How to Install Django on Ubuntu 18.04

Django is a free and open-source high-level Python web framework that encourages developers to develop fully-featured Python Web Applications. Using Django you can build secure, scalable and maintainable web applications. 

Django framework wrote a well structured that helps to do quickly create Python web applications. It provides higher security for the application and avoids developers for making many common security mistakes.

There are different methods to install the Django framework on Ubuntu:

• Install Django with pip in a virtual environment
• Django install from packages
• Install Django from GitHub Repo

In this tutorial, we are going to install Django on Ubuntu 18.04 using Python Virtual Environment. The best thing to use Python virtual environments is to create an isolated environment for different Python projects.

Installing Django on Ubuntu 18.04

Here is a step by step instructions for how to install Django in a Python virtual environment on Ubuntu 18.04. Before we start to install Django on Ubuntu 18.04 you must have the non-root user with sudo privileges.

Prerequisites

First, Install tree package to better understand on our further tutorial.

sudo apt install tree

Install Python 3

Python 3.6 by default installed in Ubuntu 18.04. You can verify the Python 3 is installed in your system using the following command.

python3 -v

The output should look like below. Please note that the version number may vary.

Python 3.6.8

Install pip3 Package

Next, Install pip package from the Ubuntu repositories.

sudo apt install python3-pip

Install virtualenv modules

Now, you run the following command to install virtualenv to create a virtual environment in Python 3.

sudo pip3 install virtualenv

Create and Activate Virtual Environment

Once you installed virtualenv module, create a new directory for your Django application and go inside the directory.

mkdir django_app && cd django_app

Now, we have to create and activate Virtual environment for Django Applications.

python3 -m virtualenv env_name

Furthermore, run the following command to activate the virtual environment in order to start using the virtual environment.

source env_name/bin/activate

As you see path is changed and it will show the name of your environment (env_name).

Install Django

You can use the pip Python package manager to install Django.

pip install Django

Note: In this virtual environment directory you can use python instead of python3 command and pip instead of pip3 command.

Use the following command to check and verify the installed Django version.

python -m django --version

The output should look like as per given below. Django version number may vary.

2.2.6

Create First Django Project

Create a Django project by using the django-admin command-line utility. Here, firstapp is a project name.

django-admin startproject firstapp

The above command will create a firstapp directory in your current directory. Run the following command to see the directory structure.

tree firstapp

Output

firstapp
├── firstapp
│   ├── __init__.py
│   ├── settings.py
│   ├── urls.py
│   └── wsgi.py
└── manage.py

1 directory, 5 files

You see above, manage.py used to manage the project. Moreover other files are Django specific about database configuration settings, routes, and settings.

Database Migrate

Default, Django uses an SQLite database. However, in production applications, you can use PostgreSQL, MariaDB, Oracle or MySQL Database.

Go to firstapp directory.

cd firstapp

Now we need to migrate the database using below command.

python manage.py migrate

Output

Operations to perform:
  Apply all migrations: admin, auth, contenttypes, sessions
Running migrations:
  Applying contenttypes.0001_initial... OK
  Applying auth.0001_initial... OK
  Applying admin.0001_initial... OK
  Applying admin.0002_logentry_remove_auto_add... OK
  Applying admin.0003_logentry_add_action_flag_choices... OK
  Applying contenttypes.0002_remove_content_type_name... OK
  Applying auth.0002_alter_permission_name_max_length... OK
  Applying auth.0003_alter_user_email_max_length... OK
  Applying auth.0004_alter_user_username_opts... OK
  Applying auth.0005_alter_user_last_login_null... OK
  Applying auth.0006_require_contenttypes_0002... OK
  Applying auth.0007_alter_validators_add_error_messages... OK
  Applying auth.0008_alter_user_username_max_length... OK
  Applying auth.0009_alter_user_last_name_max_length... OK
  Applying auth.0010_alter_group_name_max_length... OK
  Applying auth.0011_update_proxy_permissions... OK
  Applying sessions.0001_initial... OK

Create Administrative User

Create an administrative user so that you can use the admin interface of the Django application.

python manage.py createsuperuser

The above command will prompt you to set a username, an email address, and a password for an administrative user.

Username (leave blank to use 'speedysense’): admin
Email address: [email protected]
Password: 
Password (again): 
Superuser created successfully.

Start the Development Server

Finally, start the development server using manage.py script followed by the runserver option.

python manage.py runserver

You’ll see the following output:

Watching for file changes with StatReloader
Performing system checks...

System check identified no issues (0 silenced).
October 14, 2019 - 08:45:12
Django version 2.2.6, using settings 'firstapp.settings'
Starting development server at http://127.0.0.1:8000/
Quit the server with CONTROL-C.

Go to http://127.0.0.1:8000/ in your browser you will get the following page.

You can access the Django admin interface by visiting http://127.0.0.1:8000/admin/ page.

Here, your username and password and you will be redirected to the Django admin panel.

You can stop the development server pressing CTRL+C in your terminal.

Deactivate The Virtual Environment

Once you complete your work you can deactivate the virtual environment by the following command. And you will go back to your normal shell.

deactivate

If you are a newbie for Django, you might need to follow Django documentation. This documentation will help you to develop your first Django application.

Final Thoughts

That all you need to know how to create a Python virtual environment. Furthermore, we are going through step by step Django installation in Ubuntu 18.04. Even more, we see how to migrate the database, and create a superuser for Django.

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