Using Jonah, you can develop your Django application entirely within Docker. This way, your code runs in the exact same environment, whether it's on your machine, on the test server, or in deployment. Jonah saves you a lot of the setup work in the beginning, letting you jump into a fully prepared, but configurable, Django Docker Project.
If you are using TDD, you can include Jonah on your build server to make sure all tests pass before pushing it to your staging or production servers.
You can install Jonah using pip:
> pip install jonah
Then run it using the jonah <command> syntax. To start a new project, run
> jonah init your_new_project
Jonah will then create a new directory called your_new_project in the current working directory and create an empty
Django project inside.
To run your new empty project, run jonah develop:
> cd your_new_project > jonah develop
This will build and launch the container, then launch the Django project inside the container. If you get any error
messages, check if your computer has a working and current installation of Docker. To check if your project is running,
visit http://localhost/ (port 80) in your browser.
The ddp directory inside your project directory is transparently mounted into the container, so that any changes in
your code are directly applied to the running code. (For some changes, you might have to reload the Django server, but
more on that later.)
Most of the time when developing a Django application, you don't need to restart the development server constantly. For
changes to models, settings, or changes to admin.py, you can reload the Django server using this command:
> jonah reload
Now, let's start a new app inside the project. To do that, you can use Jonah's shell feature. Open a shell inside
the container like so:
> jonah shell
After a moment, you should see a new prompt looking something like root@a0e9d20bffdf:/code# to indicate you're
working inside the container. Change the working directory into the ddp dir and run the manage.py command like
you would normally:
> cd ddp > ./manage.py startapp my_new_app
Congratulations! You just ran Django code inside your container. It is recommended that you run makemigrations,
migrate, and other manage.py commands like this as well. Type exit to exit the container shell and return
to your regular command line.
jonah test will run all your tests in the container and display live output.
Once you're calling it quits after a long day of productive coding, use jonah stop to shut down your container.
Happy coding. :)
Jonah is easiest to use when you start a new project. However, it should work with any directory that has a
Dockerfile and a jonah.ini file. A good way to move a Django project into Jonah would probably be the following:
- Rename your Django project to
ddp - Create a new Jonah project with the name of your Django project
- Replace the ddp directory inside Jonah by your own
- Profit
| Command | Description |
|---|---|
init |
Initialize a new jonah project in the current directory |
build |
Build the image. |
cleanbuild |
Build the image from scratch instead of relying on cached layers. |
develop |
Run dev server |
reload |
Reload Django process on dev server |
shell |
Get a shell on the dev server |
stop |
Stop a previously running development server |
test |
Build and run Unit Tests |
compilemessages |
Compile internationalization Strings |
tag |
Add git and docker tags |
deploy |
Deploy to production. This command will ask you for a tag before pushing anything to the server |
stage |
Deploy to staging |
direct_deploy |
Deploy as tag "master" on production server, without warning and without asking for confirmation |
clean |
Delete exited containers, dangling images, and volumes. Good to clean up hard drive space. |
To get a full list of commands, run deploy.py without any arguments.
The init command will create a number of configuration files. Here is what they are used for:
| File | Description |
|---|---|
jonah.ini |
General configuration for jonah, most importantly the Docker image name |
requirements.txt |
This file is in Pip-Syntax. Python packages found here will be installed into the Docker container. |
test.sh |
A shell script to run your tests. In many cases, this should just contain
manage.py test, but maybe you want to create code coverage, or include nose, or
transform unit test results to other formats for your build server to use. |
jonah/apt-packages.txt |
This file is in apt-get syntax. System packages that will be installed after basic system installation is complete. |
jonah/supervisord.conf |
Config file for supervisord. By default, this runs spinup.sh, then starts
gunicorn and the Django server. |
jonah/nginx.conf |
Config file for nginx. Look at this if you want to e.g. setup different static file handling. |
jonah/spinup.sh |
A shell script to run EVERY TIME the container is spun up. |
jonah/finalize_build.sh |
A shell script to run ONCE after the system installation has finished. |
What is the meaning of the ddp directory?
While a Jonah project can have any name, the Django project it encapsulates needs to be called ddp, so all
the scripts and calls inside Jonah know where to find the Django project, how to specify settings, etc. "DDP" stands
for "Docker Deployable Project".
While this constraint could be lifted in the future, it is not very high on our list of priorities right now. If you feel differently, please let us know by opening or adding to an issue on GitHub.
We’d like to encourage your feature requests, bug reports and pull requests. Please note that the Django Code of Conduct applies to this project. Be friendly, welcoming, considerate, respectful, and be careful in the words that you choose please. If you think you’ve witnessed a CoC violation, please contact Daniel.
Jonah is inspired by Joe Mornin’s excellent ``django-docker``.
This project is released under the MIT license. See the LICENSE file for more info.