The following steps require an instance of postgres to be running locally on the default port (5432)
pip install pipenv
pipenv install
pipenv shell
python src/manage.py migrate
python src/manage.py runserver
The application can also be run locally using Docker Compose if required, however, it's beneficial to run locally using the above steps as it gives you hot reloading. To run using docker compose, simply run the following command from the project root:
docker-compose up
Once the app has been deployed, you can initialise it to create a super user by hitting the
/api/auth/init endpoint. This will create a super user with the details configured in
app.settings.common with the following parameters:
ADMIN_USERNAME,
ADMIN_EMAIL,
ADMIN_INITIAL_PASSWORD
These can be updated before deployment, or equally, once initialised, you can log in and update these details.
Databases are configured in app/settings/<env>.py
The app is configured to use PostgreSQL for all environments currently. NoSQL database systems will require some more complicated set up as Django is not designed for use with NoSQL databases.
When running locally, you'll need a local instance of postgres running. The easiest way to do this is to use docker which is achievable with the following command:
docker run --name local_postgres -d -P postgres
You'll also need to ensure that you have a value for POSTGRES_PASSWORD set as an environment variable on you development machine.
When running on a Heroku-ish platform, the application reads the database connection in production
from an environment variable called DATABASE_URL. This should be configured in the Heroku-ish
application configuration.
When running using Docker, it reads the database configuration from the settings located at
app.settings.master-docker
The application should run on any Heroku-ish platform (e.g. Dokku, Flynn) by simply adding the required git repo and pushing the code. The code for running the app is contained in the Procfile.
To get it running, you'll need to add the necessary config variables as outlined below.
The application can be configured to run using docker with simply by running the following command:
docker-compose up
This will use some default settings created in the docker-compose.yml file located in the root of
the project. These should be changed before using in any production environments.
The application relies on the following environment variables to run:
DJANGO_ALLOWED_HOSTS: comma separated list of hosts the application will run on in the given environmentDJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE: python path to settings file for the given environment, e.g. "app.settings.develop"SENDGRID_API_KEY: API key from sendgrid account which will need to be set up for emails to be sent from platform successfullyDATABASE_URL: required by develop and master environments, should be a standard format database url e.g. postgres://user:password@host:port/db_nameDJANGO_SECRET_KEY: see 'Creating a secret key' section below
It is important to also set an environment variable on whatever platform you are using for
DJANGO_SECRET_KEY. There is a function to create one in app.settings.common if none exists in
the environment variables, however, this is not suitable for use in production. To generate a new
secret key, you can use the function defined in src/secret-key-gen.py by simply running it from a
command prompt:
python secret-key-gen.py
To add a python dependency, run the following commands:
pipenv install <package name>
The dependency then needs to be added to the relevant requirements*.txt files as necessary.
- Python 2.7.14
- Django 1.11.13
- DjangoRestFramework 3.8.2
Further documentation can be found here.
Please read CONTRIBUTING.md for details on our code of conduct, and the process for submitting pull requests to us.
If you encounter a bug or feature request we would like to hear about it. Before you submit an issue please search existing issues in order to prevent duplicates.
If you have any questions about our projects you can email [email protected].