Managing Django Settings Across Environments

As a Django developer, one of the most important things you need to manage is settings for different environments. Having separate settings for development and production is crucial to ensure smooth deployments and avoid errors. In this post, I will discuss some tips on how to properly configure Django settings files for each environment.

Why Managing Settings is Important

Firstly, maintaining separate configuration files allows you to have different settings tailored for development and production. For instance, you would want DEBUG set to True in development for debugging purposes. However, enabling it in production can expose sensitive application details and create security risks if errors occur.

Additionally, there could be differences in services used. You may use a local database server while developing locally. But in production, you are more likely to use a cloud-hosted database service. The configuration details would vary based on the database used.

Approach 1: Using django-environ

An approach is to use the django-environ package. This lets you define environment variables and makes configuration easy.

First, install django-environ and add it to your Django project. Then, define a baseSettings file with common settings:

# settings.py

import environ

env = environ.Env()

BASE_DIR = env('BASE_DIR') 

# Common settings
INSTALLED_APPS = [
    # Apps here
]

# Database definition
DATABASES = {
    'default': env.db(),
}

Next, have separate files for development and production environments:

# dev.py

from .settings import *

DEBUG = True

DATABASES['default']['NAME'] = 'dev_db'
DATABASES['default']['HOST'] = 'localhost'

# prod.py

from .settings import * 

DEBUG = False

DATABASES['default']['NAME'] = 'prod_db'
DATABASES['default']['HOST'] = 'db.prodserver.com'

Approach 2: Using Django Configurations

An alternative is Django Configurations. This also helps avoid messySettings files.

With Configurations, define different classes for each environment:

# settings.py

from configurations import Configuration

class Base(Configuration):
    # Common settings go here

class Development(Base):
    DEBUG = True
    DATABASES = {
        'default': {
             'NAME': 'dev_db',
        }
    }

class Production(Base):
    DEBUG = False
    DATABASES = {
        'default': {
             'NAME': 'prod_db'
        }
    }

The environment can then be set via an environment variable:

# Set environment variable
export APP_ENV="Development"

This loads the Development config class based on the variable.

Choosing the Right Approach for Settings

Both django-environ and Configurations achieve the same goal – simplified environment-based settings.

django-environ uses environment variables directly in baseSettings. Configurations instead utilizes inheritance by creating classes.

So Configurations involve slightly more code. But provide more flexibility to customize environments. The right approach depends on your specific needs and project complexity.

Conclusion

In summary, properly managing Django settings is vital for smooth deployments to different servers. Use packages like django-environ or Django Configurations. Have a shared baseSettings file and custom configs for production, development, etc. This will save you headaches when deploying applications!