Django 403 error for static files on shared hosting using passenger_wsgi

I'm trying to get my Django app running on a shared hosting site using passenger_wsgi (following the instruction of the hosting provider).

Since the app is for the main domain I installed it using this folder layout:

    public_html
      django
        static
          css
          js
          images
        SMC_website
        templates

In settings.py I have:

STATIC_URL = 'static/'
STATICFILES_DIRS = [
    '/home/xxxxxx/public_html/django/static/',
    '/home/xxxxxx/public_html/django/static/css',
    '/home/xxxxxx/public_html/django/static/js',
    '/home/xxxxxx/public_html/django/static/images',
    ]

In urls.py I have:

urlpatterns = [
    path('admin/', admin.site.urls),
    re_path(r"^$", views.index, name="Home Page"),
] 

urlpatterns += static(settings.STATIC_URL,
                      document_root=os.path.join(settings.BASE_DIR, 'static'))

When I try out the "static(settings.STATIC_URL,document_root=os.path.join(settings.BASE_DIR, 'static'))" in the django manage.py shell I get a an empty list ([]). Not sure why, or if this is the cause of my problem.

The app runs, pulls data from the database, but generates a 403 error for any content accessed from the static folders (css, js, or images).

I have these folder permisisons:

drwxr-x--- 2 xxxxxx xxxxxx 4096 Dec 17 18:30 css
drwxr-x--- 8 xxxxxx xxxxxx 4096 Dec 17 18:30 images
drwxr-x--- 3 xxxxxx xxxxxx 4096 Dec 17 18:30 js

drwxr-xr-x  5 xxxxxx xxxxxx   4096 Dec 11 14:24 SMC_website
drwxr-xr-x  3 xxxxxx xxxxxx   4096 Dec 11 14:24 logs
-rw-r--r--  1 xxxxxx xxxxxx    689 Dec 11 14:24 manage.py
-rw-r--r--  1 xxxxxx xxxxxx   1442 Dec 17 18:08 passenger_wsgi.py
-rw-r--r--  1 xxxxxx xxxxxx 245760 Dec 11 14:24 smcDB.sqlite3
drwxr-xr-x 10 xxxxxx xxxxxx   4096 Dec 11 14:31 static

the xxxxxx is the User Name and it is the same as the folder in settings.py above

In the Browser debugger I see the expected urls for the static content, e.g:

<script type="text/javascript" src="https://southmetrochorale.org/static/js/smc.js"></script>

Any suggestion on how to resolve this 403 error?

Okay, first you need to specify your STATIC_ROOT within settings.py. This declares the folder where you want to serve your static-files from.

Then you do the command python manage.py collectstatic. This pulls all your static-files from your STATICFILES_DIRS and organizes them inside the folder you declared under STATIC_ROOT before.

This part:

urlpatterns += static(settings.STATIC_URL,
                      document_root=os.path.join(settings.BASE_DIR, 'static'))

is only working within the django-testserver thing with DEBUG=True.

The problem you are facing is the production versus development.

For further reading I recommend How to deploy static files in production

I found the solution to this problem. Because the Django app is in a folder (django) in the main domain location (public_html) -> public_html/django and the static folder is at public_html/django/static I needed to use: STATIC_URL = "django/static/"

All is well, all static files are now being served.

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