integrate Django with Ngnix

In production system, it is very common that we will use Nginx as the reverse proxy and Python/Django as the backend application server.

here is the simple sample Nginx setting to integrate Django.

The Nginx's HTTP section

http {
     include mime.types;
     default_type application/octet-stream;

     sendfile on;

     keepalive_timeout 65;

     upstream djangoserver {
         server 127.0.0.1:8080;
     }

    server {
    listen 80;
    server_name localhost;

    location / {
       include fastcgi.conf;
       fastcgi_pass djangoserver;
    }
}

• define upstream djangoserver, it can be a group of server for load balance. IP and port should be matched with the Django Application server
• include the fastcgi.conf in the server/location sections.
• pass the request to the application server : fastcgi_pass djangoserver;

we can use default fastcgi setting if no performance consideration but we need to change two lines. otherwise you will get blank urls when passing to Django.




fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $fastcgi_script_name;
fastcgi_param QUERY_STRING $query_string;
fastcgi_param REQUEST_METHOD $request_method;
fastcgi_param CONTENT_TYPE $content_type;
fastcgi_param CONTENT_LENGTH $content_length;


#fastcgi_param SCRIPT_NAME $fastcgi_script_name;
fastcgi_param REQUEST_URI $request_uri;
fastcgi_param DOCUMENT_URI $document_uri;
fastcgi_param DOCUMENT_ROOT $document_root;
fastcgi_param SERVER_PROTOCOL $server_protocol;
fastcgi_param HTTPS $https if_not_empty;

fastcgi_param GATEWAY_INTERFACE CGI/1.1;
fastcgi_param SERVER_SOFTWARE nginx/$nginx_version;

fastcgi_param REMOTE_ADDR $remote_addr;
fastcgi_param REMOTE_PORT $remote_port;
fastcgi_param SERVER_ADDR $server_addr;
fastcgi_param SERVER_PORT $server_port;
fastcgi_param SERVER_NAME $server_name;

# PHP only, required if PHP was built with --enable-force-cgi-redirect
fastcgi_param REDIRECT_STATUS 200;

on the Django side, you will start the django with runfcgi option. sample start script as below:
python manage.py runfcgi method=prefork host=0.0.0.0 port=8080