diff --git a/content/post/deploying-django-with-docker-and-ansible.md b/content/post/deploying-django-with-docker-and-ansible.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7cf0480 --- /dev/null +++ b/content/post/deploying-django-with-docker-and-ansible.md @@ -0,0 +1,157 @@ +--- +title: "Deploying a django app with docker, ansible and traefik" +date: 2023-07-24T22:10:10+02:00 +draft: false +image: "uploads/docker-ansible-django-traefik/django_docker_ansible_traefik.png" +categrories: ['English'] +tags: ['MASH', 'django', 'ilmo', 'ansible', 'traefik', 'docker'] +--- + +This blog post will try to outline the process of deploying [ILMO](https://github.com/moan0s/ILMO2) (a [Django](https://www.djangoproject.com/) app) by building a [docker](https://www.docker.com/) image, using [ansible](https://www.ansible.com/) to install&configure it on our server and use [Traefik](https://traefik.io/) as webserver that is readily configured and obtains certificates for us. + +I will go through the steps one by one and link more extensive documentation. + +# Building the docker image + +Building the docker image is pretty straightforward as it closely resembles the steps of [manual deployment](https://ilmo2.readthedocs.io/en/latest/dev/deployment.html#manual-deployment). The docker file is probably terribly inefficient as it is to large and should be build in stages. Consider this a working example, not a best practice. Also feel free to give me pointers on how to improve it. Specifics I want to point out are: + +* static files are collected when building the image +* `pip install -e .` is used to install the python package. Without `-e` the apps static files will not be collected correctly. I haven't figured out why. +* the CMD `ilmo` is executed when starting the container and maps to the script in `docker/ilmo.bash` (see below). + +```Dockerfile +FROM python:3-slim +MAINTAINER Julian-Samuel Gebühr + +ENV DOCKER_BUILD=true + +RUN apt update +RUN apt install gettext -y +ENV VIRTUAL_ENV=/var/ilmo/venv +RUN python -m venv $VIRTUAL_ENV +ENV PATH="$VIRTUAL_ENV/bin:$PATH" +COPY src/requirements.txt requirements.txt +RUN pip install -r requirements.txt +WORKDIR /var/ilmo +COPY . . +RUN pip install -e . # Without the -e the library static folder will not be copied by collectstatic! +RUN mkdir /ilmo +RUN mkdir /ilmo/static +RUN ilmo-manage collectstatic --noinput +RUN ilmo-manage compilemessages --ignore venv + +COPY docker/ilmo.bash $VIRTUAL_ENV/bin/ilmo + +EXPOSE 8345 +CMD ["ilmo"] +``` + +The standard command of the container is a small bash script located at `docker/ilmo.bash` that + +* activates the virtual environment +* sets a number of workers based on the available CPU cores +* applies migrations to the database +* executes [gunicorn](https://gunicorn.org/) as [WSGI](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Server_Gateway_Interface) HTTP Server on port 8345 + +```bash +#!/bin/bash + +set -eux + +cd /var/ilmo/src +export DATA_DIR=/var/ilmo/ +source /var/ilmo/venv/bin/activate + +AUTOMIGRATE=${AUTOMIGRATE:-yes} +NUM_WORKERS_DEFAULT=$((2 * $(nproc --all))) +export NUM_WORKERS=${NUM_WORKERS:-$NUM_WORKERS_DEFAULT} + +if [ "$AUTOMIGRATE" != "skip" ]; then + ilmo-manage migrate --noinput +fi + +exec gunicorn ilmo.wsgi \ + --name ilmo \ + --workers $NUM_WORKERS \ + --max-requests 1200 \ + --max-requests-jitter 50 \ + --log-level=info \ + --bind 0.0.0.0:8345 +``` + + +# Using WhiteNoise to serve static files + +Django apps usually put their static files in the directory you define in `STATIC_ROOT` after running `python manage.py collectstatic` and expect a webserver like nginx to serve theses files. Now as [discussed before](/post/static-sites-with-mash/) traefik does not easily serve static files. Luckily there is a solution for that: [WhiteNoise](https://whitenoise.readthedocs.io). It allows a django app to serve it's own static files [pretty efficiently](https://whitenoise.readthedocs.io/en/latest/#isn-t-serving-static-files-from-python-horribly-inefficient) while it also takes care of best-practices for you, for instance: + +* Serving compressed content (gzip and Brotli formats, handling Accept-Encoding and Vary headers correctly) +* Setting far-future cache headers on content which won’t change (useful if working with CDNs). + +To get it to work we have to: + +* add WhiteNoise to the dependencies (see my [pyproject.toml](https://github.com/moan0s/ILMO2/blob/main/pyproject.toml)) +* add the WhiteNoise middleware directly after the SecurityMiddleware +```python +MIDDLEWARE = [ + # ... + "django.middleware.security.SecurityMiddleware", + "whitenoise.middleware.WhiteNoiseMiddleware", + # ... +] +``` +* define the [storage backend](https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/4.2/ref/settings/#storages) (this is new for django >4.2, for previous version use [`STATICFILES_STORAGE`](https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/4.2/ref/settings/#staticfiles-storage)). This is not strictly necessary but improves performance. +```python +STORAGES = { + "staticfiles": { + "BACKEND": "whitenoise.storage.CompressedManifestStaticFilesStorage", + }, +} +``` + +When testing if the new configuration works you should test with `DEBUG=False`. Otherwise django will serve static files by itself (which is not safe for production). If you encounter problems check the [Whitenoise Documentation](https://whitenoise.readthedocs.io/en/latest/django.html). + +# Traefik as webserver + +[Traefik](https://traefik.io/) is a HTTP(S) reverse proxy and load balancer. It is focused on containers and supports dynamic configuration. This means we can spin up a docker container with the `--label /path/to/label_file` flag and traefik will use the configuration in the label file to register a new service and router, obtain SSL certificates and start routing traffic to your application. + +For ILMO our traefik configuration adds some sensible response headers, defines an entrypoint (`web-secure` stands for HTTPS via port 443), add a SSL certificate resolver (`default` is here LetsEncrypt) and tells traefik where to send traefik to `traefik.docker.network=traefik` and `traefik.http.services.mash-ilmo.loadbalancer.server.port=8345`. It assumes traefik and the application are both in the docker network called `traefik`. + +Everything together looks like this: + +```cfg +traefik.docker.network=traefik + +traefik.http.middlewares.mash-ilmo-add-response-headers.headers.customresponseheaders.X-XSS-Protection=1; mode=block +traefik.http.middlewares.mash-ilmo-add-response-headers.headers.customresponseheaders.X-Frame-Options=SAMEORIGIN +traefik.http.middlewares.mash-ilmo-add-response-headers.headers.customresponseheaders.X-Content-Type-Options=nosniff +traefik.http.middlewares.mash-ilmo-add-response-headers.headers.customresponseheaders.Content-Security-Policy=frame-ancestors 'self' +traefik.http.middlewares.mash-ilmo-add-response-headers.headers.customresponseheaders.Permission-Policy=interest-cohort=() +traefik.http.middlewares.mash-ilmo-add-response-headers.headers.customresponseheaders.Strict-Transport-Security=max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains + +traefik.enable=true +traefik.http.routers.mash-ilmo.rule=Host("ilmo.example.com") +traefik.http.routers.mash-ilmo.middlewares=mash-ilmo-add-response-headers +traefik.http.routers.mash-ilmo.service=mash-ilmo +traefik.http.routers.mash-ilmo.entrypoints=web-secure +traefik.http.routers.mash-ilmo.tls=true +traefik.http.routers.mash-ilmo.tls.certResolver=default +traefik.http.services.mash-ilmo.loadbalancer.server.port=8345 + +``` + +# Ansible to deploy + +The ansible role will set up everything we did so far on the server. I will not discuss the inner workings of the role in detail as the role is mostly derived from the generic role layout we use in [MASH](https://github.com/mother-of-all-self-hosting) for a large variety of services. + +The role features: Install, uninstall and creating the first user. It does so by installing a config and data path, configuring the traefik labels and configuration file, pulling the docker image and finally setting up a systemd service to start the container. + +Used together with the [MASH playbook](https://github.com/mother-of-all-self-hosting/mash-playbook) it will also set up a database user and database and install traefik. + +The full role can be found at [ansible-role-ilmo](https://github.com/moan0s/ansible-role-ilmo) + + +# Final thoughts + +The process of deploying a django app via docker sure is somewhat complicated. In the end I am still glad to have done it as I think it a) will make deployment more reliable & easier to maintain b) encouraged me to make some design decisions that improved the app itself. + +Reach out if you have questions or think this blog post could be improved! diff --git a/static/uploads/docker-ansible-django-traefik/django_docker_ansible_traefik.png b/static/uploads/docker-ansible-django-traefik/django_docker_ansible_traefik.png new file mode 100644 index 0000000..847b21c Binary files /dev/null and b/static/uploads/docker-ansible-django-traefik/django_docker_ansible_traefik.png differ