Setup to use Mysql

Setup environment variables

To handle the configuration of the Wagtail app to use mysql and later other settings I'll set up some environment variables.

Add a file to store the environment variables

touch .env

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and add the following content

MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=webapp
MYSQL_DATABASE=webapp
MYSQL_USER=webapp
MYSQL_PASSWORD=webapp
MYSQL_ROOT_HOST='%'
MYSQL_HOST=127.0.0.1
MYSQL_PORT=3306

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Although these variables aren't secret, later on we may add some that are and use it a template to create a .env file next.

To make sure the .env file doesn't get committed add the .env file to the .gitignore file:

echo ".env" >> .gitignore

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These are development variables and to save having to set them every time I create a .env.example file to use as a template which can be committed to git (make sure there are no real secrets in this file). Then next time I need to set up for development I can just copy the .env.example file to .env and edit the values there.

cp .env .env.example

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Add a mysql docker container for development

You will need docker installed to run the compose file: try Orbstack

This is a docker-compose setup that can be used to run up the Mysql database locally for development. If you already have Mysql running locally you can probably skip this step and use that instead.

Create a docker-compose.yml file in the root of the project and add the following content:

services:
  db:
    image: mysql:8.0.29 # version in use on pythonanywhere
    command: --default-authentication-plugin=mysql_native_password
    env_file:
      - .env
    ports:
      - "3306:3306"
    volumes:
      - dbdata:/var/lib/mysql
    container_name: mysql
    healthcheck:
      test: [ "CMD", "mysqladmin", "ping", "-h", "localhost" ]
      interval: 10s
      timeout: 20s
      retries: 5

  adminer:
    image: adminer
    ports:
      - 8080:8080
    depends_on:
      db:
        condition: service_healthy

volumes:
  dbdata:

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Then from the root of your project run:

docker-compose up -d

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Because the .env file is available the running db container will use the MYSQL_... env vars. Therefore the username, password and database name are initialized to webapp

The adminer service is a web interface to the database.

To check the database is running, open a web browser and go to http://localhost:8080 and login with webapp as the username and password. You should see the database named webapp has been created.

Configure Wagtail to use the Mysql database

Open webapp/settings/base.py and find:

DATABASES = {
    "default": {
        "ENGINE": "django.db.backends.sqlite3",
        "NAME": os.path.join(BASE_DIR, "db.sqlite3"),
    }
}

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and replace it with:

DATABASES = {
    "default": {
        "ENGINE": "django.db.backends.mysql",
        "NAME": env_vars["MYSQL_DATABASE"] if "MYSQL_DATABASE" in env_vars else "",
        "USER": env_vars["MYSQL_USER"] if "MYSQL_USER" in env_vars else "",
        "PASSWORD": env_vars["MYSQL_PASSWORD"] if "MYSQL_PASSWORD" in env_vars else "",
        "HOST": env_vars["MYSQL_HOST"] if "MYSQL_HOST" in env_vars else "",
        "PORT": env_vars["MYSQL_PORT"] if "MYSQL_PORT" in env_vars else "",
    }
}

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Somewhere near the top of base.py add the following:

### existing code
import os

PROJECT_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)))
BASE_DIR = os.path.dirname(PROJECT_DIR)
### end existing code

env_vars = os.environ.copy() ### add this line

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env_vars will hold all the environment variables and we can use them to connect to the local mysql database. In PythonAnywhere those environment variables will be available but that still needs to be setup.

Other Wagtail settings from environment variables

Still in base.py find and update the following lines:

### existing code
env_vars = os.environ.copy()
### end existing code

### add this code block
if "DJANGO_SECRET_KEY" in env_vars:
    SECRET_KEY = env_vars["DJANGO_SECRET_KEY"]

if "DJANGO_ALLOWED_HOSTS" in env_vars:
    ALLOWED_HOSTS = env_vars["DJANGO_ALLOWED_HOSTS"].split(",")
    
### Find WAGTAIL_SITE_NAME = "webapp" and change it to...
WAGTAIL_SITE_NAME = env_vars["WAGTAIL_SITE_NAME"] if "WAGTAIL_SITE_NAME" in env_vars else ""

### WAGTAILADMIN_BASE_URL = "http://example.com" and change it to ...
WAGTAILADMIN_BASE_URL = env_vars["BASE_URL"] if "BASE_URL" in env_vars else ""

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When running in production, the environments variables will be loaded from that environment.

Open your local .env file and add these new environment variables and alter the values, also make sure they are available in the .env.example file

WAGTAIL_SITE_NAME=site-name
BASE_URL=http://localhost:8000
DJANGO_SECRET_KEY=not-so-secret_key
DJANGO_ALLOWED_HOSTS=localhost

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In local development they will be picked up by Pipenv and passed to the webapp when it's run.

Try out the webapp locally to make sure all is working OK.

Most of these settings will be overridden in dev.py when using runserver so probably won't make any difference.

Run the Wagtail project locally

Run the Wagtail project locally to check that everything is working as expected. With the virtual environment re-activated to load the environment variables e.g. `pipenv shell` and run the following commands:

python manage.py migrate
python manage.py createsuperuser

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and

python manage.py runserver

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Open a browser and go to http://localhost:8000 and you should see the default Wagtail home page.

Open a browser and go to http://localhost:8000/admin/ and login with the superuser credentials you just created.

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