wagtail/docs/advanced_topics/deploying.rst

Deploying Wagtail
-----------------

On your server
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wagtail is straightforward to deploy on modern Linux-based distributions, but see the section on :doc:`performance </advanced_topics/performance>` for the non-Python services we recommend.

Our current preferences are for Nginx, Gunicorn and supervisor on Debian, but Wagtail should run with any of the combinations detailed in Django's :doc:`deployment documentation <django:howto/deployment/index>`.

On Divio Cloud
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

`Divio Cloud <https://divio.com/>`_ is a Dockerised cloud hosting platform for Python/Django that allows you to launch and deploy Wagtail projects in minutes. With a free account, you can create a Wagtail project. Choose from a:

* `site based on the Wagtail Bakery project <https://divio.com/wagtail>`_, or
* `brand new Wagtail project <https://control.divio.com/control/project/create>`_ (see the `how to get started notes <https://support.divio.com/project-types/wagtail/get-started-with-wagtail-on-divio-cloud>`_).

Divio Cloud also hosts a `live Wagtail Bakery demo <https://divio.com/wagtail>`_ (no account required).

On PythonAnywhere
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

`PythonAnywhere <https://www.pythonanywhere.com/>`_ is a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) focused on Python hosting and development. It allows developers to quickly develop, host, and scale applications in a cloud environment. Starting with a free plan they also provide MySQL and PostgreSQL databases as well as very flexible and affordable paid plans, so there's all you need to host a Wagtail site. To get quickly up and running you may use the `wagtail-pythonanywhere-quickstart <https://github.com/texperience/wagtail-pythonanywhere-quickstart>`_.

On other PAASs and IAASs
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We know of Wagtail sites running on `Heroku <https://spapas.github.io/2014/02/13/wagtail-tutorial/>`_, Digital Ocean and elsewhere. If you have successfully installed Wagtail on your platform or infrastructure, please :doc:`contribute </contributing/index>` your notes to this documentation!

Deployment tips
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Static files
++++++++++++

As with all Django projects, static files are not served by the Django application server in production (i.e. outside of the ``manage.py runserver`` command); these need to be handled separately at the web server level. See :doc:`Django's documentation on deploying static files <django:howto/static-files/deployment>`.

The JavaScript and CSS files used by the Wagtail admin frequently change between releases of Wagtail - it's important to avoid serving outdated versions of these files due to browser or server-side caching, as this can cause hard-to-diagnose issues. We recommend enabling :class:`~django.contrib.staticfiles.storage.ManifestStaticFilesStorage` in the ``STATICFILES_STORAGE`` setting - this ensures that different versions of files are assigned distinct URLs.


Cloud storage
+++++++++++++

Wagtail follows :doc:`Django's conventions for managing uploaded files <django:topics/files>`, and can be configured to store uploaded images and documents on a cloud storage service such as Amazon S3; this is done through the `DEFAULT_FILE_STORAGE <https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/stable/ref/settings/#std:setting-DEFAULT_FILE_STORAGE>`_ setting in conjunction with an add-on package such as `django-storages <https://django-storages.readthedocs.io/>`_. Be aware that setting up remote storage will not entirely offload file handling tasks from the application server - some Wagtail functionality requires files to be read back by the application server. In particular, documents are served through a Django view in order to enforce permission checks, and original image files need to be read back whenever a new resized rendition is created.

Note that the django-storages Amazon S3 backends (``storages.backends.s3boto.S3BotoStorage`` and ``storages.backends.s3boto3.S3Boto3Storage``) **do not correctly handle duplicate filenames** in their default configuration. When using these backends, ``AWS_S3_FILE_OVERWRITE`` must be set to ``False``.

If you are also serving Wagtail's static files from remote storage (using Django's `STATICFILES_STORAGE <https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/stable/ref/settings/#std:setting-STATICFILES_STORAGE>`_ setting), you'll need to ensure that it is configured to serve `CORS HTTP headers <https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/CORS>`_, as current browsers will reject remotely-hosted font files that lack a valid header. For Amazon S3, refer to the documentation `Setting Bucket and Object Access Permissions <https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/user-guide/set-permissions.html>`_, or (for the ``storages.backends.s3boto.S3BotoStorage`` backend only) add the following to your Django settings:

.. code-block:: python

    AWS_HEADERS = {
        'Access-Control-Allow-Origin': '*'
    }

For other storage services, refer to your provider's documentation, or the documentation for the Django storage backend library you're using.