Sample Django Web App

SQLite database

Database is configured to be stored in system temp directory:

• use TMP environment variable if not empty
• otherwise use TEMP environment variables if not empty
• otherwise use /tmp directory as default.

Development Setup

Step 1. Configure development environment

Create .dev directory. The directory is used for developer artifacts. A rule in the .gitignore instructs git to ignore the .dev directory.

Create a file .dev/setenv.sh which initializes the environment variables, used by the app. A rule in the .gitignore instructs git to ignore the .dev directory.

export DJANGO_SECRET_KEY='DjangoSecretKey'
export APPINSIGHTS_INSTRUMENTATION_KEY='<instrumentation-key>'

Update the environment, using the .dev/setnenv.sh:

$ source .dev/setenv.sh

Step 2. Create Python Virtual Environment

$ py -3.8 -m venv .venv38
$ source .venv38/Scripts/activate

Step 3. Install Python Dependencies

$ pip install -r requirements.txt

Step 4. Initialize Django Database

$ python manage.py makemigrations
$ python manage.py migrate

Step 5. Run Django web server

$ python manage.py runserver

Highlights

Endpoints:

• /dt - shows current date time Purpose: See in App Insights
• /exc - throws unhandled exception Purpose: See how it is logged in App Insights

Custom Azure App Service Startup Command

python manage.py makemigrations; python manage.py migrate; GUNICORN_CMD_ARGS="--timeout 600 --access-logfile '-' --error-logfile '-' --bind=0.0.0.0:8000" gunicorn mysite.wsgi

Create superuser from shell

echo "from django.contrib.auth import get_user_model; User = get_user_model(); User.objects.create_superuser('admin', 'admin@example.com', 'password')" | python manage.py shell

As of Django 3.0 you can use default createsuperuser --noinput command and set all required fields (including password) as environment variables DJANGO_SUPERUSER_PASSWORD, DJANGO_SUPERUSER_USERNAME, DJANGO_SUPERUSER_EMAIL for example. --noinput flag is required.

DJANGO_SUPERUSER_PASSWORD=password; python manage.py createsuperuser --noinput --username admin --email some.user.non.existent122@gmail.com; 

Reference

• Set up Azure Monitor for your Python application
• opencensus-ext-django Python package and GitHub repository.
• OpenCensus project
• Configure a Linux Python app for Azure App Service