Django on Apache2 - Restart Server when making changes?

Question

right now I'm trying - for the first time - to deploy a Django-Application on a Apache2 with mod_wsgi and it's still not working the way I wish it would. Anyway, I'm arguing with my Admin who says I don't have to restart the server after making changes to my python code, only if there are changes to the .conf-files. The tutorials online are also not that useful for this specific problem! Some say "A", some say "B" and some don't mention this topic at all.

    <VirtualHost *:80>
        ServerName webapp.company.local
        ServerAlias cmp-workbench.company.local
        ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
        DocumentRoot /var/www/cmp-workbench
    #for django
        Alias /static /var/www/cmp-workbench/static
        <Directory /var/www/cmp-workbench/static>
            Require all granted
        </Directory>
        <Directory /var/www/cmp-workbench/cmp_workbench>
            <Files wsgi.py>
                Require all granted
            </Files>
        </Directory>
        WSGIDaemonProcess cmp-workbench python-path=/var/www/cmp-workbench python-home=/var/www
        /cmp-workbench/cmp_workbench
        WSGIProcessGroup cmp-workbench
        WSGIScriptAlias / /var/www/cmp-workbench/cmp_workbench/wsgi.py

        ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error_cmp-workbench.log
        CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access_cmp-workbench.log combined
    </VirtualHost>

    import os
    import time
    import traceback
    import signal
    import sys

    from django.core.wsgi import get_wsgi_application
  
    sys.path.append('/var/www/cmp-workbench-stage/cmp_workbench_stage')
    sys.path.append('/var/www/cmp-workbench- 
    stage/cmp_workbench_stage/env/lib/python3.7/site-packages')

    os.environ.setdefault('DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE', 
    'cmp_workbench_stage.settings')

    try:
        application = get_wsgi_application()
    except Exception:
        # Error loading applications
        if 'mod_wsgi' in sys.modules:
           traceback.print_exc()
            os.kill(os.getpid(), signal.SIGINT)
            time.sleep(2.5)

Can someone who already deployed this way answer to my problem? Thanks and a great weekend!

what kind of errors you've got (apache log) ? share with us your conf and wsgi.py files — cizario, Nov 14 '20 at 09:00
Here's an update with my code. I actually don't get an error, The site just keeps loading! — finethen, Nov 14 '20 at 09:09
Thanks for the link, but it still doesn't answer the question wether to restart the server everytime after making changes to my python code. — finethen, Nov 14 '20 at 09:36

cizario · Answer 1 · 2020-11-16T06:57:53.377

in the most cases, you won't need to restart apache each time you make changes to python files. your sysadmin was definitely right. apache as web server is meant to serve and handle http requests (among other things) and not dealing with the execution of scripts (python, php ..)

as suggested by this answer, and after you make some changes in your python files, simply running touch wsgi.py command will do the trick to force the daemon to reload since the timestamps of the file (wsgi.py) is updated.

refer to https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/touch.1.html

Update the access and modification times of each FILE to the current time.

Django on Apache2 - Restart Server when making changes?

1 Answers1