Dockerizing Django with Postgres, Gunicorn, and Nginx

This is a step-by-step tutorial that details how to configure Django to run on Docker with Postgres. For production environments, we'll add on Nginx and Gunicorn. We'll also take a look at how to serve Django static and media files via Nginx.

Dependencies:

  1. Django v3.2.6
  2. Docker v20.10.8
  3. Python v3.9.6

Project Setup

Create a new project directory along with a new Django project:

$ mkdir django-on-docker && cd django-on-docker
$ mkdir app && cd app
$ python3.9 -m venv env
$ source env/bin/activate
(env)$

(env)$ pip install django==3.2.6
(env)$ django-admin.py startproject hello_django .
(env)$ python manage.py migrate
(env)$ python manage.py runserver

Feel free to swap out virtualenv and Pip for Poetry or Pipenv. For more, review Modern Python Environments.

Navigate to http://localhost:8000/ to view the Django welcome screen. Kill the server once done. Then, exit from and remove the virtual environment. We now have a simple Django project to work with.

Back to Top