# Trying to get Django running in a vhost

**URL:** <https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/trying-to-get-django-running-in-a-vhost/38366>\
**Category:** Deployment\
**Created:** [January 29, 2025, 9:48pm UTC](https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/trying-to-get-django-running-in-a-vhost/38366 "2025-01-29T21:48:03Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![philronan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/forum.djangoproject.com/philronan/32/26560_2.png) [@philronan](https://forum.djangoproject.com/u/philronan)\
**Post date:** [January 29, 2025, 9:48pm UTC](https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/trying-to-get-django-running-in-a-vhost/38366/1 "2025-01-29T21:48:03Z")

</div>

Hi, I’m having no luck getting Django to work in a virtual host on a Linux server (Apache 2.4.62 / Debian 12 / Django 5.1.5; all freshly installed). I’ve followed various online guides, but nothing seems to work properly.

One thing that strikes me as slightly odd is that although running `django-admin startproject web` on the command line always creates nested directories both called `web`, the [official documentation on using Django with Apache](https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/5.1/howto/deployment/wsgi/modwsgi/) doesn’t seem to acknowledge this at all. Should I perhaps be creating Django projects some other way?

I’ve set `WSGScriptAlias` to `web/web/wsgi.py` in the Apache config file. I replaced the contents of this file with the [hello world application from the mod\_wsgi documentation](https://modwsgi.readthedocs.io/en/latest/user-guides/quick-configuration-guide.html), it works just fine. But with the actual `wsgi.py` file, I just get a _500 Internal Server Error_ page and a note in the log file that says _ModuleNotFoundError: No module named ‘web’_.

Can anyone see where I’m going wrong here? I’ve tried juggling the directory structure and config files, but nothing works.

This is how files are currently arranged at the vhost root (`/var/www/sites/example.com`):

```auto
.
├── env
│ ├── bin
│ │ ├── activate
│ │ ├── activate.csh
│ │ ├── activate.fish
│ │ ├── Activate.ps1
│ │ ├── django-admin
│ │ ├── pip
│ │ ├── pip3
│ │ ├── pip3.11
│ │ ├── python -> python3
│ │ ├── python3 -> /usr/bin/python3
│ │ ├── python3.11 -> python3
│ │ └── sqlformat
│ ├── include
│ │ └── python3.11
│ ├── lib
│ │ └── python3.11
│ ├── lib64 -> lib
│ └── pyvenv.cfg
└── web
    ├── manage.py
    └── web
        ├── asgi.py
        ├── __init__.py
        ├── settings.py
        ├── urls.py
        └── wsgi.py

```

The Apache conf file for this vhost looks like this:

```auto
<IfModule mod_ssl.c>
<VirtualHost *:443>

    ServerName example.com
    ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
    DocumentRoot /var/www/sites/example.com/

    <Directory /var/www/sites/example.com>
        Require all granted
    </Directory>

    WSGIDaemonProcess example.com processes=2 threads=15 user=django_user group=www-data socket-user=#1001 python-path=/var/www/sites/example.com/env/bin python-home=/var/www/sites/example.com/env
    WSGIProcessGroup example.com

    WSGIScriptAlias / /var/www/sites/example.com/web/web/wsgi.py

    AssignUserID django_user www-data

    LogLevel info ssl:warn
    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/example.com.error.log
    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/example.com.access.log combined

SSLCertificateFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/myserver.com/fullchain.pem
SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/myserver.com/privkey.pem
Include /etc/letsencrypt/options-ssl-apache.conf
</VirtualHost>
</IfModule>

```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![philronan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex026/user_avatar/forum.djangoproject.com/philronan/32/26560_2.png) [@philronan](https://forum.djangoproject.com/u/philronan)\
**Post date:** [February 1, 2025, 10:37pm UTC](https://forum.djangoproject.com/t/trying-to-get-django-running-in-a-vhost/38366/2 "2025-02-01T22:37:46Z")

</div>

Never mind, I seem to have got something working at last!

Looks like the main problem was with the `WSGIDaemonProcess` directive, which was wrong in various ways. I’ll put the Apache conf file and directory tree here for reference in case anyone else might find it useful. I also needed to add the domain name to `ALLOWED_HOSTS` in settings.py, and there are no doubt several other things I need to sort out. But I think I’m back on track here 😃

### Apache vhost configuration file:

```auto
<IfModule mod_ssl.c>
<VirtualHost *:443>

    ServerName example.com
    ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
    DocumentRoot /var/www/sites/example.com/web/web

    <Directory /var/www/sites/example.com>
        Require all granted
    </Directory>

    WSGIDaemonProcess example.com python-path=/var/www/sites/example.com/web:/var/www/sites/example.com/web/env/lib/python3.11/site-packages python-home=/var/www/sites/example.com/web/env
    WSGIProcessGroup example.com
    WSGIScriptAlias / /var/www/sites/example.com/web/web/wsgi.py
    AssignUserID django_user www-data
    LogLevel info ssl:warn

    ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/example.com.error.log
    CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/example.com.access.log combined

SSLCertificateFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/myserver.com/fullchain.pem
SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/myserver.com/privkey.pem
Include /etc/letsencrypt/options-ssl-apache.conf
</VirtualHost>
</IfModule>

```

### Directory structure (`/var/www/sites/example.com`):

```auto
.
└── web
    ├── db.sqlite3
    ├── env
    │ ├── bin
    │ ├── include
    │ ├── lib
    │ ├── lib64 -> lib
    │ └── pyvenv.cfg
    ├── manage.py
    ├── static
    │ └── admin
    └── web
        ├── asgi.py
        ├── __init__.py
        ├── __pycache__
        ├── settings.py
        ├── urls.py
        └── wsgi.py

```