setup Django 1.4 on Godaddy linux economy host

In case you want to use Django framework in Godaddy’s Linux Economy Host, here is the steps:

1. Godaddy has virtualenv installed, so first, create a virtual environment venv: (I use $HOME/lib/ for all the installed stuff below)

cd ~/
mkdir lib
cd lib
virtualenv --no-site-packages venv

The python package folder is $HOME/lib/venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages

2. Install the latest Django through pip
pip install Django

3. After successfully installed Django 1.4, create a new project
django-admin.py startproject mysite

4. Because Django 1.4 only support MySQLdb 1.2.1 or above, and Godaddy only has 1.2.0, so we cannot use MySQL. Let’s use sqlite for our database

cd mysite
sqlite3 mydatabase.db ""

5. change the database configuration in mysite/setting.py file
(1) when set the path for the database file, please use the absolute path
(2) set the Locale information in $HOME/.bash_profile file, otherwise you cannot set the superuser when you sync the database.

    export LANG=en_US.UTF-8
    export LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8

run $HOME/.bash_profile:

% source ~/.bash_profile

(3) now you should sync the database:
% python2.7 manage.py syncdb
There should be no error if you did (2)

6. Now we setup the dispatch functionality so we can access the webpage without running server through Django, we use flup here

cd ~/lib/venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages
wget http://pypi.python.org/packages/source/f/flup/flup-1.0.2.tar.gz#md5=24dad7edc5ada31dddd49456ee8d5254
tar -xvzf flup-1.0.2.tar.gz
mv flup-1.0.2/flup/ .

And you can delete the flup-1.0.2 folder if you want.

7. in $HOME/html folder, create dispatch.py and add the following codes:

#!/usr/local/bin/python2.7
import sys, os
sys.path += ['/your/home/path/lib/venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages']
sys.path += ['/your/home/path/lib/mysite/']
os.environ['DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE'] = 'mysite.settings'

from flup.server.fcgi import WSGIServer
from django.core.handlers.wsgi import WSGIHandler
WSGIServer(WSGIHandler()).run()

8. in $HOME/html/.htaccess file, add the following codes:

AddHandler fcgid-script .fcgi
Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /

# everything else sent to django
RewriteRule ^(dispatch.py/.*)$ - [L]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ dispatch.py/$1 [L]

9. Access your website http://your.website.com, it should work

addtional

1. add static path in mysite/settings.py, so Godaddy host can read the static folder correctly

from django.conf import settings

urlpatterns = patterns('',
    url(r'^static/(?P.*)$', 'django.views.static.serve',
	{'document_root': settings.STATIC_ROOT,
	'show_indexes': True}),
    #your other url settings
)

Important

Don’t forget to set the STATIC_ROOT and run % python2.7 manage collectstatic first.

20 thoughts on “setup Django 1.4 on Godaddy linux economy host

  1. Bill Ellis

    Thanks for this – very helpful!

    I’m on GoDaddy Linux Deluxe, and this worked for me too. I noticed, though, my python2.7 has MySQLdb 1.2.3, so I was able to use MySQL rather than sqlite. It might be work checking what version you have:
    -bash-3.2$ python2.7 -c “import MySQLdb;print MySQLdb.version_info”
    (1, 2, 3, ‘final’, 0)

    Reply
  2. Jon Katz

    Hi,
    This is really helpful! I get most of the way there, but at the end I get an internal server error and my error log reads:
    [Tue Jul 24 19:38:01 2012] [alert] [client 99.38.144.210] /var/chroot/home/content/40/8381440/html/.htaccess: RewriteRule: bad flag delimiters

    Do you know what could be causing this? I have set the paths correctly, as far as I can tell.

