGS_DIR, 'secret_key.py'))
    from .secret_key import SECRET_KEY

The function generate_secret_key(filename) that you will write generates a file called filename (which, as we call it, will be secret_key.py in the same dir as settings.py) with the contents:

SECRET_KEY = '....random string....'

Where random string is the generated key based on a random number.

For key generation you can use Umang's suggestion https://stackoverflow.com/a/16630719/166761.