Hosting: Django on AWS (using dokku)

Hosting django server on AWS-EC2 Instance using Ubuntu/Linux Distro (Full guide)

This guide is to host Django server on AWS using DOKKU (a open-source dockarized herokuish container).

Step 1 - AWS Instance Configuration

This is one of the ways you could configure your dokku AWS server so take this not as instruction but as a guide for setup.

Go to https://aws.amazon.com/.
Click on Sign in to the Console button and login into your AWS Account.
Go to Services -> Compute -> EC2 -> Launch Instance.
Configurations:
- Name : my-app-django
- Application: Ubuntu
- Instance type: t2.micro ( free tier )
- Key pair(login): Generate key pair (if you haven’t) and save the .pem file.
- Network settings (Important):
  
  Select Allow SSH traffic from anywhere.
  
  Allow HTTPs traffic from the internet
  
  Allow HTTP traffic from the internet
- Configure Storage: 12 GiB gp2 (recommended) but 10 GiB gp2 should work too.
Click on Launch Instance.

Before connecting to the EC2 instance you may want to associate a static IP to the instance so if you need to restart the instance you will still retain the same IP.

(Optional) Elastic IP

EC2 Dashboard -> Network & Security -> Elastic IPs.

Click on Allocate Elastic IP address -> Allocate.

Once the IP is allocated. Select the newly created Elastic IP & Click Actions->Associate Elastic IP Address

Choose the instance from Step 1. Click Associate.

Once the instance status is running. Select the instance and Actions-> Connect

Step 2 - Connect to AWS Instance

Select the instance and click Connect.

Copy the Public IP address from EC2 Instance Connect Tab

Now, Open terminal and change permissions on the .pem file from Step-1

$ sudo chmod 400 your_ssh_key.pem

In the same folder, paste the copied public ip instead of <your_instance_public_ip>

$ ssh -i "<your_ssh_key>.pem" ubuntu@<your_instance_public_ip>

you should see a prompt like:

ubuntu@<your_instance_public_ip>:~$

Step 3 - Install and Configure Dokku

You will need generate your public/private ssh-keys in a new local terminal:

$ ssh-keygen

Go to https://dokku.com/ and run the commands show in the Quick Start instructions one by one.

May be different in future versions of dokku.
For command: echo “your-public-key-contents-here” | dokku ssh-keys:add admin

Copy the contents of ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub file and replace “your-public-key-contents-here” with it.
Finally create an app:

$ dokku apps:create <dokku_app_name>

Step 4: Prepare the Django Project for dokku/heroku

Once we have everything configured we can connect django backend with dokku.

Open a terminal and run

$ cd path/to/django_project
$ source venv/bin/activate  # activate venv which ever you are using

Install gunicorn and create requirements.txt and Procfile.

$ pip install gunicorn
$ pip freeze > requirements.txt
$ echo 'web: gunicorn <django_app_name>.wsgi' > Procfile

(Recommended) Specify runtime

Create a runtime.txt in project’s root folder to specify python version.

$ echo 'python-3.10.6' > runtime.txt

Step 5 - Connecting your source with dokku

(Recommended, Optional) Update .gitignore before pushing

Make sure you have added venv and the database to .gitignore

venv

*/__pycache__/
db.sqlite3

Initialize git and push the code to your instance.

$ git init
$ git remote add dokku dokku@<your_instance_public_ip>:<dokku_app_name>
$ git add .
$ git commit -m "init"
$ git push dokku <master/main>

(Optional, Recommended) Step 6 - Using postgres on Dokku and Local

Dokku: Using Postgres as database

Local: Using Postgres as database

Step 6: Configuring Domain Name or IP address

Connect to remote instance with SSH as in Step-2

And check the domain configurations.

$ dokku domains:report

if there are domains preconfigured remove all domains (global and app-specific) using

$ dokku domains:remove-global <domain>
$ dokku domains:remove <app_name> <domain>

And then set it to instance IP address or a domain if you have bought from a Domain Name Provider.

To set IP Address

$ dokku domains:add-global <public_IP_address>
$ dokku domains:add <app_name> <public_IP_address>

Your app should now be visible at http://public_IP_address

To set Domain name

Configure an A record in your DNS configuration on you Domain name providers site.

and in your instance set the domain names like:

$ dokku domains:add-global <domain_name>
$ dokku domains:add <app_name> <domain_name>

Your app should now be visible at http://domain.domain_name

Hurray your app is hosted online for public to see.

Thanks for reading. I hope this was of help to you.