Create Django Superuser on AWS Elastic Beanstalk

Question

I have a custom user class called MyUser. It works fine locally with registrations, logins and so on. I'm trying to deploy my application to AWS Elastic Beanstalk and I'm running into some problems with creating my superuser.

I tried making a script file and run it as the official AWS guide suggests. Didnt work well so I decided to try a secondary method suggested here and create a custom manage.py command to create my user.

When I deploy I get the following errors in the log.

[Instance: i-8a0a6d6e Module: AWSEBAutoScalingGroup ConfigSet: null] Command failed on instance. Return code: 1 Output: [CMD-AppDeploy/AppDeployStage0/EbExtensionPostBuild] command failed with error code 1: Error occurred during build: Command 02_createsu failed.

[2015-03-10T08:05:20.464Z] INFO  [17937] : Command processor returning results: 
{"status":"FAILURE","api_version":"1.0","truncated":"false","results":[{"status":"FAILURE","msg":"[CMD-AppDeploy/AppDeployStage0/EbExtensionPostBuild] command failed with error code 1: Error occurred during build: Command 02_createsu failed","returncode":1,"events":[]}]}


[2015-03-10T08:05:20.463Z] ERROR [17937] : Command execution failed: [CMD-AppDeploy/AppDeployStage0/EbExtensionPostBuild] command failed with error code 1: Error occurred during build: Command 02_createsu failed (ElasticBeanstalk::ActivityFatalError)
at /opt/elasticbeanstalk/lib/ruby/lib/ruby/gems/2.1.0/gems/beanstalk-core-1.1/lib/elasticbeanstalk/activity.rb:189:in `rescue in exec'
...
caused by: command failed with error code 1: Error occurred during build: Command 02_createsu failed (Executor::NonZeroExitStatus)

The code looks like the following:

This is my mysite.config file in .ebextensions/

01_syncdb and 03_collectstatic works fine.

container_commands:
  01_syncdb:    
    command: "django-admin.py migrate --noinput"
    leader_only: true
  02_createsu:
    command: "manage.py createsu"
    leader_only: true
  03_collectstatic:
    command: "django-admin.py collectstatic --noinput"
option_settings:
  - namespace: aws:elasticbeanstalk:container:python
    option_name: WSGIPath
    value: treerating/wsgi.py
  - option_name: DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE
    value: treerating.settings

This is my /profiles/management/commands/createsu.py file:

from django.core.management.base import BaseCommand
from django.contrib.auth.models import User
from profiles.models import MyUser

class Command(BaseCommand):
    def handle(self, *args, **options):
        if MyUser.objects.count() == 0:
            MyUser.objects.create_superuser("admin", "treerating", "password")

And I have __init__.py files in both /management/ and /commands/ folders.

I tried this command locally from command line and it works fine and creates the user without errors. So there shouldnt be any issue with the command itself or the MyUser.objects.create_superuser().

EDIT: I tried changing my def handle(): function to only set a variable to True and I still get the same errors. So it seems like the problem is not related to the create_superuser function or the handle, but more something with using manage.py.

Any ideas?

EDIT 2: I tried executing the command by SSH and failed. I then followed the instructions in this post and set the Python Path's manually with:

source /opt/python/run/venv/bin/activate and source /opt/python/current/env

I was then able to successfully create my user. The official AWS Django Deployment guide does not mention anything about this. But I guess you are suppose to set your Python Path's in the .config file somehow. I'm not sure exactly how to do this so if someone still want to answer that, I will test it and accept it as answer if that will solve the deployment errors.

Depending on the use case, it may be more convenient to create an initial user with the help of e.g. [fixtures](https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/howto/initial-data/#providing-initial-data-for-models). — djvg, Nov 22 '19 at 13:34

Adam Starrh · Answer 1 · 2015-07-27T06:47:47.580

Double-check the link to your secondary method. You can set the python path in the option settings (.ebextensions/02_python.config) that you've created:

option_settings:
  "aws:elasticbeanstalk:application:environment":
    DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE: "iotd.settings"
    "PYTHONPATH": "/opt/python/current/app/iotd:$PYTHONPATH"
    "ALLOWED_HOSTS": ".elasticbeanstalk.com"

However, I've done this and am still experiencing the issue you've described, so you'll have to see if it fixes it.

EDIT: It turns out my issue was a file structure issue. I had the management directory in the project directory, when it should have been placed one level deeper in the directory of one of my apps.

This placed it one level deeper beneath my manage.py and settings.py than is shown in the example, but it is working fine now.

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 12 '20 at 22:33

I know this could be late but I just wanted to share that I solved this issue by adding the file /profiles/management/commands/createsu.py into the app folder you are using.

In my case was:

easy/easyapp/management/commands/createsu.py

where easy is my project and easyapp my app.

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 12 '15 at 15:51

Another alternative that worked for me is to just go directly into the config.yml file and change the wsgi path there. You can get access with the eb config command and just go down 50 lines or so, make your changes, escape and save. This is only an environment-specific solution though.

Create Django Superuser on AWS Elastic Beanstalk

3 Answers3