Deploy Django Website to AWS (EC2)

To deploy our website, we chose to use AWS for reasons described in the technical memo, but it’s primarily because popularity and funding options. To do that, I have decided to use AWS EC2, which for all practical purposes, is just a remote computer. What we need to setup to run this website in production is a webserver, which for safety, efficiency and other reasons I’m not sure of is the best way to run a website. Examples of webservers include Apache, and more recently, nginx. So to deploy our website, we need to a) find a place to run it on b) set up a webserver, and c) set up the django environment. Here, we do that on AWS EC2 with an Ubuntu instance with an Apache web server and mod_wsgi for connection. See the following steps to deploy. To do this, we’re using the Django Configuration with Apache2 and WSGI (whatever that is) somewhat following this tutorial. You don’t need to look at it though. #. Preprocessing

1. We’re using the whitenoise package to collect all the static files. I know very minimally about how it works or why we need it, but it collects static files (which we need to deploy) in the “staticfiles” folder under MLDjango/mldjango. To start with, and make sure we’re up to date, we need to update those files. Run the following.

   $ python manage.py collectstatic
   

2. Push all updates to the Github. We’ll transfer over the repo that way.

   $ git add .
   $ git commit -m "Final Updates"
   $ git push
   

1. Create and launch AWS EC2 computer

   1. Login to AWS, go to EC2.

   2. Click Launch instance, name the instance to your hearts content

   3. Pick the Ubuntu Application and OS Image (mod_wsgi is not easily accessible on amazon linux, so make sure this is right)

   4. Pick t2.micro for cheapest free tier price

   5. Allow SSH traffic (and https and http if you can)

   6. Create Key Pair (you shouldn’t need this unless SSHing)

   7. That’s it, click Launch Instance

   8. Once it’s been created, we need to make sure the EC2 instance allows inbound traffic for websites

   9. Go to Actions -> Security -> Change Security Groups. You need to have the linked rules. Figure out how to create a security group and add it if not.They allow http, https,and ssh traffic. The 8000 port allows to run the debug server to test.

   10. Make a note of the Public IPv4 adress, that’s the one that we’ll use.

2. Set up EC2 computer

   1. Click Connect on the instance and do ec2 instance connect. Open it.

   2. Run the following commands.

      $ sudo apt-get update # To make sure it is up to date.
      $ sudo apt-get install python3-pip apache2 libapache2-mod-wsgi-py3 python3.12-venv # This installs python pip, the webserver, and mod_wsgi
      $ cd ~ # This is where we place all files for the webserver before moving to /var/wwww
      $ sudo python3 -m venv ~/mldjango-venv # Create Virtual Environment
      $ source ~mldjango-venv/bin/activate $ Activate Environment
      $ sudo git clone [REPO-LINK] # Clone repo, I use https because it was easier
      $ cd MLDjango # Enter repo
      $ pip install -r requirements.txt # Download packages
      $ cd mldjango # get to manage.py folder
      $ python manage.py migrate # Migrate databases
      $ python manage.py ingest_data LakeLevels StaticQuestionProducts [ANYOTHERs] # Ingest tables as needed see tables docs for more info
      $ python manage.py createsuperuser # Don't forget to recreate admin.
      $ python manage.py runserver 0.0.0.0:800 # Test if django is working in debug environment and then go to the Public IPv4 address:8000 to see if it shows up. Remember it's http not https!
      $ ^C # To exit server
      $ cd ~ #move both virtual environment and django to /var/www
      $ sudo mv MLDjango /var/www/
      $ sudo mvmldjango-venv /var/www/
      $ cd /var/www # Change permissions so apache can use it
      $ sudo chown -R www-data: MLDjango
      $ sudo chown -R www-data: mldjango-venv
      $ cd /etc/apache2 # Add the following the apache2.conf or httpd.conf file
      $ sudo vim apache2.conf # Add it here
          Alias /static /var/www/MLDjango/mldjango/staticfiles
          <Directory /var/www/MLDjango/mldjango/staticfiles>
              Require all granted
          </Directory>
      
          <Directory /var/www/MLDjango/mldjango/mldjango>
          <Files wsgi.py>
              Require all granted
          </Files>
          </Directory>
          WSGIScriptAlias / /var/www/MLDjango/mldjango/mldjango/wsgi.py
          WSGIDaemonProcess mldjango python-home=/var/www/mldjango-venv python-path=/var/www/MLDjango/mldjango
          WSGIProcessGroup mldjango
      $ sudo service apache2 restart # Restart the webserver. That's it! Go to http://PublicIPv4Adress
      

   3. Set up Https: See the following link: https://www.arubacloud.com/tutorial/how-to-enable-https-protocol-with-apache-2-on-ubuntu-20-04.aspx