Setting Up Django for Production

Deploying Django applications to production requires careful consideration of security, performance, and reliability. This guide covers everything you need to know.

1. Essential Settings Configuration

First, let's configure the critical settings for production:

# settings.py
DEBUG = False

ALLOWED_HOSTS = ['yourdomain.com', 'www.yourdomain.com']

SECRET_KEY = os.environ.get('DJANGO_SECRET_KEY')

SECURE_SSL_REDIRECT = True
SESSION_COOKIE_SECURE = True
CSRF_COOKIE_SECURE = True
SECURE_BROWSER_XSS_FILTER = True

2. Database Optimization

Optimize your database configuration:

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql',
        'NAME': os.environ.get('DB_NAME'),
        'USER': os.environ.get('DB_USER'),
        'PASSWORD': os.environ.get('DB_PASSWORD'),
        'HOST': os.environ.get('DB_HOST'),
        'CONN_MAX_AGE': 600,
    }
}

3. Static and Media Files

Configure Static Files

Use a CDN for static file serving
Enable file compression
Set up caching headers

STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'staticfiles')
STATICFILES_STORAGE = 'django.contrib.staticfiles.storage.ManifestStaticFilesStorage'

MEDIA_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'media')
MEDIA_URL = '/media/'

4. Caching Configuration

Implement caching for better performance:

CACHES = {
    'default': {
        'BACKEND': 'django.core.cache.backends.redis.RedisCache',
        'LOCATION': 'redis://127.0.0.1:6379/1',
    }
}

5. Logging Setup

Configure proper logging for production:

LOGGING = {
    'version': 1,
    'disable_existing_loggers': False,
    'handlers': {
        'file': {
            'level': 'ERROR',
            'class': 'logging.FileHandler',
            'filename': '/path/to/django/errors.log',
        },
    },
    'loggers': {
        'django': {
            'handlers': ['file'],
            'level': 'ERROR',
            'propagate': True,
        },
    },
}

6. Security Measures

Security Checklist

Enable HTTPS everywhere
Set secure password policies
Configure security middleware
Update dependencies regularly

Deployment Checklist

Run security checks: python manage.py check --deploy
Collect static files: python manage.py collectstatic
Run database migrations
Test all functionality
Monitor application performance