django-environment-in-vagrant

Quickly build a clean virtual environment ready for Django development.

Getting started

Install the following applications in your host operating system:

• VirtualBox
• Vagrant

The following Vagrant plugin is recommended to keep the VirtualBox guest additions automatically updated:

• vagrant-vbguest

This is how you install vagrant-vbguest:

vagrant plugin install vagrant-vbguest

Getting the source code

Retrieve the source code:

git clone https://github.com/aminehaddad/django-environment-in-vagrant.git my-project
cd my-project

Where my-project is the name of your new website or project.

(Optional) Setting it up for Windows

You need to modify the Vagrantfile if you are running Windows by replacing:

config.vm.network "private_network", ip: "10.10.10.10"

with:

config.vm.network "forwarded_port", guest: 8080, host: 8080, host_ip: "127.0.0.1"

Starting the virtual machine development environment

The following command will start the environment:

vagrant up

The installation script will run within the virtual machine if it is the first time it is started (in order to install the required packages).

Setting up the virtual machine development environment

SSH into the virtual machine:

vagrant ssh

The source code is shared with the virtual machine in this directory:

cd site

Always run the following command to use the proper python virtual environment:

workon site

If you want to use python 2, use this virtual environment:

workon site-python2

Install the required python packages:

pip install -r requirements.txt

Setting up a Django project

Create a new Django project. Pay attention to the . at the end of that command if you did cd site:

django-admin.py startproject my_site .

Setup the database models and run migrations:

./manage.py migrate

You can now start the development web server:

./manage.py runserver 0.0.0.0:8080

For Windows, replace ./manage.py with python manage.py:

python manage.py migrate
python manage.py runserver 0.0.0.0:8080

Django requires the IP address of the Virtual Machine in the my_site/settings.py file for the setting ALLOWED_HOSTS:

ALLOWED_HOSTS = ['10.10.10.10', '127.0.0.1']

Access this URL for MacOS/Linux:

• http://10.10.10.10:8080

Access this URL for Windows:

• http://127.0.0.1:8080

To turn off the virtual machine, run the following from your host terminal:

vagrant halt -f

To turn on the virtual machine, run the following:

vagrant up

Troubleshooting

This section is reserved for common troubleshooting problems or hints.

Question: How can I change the git repository this is committing to?

Answer: You can fix that in the virtual environment by deleting the .git directory and re-initializing it. Example:

vagrant ssh
cd site
rm -rf .git

Question: How to backup and restore database in Vagrant?

To backup database, run the following:

vagrant ssh
cd site
sudo -u postgres pg_dump vagrant > db-backup.sql

To restore database backup, run the following:

vagrant ssh
cd site
sudo -u postgres psql -c "drop database vagrant;"
sudo -u postgres psql -c "create database vagrant;"
sudo -u postgres psql -c "grant all privileges on database vagrant to vagrant;"
sudo -u postgres psql vagrant < db-backup.sql