How to create a simple maintenance page for a Django website (with Nginx, Gunicorn) on Ubuntu (digital ocean) ?

Simple example of how to create a python script to redirect on a maintenance page

Table of contents

Create a simple html page
Edit nginx sites-enabled file
Create a python script
References

Replace site_name by the website domain name

Create a simple html page

Go under the directory:

cd /var/www/

Create the folder site_name_maintenance_page

mkdir site_name_maintenance_page

and then:

mkdir html

the path should be: /var/www/site_name_maintenance_page/html/

And create the file index.html

nano index.html

with the following lines

<html>
    <head>
        <title>site_name</title>
    </head>
    <body>
        <h1>The site is under maintenance ! </h1>
    </body>
</html>

Note: it is a minimalist example there are a lots of maintenance page free templates available on the web.

Edit nginx sites-enabled file

If the django website is running with Nginx the file

vi /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/site_name

should look like

server {
    listen 80;
    listen [::]:80;
    server_name site_name.com www.site_name.com;
    return 301 https://site_name.com$request_uri;
}

server {
    listen 443 ssl;
    server_name site_name.com www.site_name.com;

    ssl_certificate /root/ssl_certificates/site_name/site_name_com.chained.crt;
    ssl_certificate_key /root/ssl_certificates/site_name/site_name_com.key;

    ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2;
    ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;
    ssl_ciphers '***********************';

    location = /favicon.ico { access_log off; log_not_found off; }
    location /static {
        alias /home/username/webapps/site_name_static;
    }

        location /media  {
           alias /home/username/webapps/site_name_media;
        }

    location / {
        include proxy_params;
        proxy_pass http://unix:/run/gunicorn.sock;
    }
}

to redirect the site to the maintenance page. Remove all the lines of the above file

:1,$d

and replace it by

server {
    listen 80;
    listen [::]:80;
    server_name site_name.com www.site_name.com;
    return 301 https://site_name.com$request_uri;
}

server {
    listen 443 ssl;
    server_name site_name.com www.site_name.com;

    ssl_certificate /root/ssl_certificates/site_name/site_name_com.crt;
    ssl_certificate_key /root/ssl_certificates/site_name/site_name.com.key;

    ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2;
    ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;
    ssl_ciphers '*******************';

    root /var/www/site_name_maintenance_page/html;
    index index.html index.htm index.nginx-debian.html;

    location / {
            try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
    }

}

Then restart Nginx

sudo service nginx restart

Create a python script

Now create a simple python script (called for example 'site_name_status.py') to make it automatic:

python site_name_status.py on

to display the django-based website

python site_name_status.py off

to display the maintenance page

import sys
import os

arg_list = sys.argv
#print(arg_list)

file = '/etc/nginx/sites-available/site_name'

#----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------#

if arg_list[1]=='off':

    open(file, 'w').close() # clean the file

    f = open(file,"w")

    str = '''server {
    listen 80;
    listen [::]:80;
    server_name site_name.com www.site_name.com;
    return 301 https://site_name.com$request_uri;
}

server {
    listen 443 ssl;
    server_name site_name.com www.site_name.com;

    ssl_certificate /root/ssl_certificates/site_name/site_name_com.chained.crt;
    ssl_certificate_key /root/ssl_certificates/site_name/site_name_com.key;

    ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2;
    ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;
    ssl_ciphers '******************';

    root /var/www/site_name_maintenance_page/html;
    index index.html index.htm index.nginx-debian.html;

    location / {
            try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
    }

}
'''

    f.write(str)

    f.close

#----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------#

if arg_list[1]=='on':

    open(file, 'w').close() # clean the file

    f = open(file,"w")

    str = '''server {
    listen 80;
    listen [::]:80;
    server_name site_name.com www.site_name.com;
    return 301 https://site_name.com$request_uri;
}

server {
    listen 443 ssl;
    server_name site_name.com www.site_name.com;

    ssl_certificate /root/ssl_certificates/site_name/site_name_com.chained.crt;
    ssl_certificate_key /root/ssl_certificates/site_name/site_name_com.key;

    ssl_protocols TLSv1 TLSv1.1 TLSv1.2;
    ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;
    ssl_ciphers '***********************';

    location = /favicon.ico { access_log off; log_not_found off; }
    location /static {
        alias /home/username/webapps/site_name_static;
    }

        location /media  {
           alias /home/username/webapps/site_name_media;
        }

    location / {
        include proxy_params;
        proxy_pass http://unix:/run/gunicorn.sock;
    }
}   
'''

    f.write(str)

    f.close

#----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------#

Restart Nginx

sudo service nginx restart

References

Links	Site
How to erase the file contents of text file in Python?	stackoverflow
Reading and Writing to text files in Python	stackoverflow
Python - Command Line Arguments	stackoverflow

Hi, I'm Ben, the Founder of moonbooks.org. I work as a research scientist specializing in Earth satellite remote sensing, particularly focusing on Fire detection using VIIRS and ABI sensors. My areas of expertise include Python, Machine Learning, and Open Science. Feel free to reach out if you notice any errors on the site. I am constantly striving to enhance it. Thank you!

How to create a simple maintenance page for a Django website (with Nginx, Gunicorn) on Ubuntu (digital ocean) ?

Create a simple html page

Edit nginx sites-enabled file

Create a python script

References

Benjamin

Skills