Hosting a Django app with Caddy and PostgreSQL

THIS IS A WIP!

This (unofficial) guide was made by [@twonum https://hackclub.slack.com/team/U094NTBR1S5] (feel free to ask me for help).

I'm using Hypercorn as it's an ASGI server (for WebSockets support). To use a different server, replace the hypercorn commands with the ones that your server uses.

Tools this guide uses

• Hypercorn ASGI server
• Caddy reverse proxy and web server with automatic HTTPS
• PostgreSQL relational database for Django's ORM
• systemd "daemon" (as it's called in Unix) to manage services

I'll assume that orpheus is your username and this is your directory structure:

• ~ (/home/orpheus)
  • project
    • manage.py
    • ...
  • static
    • project
      • static
      • media
  • Caddyfile
  • .config
  • ...

Getting ready

First, get a shell to Nest. Don't have a Nest account?

ssh orpheus@hackclub.app

Get Nest resources

ssh orpheus@hackclub.app
export PROJECT_NAME="your project directory name" # set this to your project's directory name (like "project" in <code>/home/$USERNAME/project</code>)

hackclub.app or custom domain?

$PROJECT_NAME.$USERNAME.hackclub.app (free)

export PROJECT_DOMAIN=$PROJECT_NAME.$USERNAME.hackclub.app
nest caddy add $PROJECT_DOMAIN

Custom domain (looks better, but you need your own DNS)

Add a CNAME record to $USERNAME.hackclub.app. If you use Cloudflare or another proxy, turn the proxy off. Wait and run this to check your DNS record:

export PROJECT_DOMAIN="hello.example.com" # set this
dig $PROJECT_DOMAIN CNAME

Then:

nest caddy add $PROJECT_DOMAIN

Get your project's files on Nest

Copy the directory containing manage.py to /home/$USERNAME/$PROJECT_NAME. See Quickstart#Using_the_Account.

cd ~/$PROJECT_NAME