This simple Django project is an excellent template for your future projects. It includes everything you need to quickly set up a quality technology stack and start developing your web application's business logic, skipping all the complex deployment issues at an early stage.

The technology stack used includes:

• Python ver. 3.11
• Django ver. 4.2
• PostgreSQL ver. 15
• Gunicorn ver. 20.1
• Traefik ver. 2.9
• Docker and Docker Compose

Nothing extra, only the essentials! You can easily add everything else yourself by expanding the existing configuration files:

• requirements.txt
• docker-compose.yml
• and others...

This project includes a simple Django application from the official Django tutorial - "a basic poll application". You can safely delete this application at any time. This application is present in the project as an example, used for testing and debugging.

So, what do you get by using this project as a template for your project? Let's take a look.

• A well-configured Django project, with individual settings that can be changed using environment variables
• Building and debugging a Django project in Docker
• A ready-made docker-compose file that brings together Postgres - Django - Gunicorn - Traefik
• Serving static files (and user-uploaded files) with Nginx
• Automatic database migration and static file collection when starting or restarting the Django container
• Automatic creation of the first user in Django with a default login and password
• Automatic creation and renewal of Let's Encrypt certificate 🔥
• Minimal dependencies
• Everything is set up as simply as possible - just a couple of commands in the terminal, and you have a working project 🚀

1. Clone the repository to your computer and go to the django-docker-template directory:

git clone https://github.com/amerkurev/django-docker-template.git
cd django-docker-template

2. Build the Docker container image with Django:

docker build -t django-docker-template:master .

3. Run the Django development server inside the Django container:

docker run -it --rm -p 8000:8000 -v sqlite:/sqlite -v $(pwd)/website:/usr/src/website django-docker-template:master python manage.py runserver 0.0.0.0:8000

Now you can go to http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin/ in your browser. The superuser with the login and password admin/admin is already created. Go to the Django admin panel and try updating the server code "on the fly." Everything works just like if you were running the Django development server outside the container.

Note that we mount the directory with your source code inside the container, so you can work with the project in your IDE, and changes will be visible inside the container, and the Django development server will restart itself.

Another important point is the use of SQLite3 instead of Postgres (which we don't run). In our example, we add a volume named sqlite. This data is stored persistently and does not disappear between restarts of the Django development server. However, if you have a second similar project, it would be better to change the volume name from sqlite to something else so that the second project uses its own copy of the database. For example:

docker run -it --rm -p 8000:8000 -v another_sqlite:/sqlite -v $(pwd)/website:/usr/src/website django-docker-template:master python manage.py runserver 0.0.0.0:8000

To better understand how volumes work in Docker, refer to the official documentation.

4. Run tests:

docker run -it --rm django-docker-template:master python manage.py test polls

5. Interactive shell with the Django project environment:

docker run -it --rm -v sqlite:/sqlite django-docker-template:master python manage.py shell

6. Start all services locally (Postgres, Gunicorn, Traefik) using docker-compose:

docker compose -f docker-compose.debug.yml up

Enjoy watching the lines run in the terminal 🖥️
And after a few seconds, open your browser at http://127.0.0.1/admin/. The first user already exists, welcome to the Django admin panel.

Django is still in Debug mode! You can work in your IDE, write code, and immediately see changes inside the container. However, you are currently using Traefik and Postgres. You can also add Redis or MongoDB, and all of this will work in your development environment. This is very convenient.

Between Docker Compose restarts, your database data and media files uploaded to the server will be preserved because they are stored in special volumes that are not deleted when containers are restarted.

Want to delete everything? No problem, the command below will stop all containers, remove them and their images.

docker compose down --remove-orphans --rmi local

To delete the Postgre database as well, add the -v flag to the command:

docker compose down --remove-orphans --rmi local -v

Some Django settings from the settings.py file are stored in environment variables. You can easily change these settings in the .env file. This file does not contain all the necessary settings, but many of them. Add additional settings to environment variables if needed.

It is important to note the following: never store sensitive settings such as DJANGO_SECRET_KEY or DJANGO_EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD in your repository! Docker allows you to override environment variable values from additional files, the command line, or the current session. Store passwords and other sensitive information separately from the code and only connect this information at system startup.

With the containers running, you can run manage.py commands using this format:

• Run test suite

docker-compose exec django python manage.py test

• Access the Django shell

docker-compose exec django python manage.py shell

For the Let's Encrypt HTTP challenge you will need:

• A publicly accessible host allowing connections on port 80 & 443 with docker & docker-compose installed. A virtual machine in any cloud provider can be used as a host.
• A DNS record with the domain you want to expose pointing to this host.

1. Clone the repository on your host and go to the django-docker-template directory:

git clone https://github.com/amerkurev/django-docker-template.git
cd django-docker-template

2. Configure as described in the Django settings section or leave everything as is.

3. Run, specifying your domain:

MY_DOMAIN=your.domain.com docker compose -f docker-compose.yml -f docker-compose.tls.yml up -d

It will take a few seconds to start the database, migrate, collect static files, and obtain a Let's Encrypt certificate. So wait a little and open https://your.domain.com in your browser. Your server is ready to work 🏆

Don't worry about renewing the Let's Encrypt certificate, it will happen automatically.

Now that you have a working project, you can extend it as you like, adding dashboards for monitoring service health, centralized log collection, secret storage, and of course, your own Django applications. All of this is beyond the scope of the current description, as the idea of this project is minimalism and providing only the essentials. Good luck!

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