Django + PostgreSQL sample app

An example Django app that serves quizzes and lets people know how they scored. Quizzes and their questions are stored in a PostgreSQL database. There is no user authentication or per-user data stored.

The project is designed for deployment on Azure App Service with a PostgreSQL flexible server. See deployment instructions below.

The code is tested with django.test, linted with ruff, and formatted with black. Code quality issues are all checked with both pre-commit and Github actions.

Opening the project

This project has Dev Container support, so it will be be setup automatically if you open it in Github Codespaces or in local VS Code with the Dev Containers extension.

If you're not using one of those options for opening the project, then you'll need to:

1. Create a Python virtual environment and activate it.

2. Install the requirements:

   python3 -m pip install -r requirements-dev.txt

3. Install the pre-commit hooks:

   pre-commit install

Local development

1. Create an .env file using .env.sample as a guide. Set the value of DBNAME to the name of an existing database in your local PostgreSQL instance. Set the values of DBHOST, DBUSER, and DBPASS as appropriate for your local PostgreSQL instance. If you're in the devcontainer, copy the values exactly from .env.sample.

2. Run the migrations: (Also available as a VS Code task)

   python3 src/manage.py migrate

3. Run the local server at port 8000: (Also available as a VS Code task)

   python3 src/manage.py runserver 8000

4. Navigate to the displayed URL to verify the website is working.

Admin

This app comes with the built-in Django admin interface.

1. Create a superuser:

   python3 src/manage.py createsuperuser

2. Restart the server and navigate to "/admin"

3. Login with the superuser credentials.

Testing

Run tests:

python3 src/manage.py collectstatic
coverage run --source='.' src/manage.py test quizzes
coverage report

The same tests are also run as a Github action.

Deployment

This repository is set up for deployment on Azure App Service (w/PostgreSQL flexible server) using the configuration files in the infra folder.

1. Sign up for a free Azure account and create an Azure Subscription.

2. Install the Azure Developer CLI. (If you open this repository in Codespaces or with the VS Code Dev Containers extension, that part will be done for you.)

3. Login to Azure:

   azd auth login

4. Provision and deploy all the resources:

   azd up

   It will prompt you to provide an azd environment name (like "django-app"), select a subscription from your Azure account, and select a location (like "eastus"). Then it will provision the resources in your account and deploy the latest code. If you get an error with deployment, changing the location can help, as there may be availability constraints for some of the resources.

5. To be able to access /admin, you'll need a Django superuser. Navigate to the Azure Portal for the App Service, select SSH, and run this command:

   python manage.py createsuperuser

6. When you've made any changes to the app code, you can just run:

   azd deploy

CI/CD pipeline

This project includes a Github workflow for deploying the resources to Azure on every push to main. That workflow requires several Azure-related authentication secrets to be stored as Github action secrets. To set that up, run:

azd pipeline config

Security

It is important to secure the databases in web applications to prevent unwanted data access. This infrastructure uses the following mechanisms to secure the PostgreSQL database:

• Azure Firewall: The database is accessible from all IPs. Once you've set up the database, you can restrict access to only Azure IPs by running azd env set POSTGRES_ALLOW_ALL_IPS false followed by azd provision.
• PostgreSQL Authentication: Passwordless connection using Microsoft Entra Managed Identity.
• PostgreSQL Version: Latest available on Azure, version 16, which includes security improvements.
• Django Admin Interface: The URL (typically "/admin") is a unique string generated based on the App Service Plan ID.

⚠️ For even more security, consider using an Azure Virtual Network to connect the Web App to the Database. See the Django-on-Azure project for example infrastructure files.

Costs

Pricing varies per region and usage, so it isn't possible to predict exact costs for your usage.

You can try the Azure pricing calculator for the resources:

• Azure App Service: Basic Tier with 1 CPU core, 1.75GB RAM. Pricing is hourly. Pricing
• PostgreSQL Flexible Server: Burstable Tier with 1 CPU core, 32GB storage. Pricing is hourly. Pricing
• Key Vault: Standard tier. Costs are per transaction, a few transactions are used on each deploy. Pricing
• Log analytics: Pay-as-you-go tier. Costs based on data ingested. Pricing

⚠️ To avoid unnecessary costs, remember to take down your app if it's no longer in use, either by deleting the resource group in the Portal or running azd down.

Getting help

If you're working with this project and running into issues, please post in Discussions.