How to Install django on Debian using nginx uwsgi

Here we are going install a basic django application using uwsgi application server and nginx as load balancer. Requirements:

• django code location: /usr/local/lib
• django project: hello

Let install few packages we need:

apt-get -y install nginx uwsgi \
    uwsgi-plugin-python python-django

Create a simple django application:

cd /usr/local/lib
django-admin startproject hello

uWSGI

Create uWSGI configuration (file /etc/uwsgi/apps-available/hello.yaml):

uwsgi:
    uid: www-data
    gid: www-data
    socket: /tmp/uwsgi-hello.sock
    plugins: http, python
    module: django.core.handlers.wsgi:WSGIHandler()
    pythonpath: /usr/local/lib
    chdir: /usr/local/lib/hello
    env: DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE=hello.settings 

Enable this configuration and restart uwsgi server:

ln -s /etc/uwsgi/apps-available/hello.yaml \
    /etc/uwsgi/apps-enabled/hello.yaml
/etc/init.d/uwsgi restart

nginx

Create nginx site configuration (file /etc/nginx/sites-available/hello):

upstream backend {
    server unix:///tmp/uwsgi-hello.sock;
}

server {
    location / { 
        uwsgi_pass  backend;
        include     uwsgi_params;
    }   

    location /static/admin/ {
        alias /usr/lib/pymodules/python2.6/django/contrib/admin/media/;
        access_log off;
        expires 7d;
    }

    location  /static/ {
        alias  /usr/local/lib/hello/static/;
        access_log off;
        expires 7d;
    }
}

Remove default site, enable this configuration and restart nginx server:

rm /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/default
ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/hello \
    /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/hello
/etc/init.d/nginx restart

nginx - uwsgi_cache

Web sites that serve almost static content (updated let say every 15 mins) can benefit by utilizing content caching:

   ...
uwsgi_cache_path   /var/cache/hello levels=1:2
                   keys_zone=NAME:15m
                   inactive=5m;
server {
   location / {
       uwsgi_pass  backend;
       include     uwsgi_params;
       uwsgi_cache   NAME;
       uwsgi_cache_valid   200 302 15m;
       uwsgi_cache_key $request_uri;
       expires 15m;
   }
   ...
}

If you experience performance issue with content rendering, overhead of framework internal time, have a willing to fine control content caching consider take a look at the following post and this one.