Installation¶

Download latest Google AppEngine SDK¶

Get the latest version of SDK, if you are using Linux please make sure that SDK is available on your PATH (how?).

Install Django¶

Install Django framework. There are many ways of doing that (suggestion is to use virtualenv along with virtualenvwrapper and pip)

$ pip install django==1.3.1

Note

Version 1.3.1 is latest supported by SDK

Create Django project¶

Create a new, awesome Django project. Right now it’s even more awesome because this project will use AppEngine:

$ django-admin.py startproject my_awesome_project

Install django-rocket-engine¶

Install latest version of django-rocket-engine, with pip

$ pip install django-rocket-engine

Register application on Google AppEngine¶

Register new application on Google AppEngine site.

Create CloudSQL database¶

Create a CloudSQL database instance using Google Api Console, add application instance name from previous step in “Authorized applications”. Using “SQL Prompt” tab create a database inside your CloudSQL instance.

CREATE DATABASE database_name;

Configuration¶

Google AppEngine requires applications to have an config in app.yaml file, which is responsible for basic description, and how to manage the application. Create app.yaml inside project directory. Example of app.yaml for project.

# app.yaml
application: unique_appengine_appspot_id
version: 1
runtime: python27
api_version: 1
threadsafe: true

handlers:
- url: /.*
  script: rocket_engine.wsgi

libraries:
- name: django
  version: 1.3

env_variables:
  DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE: 'settings'

Things that need to be done in settings.py are presented in code snippet below:

# settings.py
from rocket_engine import on_appengine

...

# django-rocket-engine as every Django application
# needs to be added to settings.py file in INSTALLED_APPS section:
INSTALLED_APPS = (
    # other django applications here
    # ...

    'rocket_engine',
)


# remove project name from ROOT_URLCONF.
# AppEngine doesn't treat project as a module
# like normal Django application does.
ROOT_URLCONF = 'urls'

# to use different databases  during
# development process and on production.
if on_appengine:
    DATABASES = {
        'default': {
            'ENGINE': 'rocket_engine.db.backends.cloudsql',
            'INSTANCE': 'instance:name',
            'NAME': 'database_name',
        }
    }
else:
    DATABASES = {
        'default': {
            'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.sqlite3',
            'NAME': 'development.db'
        }
    }

# disable debugging on production
DEBUG = not on_appengine

Note

Instead of using sqlite3 backend your are able to use MySQL backend. This should also be your choice for serious applications.

That’s just about it. Application is ready to run:

$ python manage.py syncdb
$ python manage.py runserver

and deploy:

$ python manage.py on_appengine syncdb
$ python manage.py appengine update --oauth2

Have fun!