Configure Systemd to launch a Django project

I am going to use systemd to ensure that our server runs on startup.

Let’s assume your django project is under /opt/django_server. You have created a virtual environment under /opt/django_server/venv. And you have installed the gunicorn server.

First create the systemd django_server.service file.

[Unit]
Description=Our Django server

[Service]
Restart=on-failure
WorkingDirectory=/opt/django_server
Environment=PYTHONPATH=/opt/django_server/venv/bin
ExecStart=/opt/django_server/venv/bin/gunicorn django_server.wsgi:application --name django_server --bind 0.0.0.0:8000 --workers 3

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

It contains three sections.

• Unit Description of the service and requirements.
• Service Details on how the service will run.
• Install Target of the service.

Place your file under /etc/systemd/system/

Reload systemd so it can automatically start our service(s)

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable django_server
sudo systemctl start django_server.service

Validate your service status

systemctl status django_server.service

If you want to manually start / stop your service

sudo systemctl start django_server

• Django
• Deploy
• Systemd