Configuration

Sidewinder is completely configured via environment variables with the help of django-environ.

Start by creating .env file with your local settings in the project's root directory. You can begin by copying .env-example.

.env file config

Secret key

In production, make sure to set a unique secret key (doesn't matter for development):

DJANGO_SECRET_KEY=secretkey

Debug mode

DJANGO_DEBUG=1
DJANGO_DEBUG_TOOLBAR=1

Set to 0 to disable debug mode.

Allowed hosts

DJANGO_ALLOWED_HOSTS=localhost,127.0.0.1

Add additional hosts as needed in production.

SSL

DJANGO_SSL=0

Set to 1 in production to configure https.

Emails

Replace values according to your email server:

DJANGO_SERVER_EMAIL=sidewinder@example.com
DJANGO_EMAIL_HOST=example.emailprovider.com
DJANGO_EMAIL_PORT=587
DJANGO_EMAIL_HOST_USER=
DJANGO_EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD=

Info

The default email server values from .env-example refer to the local Mailhog instance that you can use to check outgoing email in development environment. If you want to test emails with MailHog you will need to set SMTP_DEV=1 as env var and start local Mailhog with docker compose up.

Replace to set default email prefix and origin address:

DJANGO_DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL=sidewinder@example.com
ALLAUTH_ACCOUNT_EMAIL_SUBJECT_PREFIX=

Replace to use SMTP backend instead of Django console email backend in development:

SMTP_DEV=1

Database

Set a connection string to SQLite or PostgreSQL database:

DJ_DATABASE_CONN_STRING=

Alternatively, create a sidewinder PostgreSQL database on the port 5432 with postgres user and postgres password, and make sure that the database is available for connections. Then use this example connection string:

DJ_DATABASE_CONN_STRING=postgres://postgres:postgres@localhost:5432/sidewinder

If you want to use GeoDjango, specify GeoDjango database backend:

DJANGO_DATABASE_BACKEND=django.contrib.gis.db.backends.postgis

Make sure that you have PostGIS installed and enabled in the database (CREATE EXTENSION postgis;).

Huey

The task queue Huey can work without Redis in development. Set HUEY_DEV=1 (default) to not use Redis in debug mode and HUEY_DEV=0 otherwise.

Note that when HUEY_DEV is 0, it is necessary to have Redis running and configured on a local machine.

Redis

Sidewinder uses Redis for background tasks in production and optionally during development.

To configure Redis URL, use REDIS_URL:

REDIS_URL=redis://127.0.0.1:6379

This setting is optional if your Redis instance runs at redis://127.0.0.1:6379.

Admin email address

Sidewinder can send some example email reports when ADMIN_EMAIL is set. This setting is optional, but it can be used to test that periodic tasks execute correctly after deployment.

ADMIN_EMAIL=youremail@example.com

Complete configuration

DJANGO_SECRET_KEY=secretkey
DJANGO_DEBUG=1
DJANGO_DEBUG_TOOLBAR=1
DJANGO_ALLOWED_HOSTS=localhost,127.0.0.1
DJANGO_SSL=0
DJANGO_SERVER_EMAIL=sidewinder@example.com
DJANGO_EMAIL_HOST=example.emailprovider.com
DJANGO_EMAIL_PORT=587
DJANGO_EMAIL_HOST_USER=
DJANGO_EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD=
DJANGO_DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL=sidewinder@example.com
ALLAUTH_ACCOUNT_EMAIL_SUBJECT_PREFIX=
DJ_DATABASE_CONN_STRING=postgres://postgres:postgres@localhost:5432/sidewinder
REDIS_URL=redis://127.0.0.1:6379
ADMIN_EMAIL=youremail@example.com
HUEY_DEV=1

Rename app folder

The main application folder is called appname. To rename it, you will also need to find and replace references to appname in the repository.

You can use these Bash commands in the root folder (replace myapp with your new name):

sed -i 's/appname\./myapp\./g' `grep 'appname\.' -rl *`
mv appname/ myapp/

Alternatively, find and replace appname. with myapp. in all project files in your editor of choice. Then rename the appname folder with myapp.

Verify that everything works

You can verify the configuration by running the project.