How to serve admin static files with django.contrib.staticfiles in Django 1.4 (using one Apache server)?

Question

Django is recommending me that if I am going to only use one server (Apache) to serve both dynamic and static files, then I should serve static files using django.contrib.staticfiles.

So in my settings.py I have loaded django.contrib.staticfiles to my INSTALLED_APPS and django.core.context_processors.static to my TEMPLATE_CONTEXT_PROCESSORS.

I noticed in the admin templates that it links to static files like this (from index.html):

{% load i18n admin_static %}

{% block extrastyle %}{{ block.super }}<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="{% static "admin/css/dashboard.css" %}" />{% endblock %}

But looking at the template tag admin_static, it's simply a wrapper for static:

from django.conf import settings
from django.template import Library

register = Library()

if 'django.contrib.staticfiles' in settings.INSTALLED_APPS:
    from django.contrib.staticfiles.templatetags.staticfiles import static
else:
    from django.templatetags.static import static

static = register.simple_tag(static)

So I concluded that because every admin static file is serverd with a admin/... prefix, then the full path (for my case) should be

/usr/lib64/python2.7/site-packages/django/contrib/admin/static

So I set that path to my STATICFILES_DIRS inside settings.py, but Apache still won't serve any static files (after restating the server). Where did I make a mistake in my logic?

Answer 1

Thanks Daniel Roseman for the explanation and giving me the chance to learn it on my own (and now I won't forget!) :-).

Initially I was really confused and I didn't know you had to first collect the static files, then tell Apache to serve it. I thought simply using STATICFILES_DIRS and including the static app in settings.py was good enough.

So here is how I did it (and please let me know if I could have done it better):

In settings.py

STATIC_ROOT = '/var/www/localhost/htdocs/mysite/static/'
STATIC_URL = '/static/' # default

It seems Django already know where to collect the admin files, you don't need to specify anything in STATICFILES_DIRS unless you need to serve your own custom files (which I don't and thus I had no prior experience with static files in Django).

Then at /var/www/localhost/htdocs/mysite/ type python manage.py collectstatic -l. The -l means to create a symbolic link to all found static files instead of copying it over (saves some space).

Next edit the Apache config file (usually httpd.conf) and add the STATIC_URL information. My config file just for Django looks like this:

Alias /static/ /var/www/localhost/htdocs/mysite/static/
#In the form of...
#Alias STATIC_URL STATIC_ROOT

<Directory /var/www/localhost/htdocs/mysite/static>
    Order deny,allow
    Allow from all
</Directory>

WSGIScriptAlias / /var/www/localhost/htdocs/mysite/mysite/wsgi.py
WSGIPythonPath /var/www/localhost/htdocs/mysite

<Directory /var/www/localhost/htdocs/mysite/mysite>
    <Files wsgi.py>
        Order deny,allow
        Allow from all
    </Files>
</Directory>

Then restart Apache and done!