===============================
How to use Django with Gunicorn
===============================

.. highlight:: bash

Gunicorn_ ('Green Unicorn') is a pure-Python WSGI server for UNIX. It has no
dependencies and is easy to install and use.

.. _Gunicorn: http://gunicorn.org/

There are two ways to use Gunicorn with Django. One is to have Gunicorn treat
Django as just another WSGI application. The second is to use Gunicorn's
special `integration with Django`_.

.. _integration with Django: http://docs.gunicorn.org/en/latest/run.html#django-manage-py

Installing Gunicorn
===================

Installing gunicorn is as easy as ``sudo pip install gunicorn``. For more
details, see the `gunicorn documentation`_.

.. _gunicorn documentation: http://gunicorn.org/install.html

Running Django in Gunicorn as a generic WSGI application
========================================================

When Gunicorn is installed, a ``gunicorn`` command is available which starts
the Gunicorn server process. At its simplest, gunicorn just needs to be called
with the location of a WSGI application object.::

    gunicorn [OPTIONS] APP_MODULE

Where ``APP_MODULE`` is of the pattern ``MODULE_NAME:VARIABLE_NAME``. The
module name should be a full dotted path. The variable name refers to a WSGI
callable that should be found in the specified module.

So for a typical Django project, invoking gunicorn would look like::

    gunicorn myproject.wsgi:application

(This requires that your project be on the Python path; the simplest way to
ensure that is to run this command from the same directory as your
``manage.py`` file.)


Using Gunicorn's Django integration
===================================

.. note::

    If you are using Django 1.4 or newer, it’s highly recommended to simply run
    your application with the WSGI interface using the ``gunicorn`` command
    as described above.

To use Gunicorn's built-in Django integration, first add ``"gunicorn"`` to
:setting:`INSTALLED_APPS`. Then run ``python manage.py run_gunicorn``.

This provides a few Django-specific niceties:

* sets the gunicorn process name to be that of the project

* validates installed models

* allows an ``--adminmedia`` option for passing in the location of the
  admin media files.

See Gunicorn's `deployment documentation`_ for additional tips on starting and
maintaining the Gunicorn server.

.. _deployment documentation: http://gunicorn.org/deploy.html
