Deployment Instructions

Prerequisites

• Docker and Docker Compose installed on your system. You can follow the official Docker documentation to install Docker and Docker Compose on your system.
  • You can access the installation instructions here: Get Docker.
• SSL Certificates (cert.pem and key.pem) for HTTPS configuration.
• docker-compose.yml file from the repository.
• If using Windows, openSSL is required to generate SSL certificates. Follow this link and download the latest version of openSSL.
  • Alternatively, you can use the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) to generate the certificates or use your preferred package manager (e.g. chocolatey) to install openSSL.

Project Directory Structure

Make sure that your project directory contains the following before starting:

Project Directory Structure:
├── cert.pem
├── key.pem
├── docker-compose.yml
├── docker.env
├── docker.env.example

Step 1: Prepare SSL Certificates

To enable HTTPS, you'll need an SSL certificate and a private key. You can obtain them from a Certificate Authority (CA) or generate self-signed certificates for testing purposes.

Generate Self-Signed SSL Certificates (Optional)

For development or testing purposes, you can generate a self-signed certificate using the following command:

openssl req -x509 -nodes -days 365 -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout key.pem -out cert.pem

Place the generated cert.pem and key.pem files in the same directory as your docker-compose.yml file.

Step 2: Set Up Environment Variables

Create a docker.env file in the same directory as your docker-compose.yml file. This file will hold the environment variables required for the services to run.

You only need the following variables:

POSTGRES_PASSWORD=your_database_password
DB_PASS=your_database_password
DJANGO_SECRET_KEY=your_django_secret_key
DJANGO_ALLOWED_HOSTS=['yourdomain.com', 'localhost', '127.0.0.1']

Replace your_database_password, your_django_secret_key, and DJANGO_ALLOWED_HOSTS with your own values. If you're deploying the application locally, you can use the example values for DJANGO_ALLOWED_HOSTS and if you need a Django secret key, you can generate one using the following command:

python -c 'from django.core.management.utils import get_random_secret_key; print(get_random_secret_key())'

If you don't have Python installed, you can also go here: Django Secret Key Generator.

An example file has also been included (docker.env.example) that you can use as a template, just remove the .example from the file name and fill it out with your intended details.

Environment Variables Explained

• POSTGRES_PASSWORD: The password for the PostgreSQL database.
• DB_PASS: Another reference to the database password (used in multiple places).
• DJANGO_SECRET_KEY: A secret key for the Django application, used for security purposes.
• DJANGO_ALLOWED_HOSTS: A list of hosts (domains or IPs) that the Django application can serve. If running locally, make sure to include localhost and 127.0.0.1.

Step 3: Deploy the Application

Once you've set up the environment variables and SSL certificates, you can deploy the application using Docker Compose.

Run the following command:

docker compose up -d

This command will start the application in detached mode.

Step 4: Access the Application

• The application will be accessible at https://localhost by default.
• The application automatically redirects HTTP traffic to HTTPS.

Step 5: Stop and Remove the Application

To stop the application and remove the containers, run the following command:

docker compose down

This command will stop and remove the containers, but it will retain the database volume.

If you want to remove the database volume as well, you can add the -v flag:

docker compose down -v

This will remove the containers and the database volume.

Troubleshooting

• If the application isn’t accessible at https://localhost, check the Docker logs by running:

docker compose logs

• Ensure Docker is running, and that the SSL certificates are correctly placed in the project directory.