Django documentation

How to install Django

These docs are frozen for Django version 0.90. For current documentation, go here.

This document will get you up and running with Django.

Install Python

Being a Python Web framework, Django requires Python.

It works with any Python version 2.3 and higher.

Get Python at www.python.org. If you're running Linux or Mac OS X, you probably already have it installed.

Install Apache and mod_python

If you just want to experiment with Django, skip this step. Django comes with its own Web server for development purposes.

If you want to use Django on a production site, use Apache with mod_python. mod_python is similar to mod_perl -- it embeds Python within Apache and loads Python code into memory when the server starts. Code stays in memory throughout the life of an Apache process, which leads to significant performance gains over other server arrangements. Make sure you have Apache installed, with the mod_python module activated. Django requires Apache 2.x and mod_python 3.x.

See How to use Django with mod_python for information on how to configure mod_python once you have it installed.

If you can't use mod_python for some reason, fear not: Django follows the WSGI spec, which allows it to run on a variety of server platforms. See the server-arrangements wiki page for specific installation instructions for each platform.

Get your database running

If you plan to use Django's database API functionality, you'll need to make sure a database server is running. Django works with PostgreSQL (recommended), MySQL and SQLite.

Additionally, you'll need to make sure your Python database bindings are installed.

  • If you're using PostgreSQL, you'll need the psycopg package (version 1 -- not version 2, which is still in beta). If you're on Windows, check out the unofficial compiled Windows version.
  • If you're using MySQL, you'll need MySQLdb.
  • If you're using SQLite, you'll need pysqlite. Use version 2.0.3 or higher.

Install the Django code

Installation instructions are slightly different depending on whether you're using the latest official version or the latest development version.

It's easy either way.

Installing the official version

  1. Download Django-0.90.tar.gz from our download page.
  2. tar xzvf Django-0.90.tar.gz
  3. cd Django-0.90
  4. sudo python setup.py install

Note that the last command will automatically download and install setuptools if you don't already have it installed. This requires a working Internet connection.

This will install Django in your Python installation's site-packages directory.

Installing the development version

  1. Make sure you have Subversion installed.

  2. svn co http://code.djangoproject.com/svn/django/trunk/ django_src

  3. Symlink django_src/django so that django is within your Python site-packages directory:

    ln -s `pwd`/django_src/django /usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/django

    (In the above line, change python2.3 to match your current Python version.)

You don't have to run python setup.py install.

When you want to update your code, just run the command svn update from within the django_src directory.

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