This document will get you up and running with Django.
Being a Python Web framework, Django requires Python.
It works with any Python version from 2.5 to 2.7 (due to backwards incompatibilities in Python 3.0, Django does not currently work with Python 3.0; see the Django FAQ for more information on supported Python versions and the 3.0 transition).
Get Python at http://www.python.org. If you’re running Linux or Mac OS X, you probably already have it installed.
Django on Jython
If you use Jython (a Python implementation for the Java platform), you’ll need to follow a few additional steps. See Running Django on Jython for details.
Python on Windows
On Windows, you might need to adjust your PATH environment variable
to include paths to Python executable and additional scripts. For example,
if your Python is installed in C:\Python27\, the following paths need
to be added to PATH:
C:\Python27\;C:\Python27\Scripts;
If you just want to experiment with Django, skip ahead to the next section; Django includes a lightweight web server you can use for testing, so you won’t need to set up Apache until you’re ready to deploy Django in production.
If you want to use Django on a production site, use Apache with mod_wsgi. mod_wsgi can operate in one of two modes: an embedded mode and a daemon mode. In embedded mode, mod_wsgi is similar to mod_perl – it embeds Python within Apache and loads Python code into memory when the server starts. Code stays in memory throughout the life of an Apache process, which leads to significant performance gains over other server arrangements. In daemon mode, mod_wsgi spawns an independent daemon process that handles requests. The daemon process can run as a different user than the Web server, possibly leading to improved security, and the daemon process can be restarted without restarting the entire Apache Web server, possibly making refreshing your codebase more seamless. Consult the mod_wsgi documentation to determine which mode is right for your setup. Make sure you have Apache installed, with the mod_wsgi module activated. Django will work with any version of Apache that supports mod_wsgi.
See How to use Django with mod_wsgi for information on how to configure mod_wsgi once you have it installed.
If you can’t use mod_wsgi for some reason, fear not: Django supports many other deployment options. One is uWSGI; it works very well with nginx. Another is FastCGI, perfect for using Django with servers other than Apache. Additionally, Django follows the WSGI spec (PEP 3333), which allows it to run on a variety of server platforms. See the server-arrangements wiki page for specific installation instructions for each platform.
If you plan to use Django’s database API functionality, you’ll need to make sure a database server is running. Django supports many different database servers and is officially supported with PostgreSQL, MySQL, Oracle and SQLite (although SQLite doesn’t require a separate server to be running).
In addition to the officially supported databases, there are backends provided by 3rd parties that allow you to use other databases with Django:
The Django versions and ORM features supported by these unofficial backends vary considerably. Queries regarding the specific capabilities of these unofficial backends, along with any support queries, should be directed to the support channels provided by each 3rd party project.
In addition to a database backend, you’ll need to make sure your Python database bindings are installed.
If you’re using PostgreSQL, you’ll need the postgresql_psycopg2 package.
You might want to refer to our PostgreSQL notes for
further technical details specific to this database.
If you’re on Windows, check out the unofficial compiled Windows version.
If you’re using MySQL, you’ll need MySQLdb, version 1.2.1p2 or higher. You will also want to read the database-specific notes for the MySQL backend.
If you’re using Oracle, you’ll need a copy of cx_Oracle, but please
read the database-specific notes for the Oracle backend
for important information regarding supported versions of both Oracle and
cx_Oracle.
If you’re using an unofficial 3rd party backend, please consult the documentation provided for any additional requirements.
If you plan to use Django’s manage.py syncdb command to
automatically create database tables for your models, you’ll need to
ensure that Django has permission to create and alter tables in the
database you’re using; if you plan to manually create the tables, you
can simply grant Django SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE and
DELETE permissions. On some databases, Django will need
ALTER TABLE privileges during syncdb but won’t issue
ALTER TABLE statements on a table once syncdb has created it.
If you’re using Django’s testing framework to test database queries, Django will need permission to create a test database.
If you are upgrading your installation of Django from a previous version, you will need to uninstall the old Django version before installing the new version.
If you installed Django using setup.py install, uninstalling
is as simple as deleting the django directory from your Python
site-packages.
If you installed Django from a Python egg, remove the Django .egg file,
and remove the reference to the egg in the file named easy-install.pth.
This file should also be located in your site-packages directory.
Where are my site-packages stored?
The location of the site-packages directory depends on the operating
system, and the location in which Python was installed. To find out your
system’s site-packages location, execute the following:
python -c "from distutils.sysconfig import get_python_lib; print get_python_lib()"
(Note that this should be run from a shell prompt, not a Python interactive prompt.)
