deploy Django on DreamHost

First, enter domain folder (eg. example.com)

cd example.com

Create a virtualenv and install Django (eg. using python 3.5).

pyvenv-3.5 venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install django

Create (or install from a repo) your django project (eg. my_project).

Create a file passenger_wsgi.py in the root of your website directory (eg. example.com). Replace ‘my_project’ with your project name.

import sys, os
cwd = os.getcwd()
sys.path.append(cwd)
sys.path.append(cwd + '/my_project')

INTERP = os.path.abspath(cwd + '/venv/bin/python')

if sys.executable != INTERP: os.execl(INTERP, INTERP, *sys.argv)

sys.path.insert(0,cwd+'/venv/bin')
#sys.path.insert(0,cwd+'/venv/lib/python3.5/site-packages/django')
sys.path.insert(0,cwd+'/venv/lib/python3.5/site-packages')

os.environ['DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE'] = "my_project.settings"
from django.core.wsgi import get_wsgi_application
application = get_wsgi_application()

Create the restart file to start your passenger site

mkdir tmp
touch tmp/restart.txt

Create folder for static files

mkdir public/static

Set up Django’s static file settings in order to correctly serve images, CSS, and JavaScript as you will need this for the admin interface to work. Edit my_project/settings.py to configure STATIC_ROOT

STATIC_ROOT = os.path.dirname(BASE_DIR) + '/public/static/'

Run the collectstatic command to set up the static items for the admin interface

cd $HOME/example.com/my_project
python manage.py collectstatic

Start django project via

python passenger_wsgi.py

To restart django project, for example after some modifications

touch $HOME/example.com/tmp/restart

pip install mysqlclient

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.mysql',
        'NAME': '<db_name>',
        'USER': '<user>',
        'PASSWORD': '<password>',
        'HOST': '<mysql.example.com>',
        'PORT': '',
    }
}