Django app deployment not loading static files

Question

I have a django app which has angular and bootstrap. This is how my settings are defined:

# Django settings for studentsite project.
import os

PROJECT_DIR = os.path.dirname(__file__)
DEBUG = True
TEMPLATE_DEBUG = DEBUG

ADMINS = (
    # ('Your Name', '[e-mail]'),
)

MANAGERS = ADMINS

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql_psycopg2', # Add 'postgresql_psycopg2', 'mysql', 'sqlite3' or 'oracle'.
        'NAME': 'texascompletesdb',                      # Or path to database file if using sqlite3.
        # The following settings are not used with sqlite3:
        'USER': 'postgres',
        'PASSWORD': 'password',
        'HOST': 'localhost',                      # Empty for localhost through domain sockets or '127.0.0.1' for localhost through TCP.
        'PORT': '5432',                      # Set to empty string for default.
    }
}

# Hosts/domain names that are valid for this site; required if DEBUG is False
# See https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.5/ref/settings/#allowed-hosts
ALLOWED_HOSTS = []

# Local time zone for this installation. Choices can be found here:
# http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tz_zones_by_name
# although not all choices may be available on all operating systems.
# In a Windows environment this must be set to your system time zone.
TIME_ZONE = 'America/Chicago'

# Language code for this installation. All choices can be found here:
# http://www.i18nguy.com/unicode/language-identifiers.html
LANGUAGE_CODE = 'en-us'

SITE_ID = 1

# If you set this to False, Django will make some optimizations so as not
# to load the internationalization machinery.
USE_I18N = True

# If you set this to False, Django will not format dates, numbers and
# calendars according to the current locale.
USE_L10N = True

# If you set this to False, Django will not use timezone-aware datetimes.
USE_TZ = True

# Absolute filesystem path to the directory that will hold user-uploaded files.
# Example: "/var/www/example.com/media/"
MEDIA_ROOT = ''

# URL that handles the media served from MEDIA_ROOT. Make sure to use a
# trailing slash.
# Examples: "http://example.com/media/", "http://media.example.com/"
MEDIA_URL = ''

# Absolute path to the directory static files should be collected to.
# Don't put anything in this directory yourself; store your static files
# in apps' "static/" subdirectories and in STATICFILES_DIRS.
# Example: "/var/www/example.com/static/"
STATIC_ROOT = ''

# URL prefix for static files.
# Example: "http://example.com/static/", "http://static.example.com/"
STATIC_URL = '/static/'

# Additional locations of static files
STATICFILES_DIRS = (
    # Put strings here, like "/home/html/static" or "C:/www/django/static".
    # Always use forward slashes, even on Windows.
    # Don't forget to use absolute paths, not relative paths.
)

# List of finder classes that know how to find static files in
# various locations.
STATICFILES_FINDERS = (
    'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.FileSystemFinder',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.AppDirectoriesFinder',
#    'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.DefaultStorageFinder',
)

# Make this unique, and don't share it with anybody.
SECRET_KEY = '*zxzx2@@d&&76w&g1_ew@eufnqpfbdtxbnzii7_)6bvdk09g+y'

# List of callables that know how to import templates from various sources.
TEMPLATE_LOADERS = (
    'django.template.loaders.filesystem.Loader',
    'django.template.loaders.app_directories.Loader',
#     'django.template.loaders.eggs.Loader',
)

MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES = (
    'django.middleware.common.CommonMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.sessions.middleware.SessionMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.csrf.CsrfViewMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.messages.middleware.MessageMiddleware',
    # Uncomment the next line for simple clickjacking protection:
    # 'django.middleware.clickjacking.XFrameOptionsMiddleware',
)

ROOT_URLCONF = 'texascompletes.urls'

# Python dotted path to the WSGI application used by Django's runserver.
WSGI_APPLICATION = 'texascompletes.wsgi.application'

TEMPLATE_DIRS = (
    os.path.join(PROJECT_DIR, 'templates')
    # Put strings here, like "/home/html/django_templates" or "C:/www/django/templates".
    # Always use forward slashes, even on Windows.
    # Don't forget to use absolute paths, not relative paths.
)

INSTALLED_APPS = (
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.sites',
    'django.contrib.messages',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles',
    # Uncomment the next line to enable the admin:
    'django.contrib.admin',
    # Uncomment the next line to enable admin documentation:
    # 'django.contrib.admindocs',
#    'south',
    'rest_framework',
    'mptt',
    'acadprog',
    #'djangular',
    #'bootstrap3',


)

SESSION_SERIALIZER = 'django.contrib.sessions.serializers.JSONSerializer'

# A sample logging configuration. The only tangible logging
# performed by this configuration is to send an email to
# the site admins on every HTTP 500 error when DEBUG=False.
# See http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/logging for
# more details on how to customize your logging configuration.
LOGGING = {
    'version': 1,
    'disable_existing_loggers': False,
    'filters': {
        'require_debug_false': {
            '()': 'django.utils.log.RequireDebugFalse'
        }
    },
    'handlers': {
        'mail_admins': {
            'level': 'ERROR',
            'filters': ['require_debug_false'],
            'class': 'django.utils.log.AdminEmailHandler'
        }
    },
    'loggers': {
        'django.request': {
            'handlers': ['mail_admins'],
            'level': 'ERROR',
            'propagate': True,
        },
    }
}

The app works great on localhost. The next phase was to deploy it on the server and i am getting it to work. But the static files are not being loaded. The browser gives a 404(Not Found) error when i am trying to load the static files in the head of my template.

I went through this but am still confused. Where do i need to make the changes in order to make the app access my static files?

Answer 1

Django's runserver serves static files through python automatically, which is not good enough for production use. When you deploy and are thus not using runserver, your static files are not auto-served.

In production, you must run the python manage.py collectstatic command which moves all static files to your settings.STATIC_ROOT.

You then need to serve settings.STATIC_ROOT at settings.STATIC_URL via your web server of choice, very commonly nginx as a reverse proxy behind your Apache-mod_wsgi app server.

You can also use your Apache, where you'd want to look into the <Directory> directive.

The documentation you linked to explains exactly what you need to do, and hopefully my bullet points make it a little easier to understand.

https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/howto/deployment/wsgi//modwsgi/#serving-files