Some Debian-based Linux distributions have separate site-packages
directories for user-installed packages, such as when installing Django
from a downloaded tarball. The command listed above will give you the
system’s site-packages, the user’s directory can be found in
/usr/local/lib/ instead of /usr/lib/.
Installation instructions are slightly different depending on whether you’re installing a distribution-specific package, downloading the latest official release, or fetching the latest development version.
It’s easy, no matter which way you choose.
Check the distribution specific notes to see if your platform/distribution provides official Django packages/installers. Distribution-provided packages will typically allow for automatic installation of dependencies and easy upgrade paths.
pip¶This is the recommended way to install Django.
Install pip. The easiest is to use the standalone pip installer. If your
distribution already has pip installed, you might need to update it if
it’s outdated. (If it’s outdated, you’ll know because installation won’t
work.)
(optional) Take a look at virtualenv and virtualenvwrapper. These tools provide isolated Python environments, which are more practical than installing packages systemwide. They also allow installing packages without administrator privileges. It’s up to you to decide if you want to learn and use them.
If you’re using Linux, Mac OS X or some other flavor of Unix, enter the
command sudo pip install Django at the shell prompt. If you’re using
Windows, start a command shell with administrator privileges and run
the command pip install Django. This will install Django in your Python
installation’s site-packages directory.
If you’re using a virtualenv, you don’t need sudo or administrator
privileges, and this will install Django in the virtualenv’s
site-packages directory.
tar xzvf Django-X.Y.tar.gz,
where X.Y is the version number of the latest release).
If you’re using Windows, you can download the command-line tool
bsdtar to do this, or you can use a GUI-based tool such as 7-zip.cd Django-X.Y).sudo python setup.py install at the shell prompt. If you’re
using Windows, start a command shell with administrator privileges and
run the command python setup.py install. This will install Django in
your Python installation’s site-packages directory.Tracking Django development
If you decide to use the latest development version of Django, you’ll want to pay close attention to the development timeline, and you’ll want to keep an eye on the list of backwards-incompatible changes. This will help you stay on top of any new features you might want to use, as well as any changes you’ll need to make to your code when updating your copy of Django. (For stable releases, any necessary changes are documented in the release notes.)
If you’d like to be able to update your Django code occasionally with the latest bug fixes and improvements, follow these instructions:
Make sure that you have Subversion, Git, or Mercurial installed, and
that you can run its commands from a shell. (Enter svn help,
git help, or hg help at a shell prompt to test this.) Note that
the Subversion repository is the canonical source for the official
Git and Mercurial repositories and as such will always be the most up-to-date.
Check out Django’s main development branch (the ‘trunk’) like so:
# Subversion
svn co https://code.djangoproject.com/svn/django/trunk/ django-trunk
Mirrors of the Subversion repository can be obtained like so:
# Git (requires version 1.6.6 or later)
git clone https://github.com/django/django.git
# or (works with all versions)
git clone git://github.com/django/django.git
# Mercurial
hg clone https://bitbucket.org/django/django
Warning
These mirrors should be updated every 5 minutes but aren’t guaranteed to be up-to-date since they are hosted on external services.
Next, make sure that the Python interpreter can load Django’s code. The most
convenient way to do this is to modify Python’s search path. Add a .pth
file containing the full path to the django-trunk directory to your
system’s site-packages directory. For example, on a Unix-like system:
echo WORKING-DIR/django-trunk > SITE-PACKAGES-DIR/django.pth
(In the above line, change SITE-PACKAGES-DIR to match the location of
your system’s site-packages directory, as explained in the
Where are my site-packages stored? section
above. Change WORKING-DIR/django-trunk to match the full path to your
new django-trunk directory.)
On Unix-like systems, create a symbolic link to the file
django-trunk/django/bin/django-admin.py in a directory on your system
path, such as /usr/local/bin. For example:
ln -s WORKING-DIR/django-trunk/django/bin/django-admin.py /usr/local/bin
(In the above line, change WORKING-DIR to match the full path to your new
django-trunk directory.)
This simply lets you type django-admin.py from within any directory,
rather than having to qualify the command with the full path to the file.
On Windows systems, the same result can be achieved by copying the file
django-trunk/django/bin/django-admin.py to somewhere on your system
path, for example C:\Python27\Scripts.
Warning
Don’t run sudo python setup.py install, because you’ve already
carried out the equivalent actions in steps 3 and 4. Furthermore, this is
known to cause problems when updating to a more recent version of Django.
When you want to update your copy of the Django source code, just run the
command svn update from within the django-trunk directory. When you do
this, Subversion will automatically download any changes. The equivalent
command for Git is git pull, and for Mercurial hg pull --update.
Oct 11, 2017