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Gunicorn

Gunicorn is a Python Web Server Gateway Interface HTTP server. It is needed to run the server in deployment mode.

Installing Gunicorn​

  1. Activate the virtual environment
  2. Run:
    pip install gunicorn

Configuring Gunicorn​

Gunicorn socket​

If you are on ssh, run:

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/gunicorn.socket

If you have GUI access, run:

sudo gedit /etc/systemd/system/gunicorn.socket

Edit the below code accordingly and paste it:

/etc/systemd/system/gunicorn.socket
[Unit]
Description=gunicorn socket

[Socket]
ListenStream=0.0.0.0:8080

[Install]
WantedBy=sockets.target

This will run the Gunicorn server on port 8080. If you need to run on other port, make sure to edit it in all the steps.

info

It is possible to use unix domain socket (IPC socket) to run gunicorn rather than network port. Replace 0.0.0.0:8000 with a socket address like /run/gunicorn.sock.

Gunicorn service​

Run:

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/gunicorn.service

Add the below code:

/etc/systemd/system/gunicorn.service
[Unit]
Description=gunicorn daemon
Requires=gunicorn.socket
After=network.target

[Service]
User=<user>
Group=www-data
WorkingDirectory=<path_inside_the_project_folder>
ExecStart=<path_inside_the_project_folder>/venv/bin/gunicorn \
          --access-logfile gunicorn.log \
          --workers <n_workers> \
          --bind 0.0.0.0:8080 \
         <projectname>.wsgi:application

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

The above code needs to be modified in the following ways:

  1. user - linux username of the user who has necessary permissions to run Django server. "root" gives all privileges and works without raising any permission issues but it is not recommended because of security issues. Create a user with only necessary permissions and use that user here.
  2. path_inside_the_project_folder - absolute path inside the projectname folder E.g. /home/projectname/
  3. n_workers - the number of threads Django can take. The general rule is 2n+1 where n is the number of CPU cores. But may have to reduce n_workers if other services also running on the server.
note

Make sure the --bind flag's value matches the ListenStream path if you are using unix socket.

Running Gunicorn​

Run the following commands to start the Gunicorn server:

sudo systemctl start gunicorn.socket
sudo systemctl enable gunicorn.socket

sudo systemctl start gunicorn
sudo systemctl enable gunicorn
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl restart gunicorn

Testing Gunicorn​

sudo systemctl status gunicorn

Troubleshoot any issues in this. For more detailed information run:

sudo journalctl -u gunicorn

Reloading Gunicorn​

When any changes are made to code or env files run the following command:

sudo systemctl restart gunicorn.