How to update django app deployed with docker-compose? Now it seems running old version of code

Question

I have django web application based on cookiecutter-django. The stack is build on several containers running: django, redis, celerybeat, celery worker, celery flower, postgres, caddy. When I launched application in production-like environment on VPS I have experienced strange behavior - django seems running old version of code (e.g. using version of form) despite checking out new code from git repository. I have tried few actions to "force" refresh of application code:

• docker-compose down and then, rebuild all containers with docker-compose build, and then docker-compose up

• similar rebuild as above but only for the container with django.

When I inspect code inside django container - there is proper version of code. I did checkup app with Django Debug Toolbar - and seems that pages are are not loaded from cache (there are no calls to cache from backend, and there is number of queries to database which might indicate that pages are not loaded from cache). I was expecting that django will automatically detect change of code and restart running new code, additionally interpreter restart could be needed (which should be solved via putting containers down and rebuid). Are there ideas what else to check or try? Removing all containers, images and volumes helped but it is no my preferred way to introduce each update. I went through solutions from Why does docker-compose build not reflect my django code changes? and After docker-compose build the docker-compose up run old not updated containers but none was working for me except "nuke everything". Is there a way for "soft reload"? Here is Dockerfile for django container:

    # Dockerfile for django container
    FROM python:3.6-alpine

    ENV PYTHONUNBUFFERED 1

    RUN apk update \
    # psycopg2 dependencies
    && apk add --virtual build-deps gcc python3-dev musl-dev \
    && apk add postgresql-dev \
    # Pillow dependencies
    && apk add jpeg-dev zlib-dev freetype-dev lcms2-dev openjpeg-dev tiff-dev tk-dev tcl-dev \
    # CFFI dependencies
    && apk add libffi-dev py-cffi

    RUN addgroup -S django \
    && adduser -S -G django django

    # Requirements are installed here to ensure they will be cached.
    COPY ./requirements /requirements
    RUN pip install --no-cache-dir -r /requirements/production.txt \
    && rm -rf /requirements

    COPY ./compose/production/django/entrypoint /entrypoint
    RUN sed -i 's/\r//' /entrypoint
    RUN chmod +x /entrypoint
    RUN chown django /entrypoint

    COPY ./compose/production/django/start /start
    RUN sed -i 's/\r//' /start
    RUN chmod +x /start
    RUN chown django /start

    COPY ./compose/production/django/celery/worker/start /start-celeryworker
    RUN sed -i 's/\r//' /start-celeryworker
    RUN chmod +x /start-celeryworker
    RUN chown django /start-celeryworker

    COPY ./compose/production/django/celery/beat/start /start-celerybeat
    RUN sed -i 's/\r//' /start-celerybeat
    RUN chmod +x /start-celerybeat
    RUN chown django /start-celerybeat

    COPY ./compose/production/django/celery/flower/start /start-flower
    RUN sed -i 's/\r//' /start-flower
    RUN chmod +x /start-flower

    COPY . /app

    RUN chown -R django /app

    USER django

    WORKDIR /app

    ENTRYPOINT ["/entrypoint"]

Answer 1

Incase someone comes across this, the answer is you have to rebuild the container every time you push new code.

Just run docker-compose -f production.yml build to update the production version