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Django


Serve static files directly from Django

Changes to settings.py
MEDIA_ROOT = '/home/user/devel/mysite/static/'
MEDIA_URL = '/static/'
ADMIN_MEDIA_PREFIX = '/media/'

Apparently the example code in settings.py is not that good for this purpose, as you need to re-define ADMIN_MEDIA_PREFIX to something else than "/media/" (the default) if you want to use "/media/" for your static files or Django will mix the two URLs up and try to serve your media files from the admin dir.

Instead, simply use a different keyword for your static media files. I will use "static" from now on!

Changes to urls.py
from django.conf import settings

if settings.DEBUG:
    urlpatterns += patterns('',
        (r'^static/(?P<path>.*)$', 'django.views.static.serve', {'document_root': settings.MEDIA_ROOT}),
    )

Just append this at the bottom of your file, and it will only be active on sites with DEBUG set to true. My production servers have an Apache alias that takes care of /static for these kind of sites, and I even explicitly set the handler to None, to be sure Python/Django never gets the request.

NOTE: This should only be used during development, since both performance and security is questionable.

Apache configuration example

<VirtualHost *:80>

    ServerName django.confighell.com
    ServerAlias www.django.confighell.com
    ServerAdmin webmaster@confighell.com
    DocumentRoot /home/user/prod/htdocs
    ErrorLog /home/user/prod/logs/error.log
    CustomLog /home/user/prod/logs/access.log combined

    <Location />
        Options None
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all

        SetHandler python-program
        PythonInterpreter custom-site-id
        PythonHandler django.core.handlers.modpython
        SetEnv DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE mysite.settings
        PythonOption django.root /mysite
        PythonDebug On
        PythonPath "['/home/user/prod'] + sys.path"
    </Location>

    <Location /static>
        SetHandler None
    </Location>

    Alias /static/ /home/user/prod/htdocs/static/

</VirtualHost>

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