Server configuration

Components

• Apache2
• python3-pip
• virtualenv
• libapache2-mod-wsgi-py3
• PostgreSQL

Django

We use Django on the server side, which is a web framework written in Python. Deploying Django with Apache and mod_wsgi is a tried and tested way to get Django into production. mod_wsgi is an Apache module which can host any Python WSGI application.

Python packages

The required python packages are collected in the file requirements/local.txt. The idea behind having a separate base, local, and production requirement file is to distinguish between development and production environment. base lists packages required for all environments, whereas local is meant for development and production is meant for production. At the moment, production is the same as base.

virtualenv

To allow for multiple Python projects to be set up on the same server, we use virtualenv to separate the Python packages required for Civic Data from the Python packages directly installed on the server. The root folder of the virtualenv is ./venv. To activate the virtual environment, run source venv/bin/activate from the root folder.

To set up the virtual environment from the beginning, run the following commands from the root folder:

1. virtualenv venv
2. source venv/bin/activate
3. pip3 install -r requirements/local.txt

Apache

The settings for the site can be found in /etc/apache2/sites-available/civicdata.conf.

PostgreSQL

PostgreSQL is serving the database for the website. The database name, user, and password can be found in ./.env file. For a new installation of Postgres, password-based authentication must be enabled in the /etc/postgresql/9.5/main/pg_hba.conf file. Search for and edit the line

# "local" is for Unix domain socket connections only
local all all md5

After editing the configuration file, restart the Postgres service: sudo service postgresql restart.

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Tutorials that may be useful

How to serve Django applications with Apache and mod_wsgi
Django deployment with mod_wsgi