    Reply
  3. Jon Katz

    Sure—it is literally what you said should be pasted in. Thanks for looking into this!:

    AddHandler fcgid-script .fcgi
    Options +FollowSymLinks
    RewriteEngine On
    RewriteBase /

    # everything else sent to django
    RewriteRule ^(dispatch.py/.*)$ – [L]
    RewriteRule ^(.*)$ dispatch.py/$1 [L]

    Reply
  4. rascencio

    Hi i’ve follow your tutorial, but i have problems whit the .htaccess.
    Here is the log:
    ____________________________________

    [Tue Aug 28 21:14:05 2012] [error] [client 190.62.242.211] suexec policy violation: see suexec log for more details

    [Tue Aug 28 21:14:05 2012] [error] [client 190.62.242.211] Premature end of script headers: dispatch.py

    [Tue Aug 28 21:14:06 2012] [error] [client 190.62.242.211] suexec policy violation: see suexec log for more details

    [Tue Aug 28 21:14:06 2012] [error] [client 190.62.242.211] Premature end of script headers: dispatch.py

    [Tue Aug 28 21:15:59 2012] [error] [client 190.62.242.211] client denied by server configuration: /var/chroot/home/content/55/8736555/html/rascencio/.htaccess

    [Tue Aug 28 21:15:59 2012] [error] [client 190.62.242.211] Request exceeded the limit of 10 internal redirects due to probable configuration error. Use ‘LimitInternalRecursion’ to increase the limit if necessary. Use ‘LogLevel debug’ to get a back

    _____________________________________

    [Sun Aug 26 20:21:53 2012] [error] [client 190.150.47.112] Request exceeded the limit of 10 internal redirects due to probable configuration error. Use ‘LimitInternalRecursion’ to increase the limit if necessary. Use ‘LogLevel debug’ to get a backtrace.
    [Mon Aug 27 08:40:27 2012] [error] [client 66.249.68.43] Request exceeded the limit of 10 internal redirects due to probable configuration error. Use ‘LimitInternalRecursion’ to increase the limit if necessary. Use ‘LogLevel debug’ to get a backtrace.

    ___________________________________

    This is the (basically your)htaccess:

    _____________________________________

    Options +execcgi
    AddHandler cgi-script .py
    AddHandler fcgid-script .fcgi
    Options +FollowSymLinks
    RewriteEngine on
    RewriteBase /

    RewriteRule ^(dispatch.py/.*)$ – [L]
    RewriteRule ^(.*)$ dispatch.py/$1 [L]
    __________________________________

    – Wihtout the frist two lines i’ve to changue the .py -> .cgi
    anyways it dont works 🙁

    – Whitout the /* and / after dispath.py it seems to work :D, but just
    for the root url, work for r-ascencio.me but not for r-ascencio.me/foo,
    but whit the /* and / i got those logs and a beatifully 500

    I search about this, but i don’t get any kind of help of anywhere :/

    PD: The persmission for the dispatch.py are “755”

    I really appreciate any help, and thanks, really for the tutorial 🙂

    /*before i have Django 0.96 when i see i could use MySQL 1.2.3*/
    /*i think on chague to Django 1.3 and everything works, but i */
    /*was working in a project white Django 1.4 and i fall in love*/
    /*whit timezones 😐 and think in upgrade and i messed up whit the*/
    /*.cgi script and the .htaccess, but more whit the .htaccess the i delete all*/
    /*and start over, but i found your tutorial and here i’am*/
    /* :|*/

    Reply
    1. Chun 大春饵 Post author

      sorry, the comment need to approved then it will show up…I read your previous comment, to sum up, the .htaccess works for r-ascencio.me but not for r-ascencio.me/foo right? So you wanna use r-ascencio.me/foo to access your django project?

      Reply
  5. Radomir Wojcik

    Another good thing to note is that you can ReWrite URLS if you have current applications isntalled, ie.e dokuwiki.

    Add this above "everything else sent to django"
    #Below other folders with static content and PHP , etc..
    #hosted at yourdomain/dokuwiki
    RewriteRule ^(dokuwiki/.*)$ – [L]

    #You can also create your "django" project at a different location rather than your domain root by changing the 2nd RewriteRule , i.e.:

    # everything else sent to django
    RewriteRule ^(dispatch.py/.*)$ – [L]
    RewriteRule ^(djangoproj/.*)$ dispatch.py/$1 [L]
    #Make sure to create the djangoproj folder inside your html dir, cd html; mkdir djangproj

    Reply
  6. Radomir Wojcik

    If you’re using economy Linux then MySQL-Python cannot be installed. pip install MySQL-Python will fail with an error that gcc is not found. I don’t think there is a way to install Development Tools since there seems to be no root access and thus you cannot install any system packages. Is there any work around for this?

    Reply
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