Deploying a Django 1.9 project

[Nick Jenkins]

I've been developing a site with Django 1.9 with Python3 and I'm hitting a wall when trying to deploy it to a hosting service. I currently have a shared service plan through BlueHost and I'm having trouble getting everything to work right. In talking with BlueHost they stated they only support Python 2.7 and Django 1.4. So, I'm trying to determine how best to proceed.

After reading many old walkthoughs on Django installs here's is what I've tried so far:

1. I was able to get Python 3.5 and Django 1.9 installed as a local source. Then after an error 500 page, I realized FastCGI was not longer supported.

2. Then after many linking errors I was able to get mod_wsgi installed with Python3.5 having shared libraries. The trouble is BlueHost shared services doesn't have root access.

(That list seems so short when compared to the actual time and number of tries it took to get this far)

I guess the question I'm trying to ask is: Should I switch hosting companies, stay with Bluehost and upgrade to a VPS or am I missing something simple in the configuration and I can actually get this whole mess to work?

Any help would be appreciated.

[Devrhoid Davis]

Hi Nick,

In my limited experience, you seem to have two options:

1. You can switch to another host who will grant you root access (such as linode.com) and proceed to install django and python with the required dependencies.

OR

You can downgrade to Python 2.7 and use django 1.7 with your current BlueHost plan. The issue of not having root access will however remain.

I hope this will help you in choosing a way forward and to getting your project completed.

Best regards,
Devrhoid

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[James Schneider]

That depends on your skill set and willingness to invest time/energy in to full stack management world. Given your description of the workarounds you've tried to implement, it doesn't necessarily sound like a challenge for you, though.

If you have other services/applications depending on a BH shared instance, you may just want to pop for the extra VPS instance and keep everything together. You may also be able to use the VPS for other tasks like monitoring or CI. 

If you can easily cut ties, there are other more Django-friendly hosts, most notably Heroku. You'd have to check their support pages to ensure they can meet your requirements, but I believe they can. You will have to spend a small amount of time writing the deployment script, though, since Heroku automates their app deployments. I've never used them personally, but I always see good things about them on this list.

I definitely wouldn't stick with your current setup. I would have stopped after discovering the FCGI issue, so hats off to you for putting in the extra effort with the local linking and trying to get mod_wsgi running. No shared host provider will ever provide root access though, because if they did, they wouldn't have a shared host for more than 5 minutes (unless they implement a container system like OpenVZ).

One general consideration when faced with an issue like that is long-term support. If #2 had worked out, but then broke mysteriously some time down the road, you would literally be on your own with a very customized installation and very little control over the host system (an update to a shared library may break mod_wsgi, which is outside of your control), which is a bad position to be in for any sort of production site. Just something to consider before putting in a ton of effort. 

-James

[ofeyofey]

Hi,

I also am trying to deploy Django 1.9 to Bluehost shared hosting, but with Python 2.7. 

As the server is Apache I should be using mod_wsgi but that requires access to httpd.config which Bluehost does not allow. 

FastCGI is not supported by Django 1.9, only 1.8 and below. 

In my experience, Django is great until you try to deploy it.

Nick did you eventually get it deployed and if so what did you go with?

Thanks,

Shane