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Python: How to install Django

In this article, we will show you the steps needed to install Django and setup a basic application.

For this article, you will need SSH access to your account.

1) First we need to edit our bashrc file to add our python path.

nano ~/.bashrc

and add the following to the end
export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"

Once you have added it, we need to save the file. You can do this by pushing Ctrl+X on your keyboard. If prompted, press Y and then enter.

Then we need to source our bashrc file so the server picks up the changes. We can do this by running the following command.

. ~/.bashrc

2) Next we need to create a tmpdownload folder so we can download all the required files for Django.

mkdir ~/tmpdownload

cd ~/tmpdownload

3) Now we need to download Django itself and extract it.

wget https://www.djangoproject.com/download/1.4.3/tarball/

tar xzf Django-*.tar.gz && rm Django-*.tar.gz

cd Django-*

4) Now its time to install Django

python2.6 setup.py install --user

5) Now we need to create the folder our projects will reside in.

mkdir ~/projects

cd ~/projects

6) Next we need to create our project and start our application

django-admin.py startproject myproject

cd myproject

./manage.py startapp myapp

7) Now we need to create the htaccess file that will point users to our fcgi script that we are about to create.

cd ~/public_html

nano .htaccess

add the following contents, then save the file (Ctrl+X)

AddHandler fcgid-script .fcgi
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.fcgi/$1 [QSA,L]

8) Now we need to create the fcgi file that will link to our project.

nano index.fcgi

now add the following

#!/usr/bin/env python2.6
import sys, os
# Don't edit above this line!
#
# Enter your username between the quotes here...
USERNAME="username"
# ...and your project's name here
PROJECTNAME="myproject"
#
# Don't edit below this line!
#
# Add a custom Python path.
sys.path.insert(0,
'/home/'+USERNAME+'/.local/lib/python2.6/site-packages')
sys.path.insert(0, '/home/'+USERNAME+'/projects/'+PROJECTNAME)
#
# Switch to the directory of your project.
os.chdir('/home/'+USERNAME+'/projects/'+PROJECTNAME)
#
# Set the DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE environment variable.
os.environ['DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE'] = PROJECTNAME+'.settings'
from django.core.servers.fastcgi import runfastcgi
runfastcgi(method="threaded", daemonize="false")

Make sure you replace the items in bold with the correct information for your account/project. Once you are done, save the file (Ctrl+X)

now you need to run the following

chmod +x index.fcgi

9) Now lets clean up our tmpdownload folder:

rm -r ~/tmpdownload

That’s it! You now know how to install django and setup a project.

If you wish to setup Django outside of your public_html directory (e.g. http://example.com/django), simply cd to a different directory in step 7.

Please Note: In some situations, you may not notice changes made to your code/website. This can be resolved by killing/stopping the index.fcgi process over SSH. For more information on how to do this, please click here.