Configuring Google Cloud App Engine w Django

Question

I'm following this tutorial to deploy Django with Google Cloud. At the timestamp (13:39) he goes into settings.py in the Django project in VS Code and swaps some placeholders out for his own Google Cloud credentials. My settings.py however looks very different. The only thing in block caps that looks as if it might be a placeholder is "GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT" and "SETTINGS_NAME". This is the part of the installation I can't get past because at the next step when I try to execute

python manage.py makemigrations

I get sent here:

else:
    raise Exception("No local .env or GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT detected. No secrets found.")

Hoping someone can glance over my settings.py and identify what I'm missing why that if block is going to Exception.

One thing to note: The top imports environ and google.cloud are not resolved. idk if that's got anything to do with it. This is how the file came out the can. I don't want to mess with it in case tshtf :D

settings.py

import io
import os

import environ
from google.cloud import secretmanager

# Build paths inside the project like this: os.path.join(BASE_DIR, ...)
BASE_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)))

# [START gaestd_py_django_secret_config]
env = environ.Env(DEBUG=(bool, False))
env_file = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, ".env")

if os.path.isfile(env_file):
    # Use a local secret file, if provided

    env.read_env(env_file)
# [START_EXCLUDE]
elif os.getenv("TRAMPOLINE_CI", None):
    # Create local settings if running with CI, for unit testing

    placeholder = (
        f"SECRET_KEY=a\n"
        f"DATABASE_URL=sqlite://{os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'db.sqlite3')}"
    )
    env.read_env(io.StringIO(placeholder))
# [END_EXCLUDE]
elif os.environ.get("GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT", None):
   # Pull secrets from Secret Manager
    project_id = os.environ.get("GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT")

    client = secretmanager.SecretManagerServiceClient()
    settings_name = os.environ.get("SETTINGS_NAME", "django_settings")
    name = f"projects/{project_id}/secrets/{settings_name}/versions/latest"
    payload = client.access_secret_version(name=name).payload.data.decode("UTF-8")

    env.read_env(io.StringIO(payload))

else:

   raise Exception("No local .env or GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT detected. No secrets found.")

# [END gaestd_py_django_secret_config]

SECRET_KEY = env("SECRET_KEY")

# SECURITY WARNING: don't run with debug turned on in production!
# Change this to "False" when you are ready for production
DEBUG = True

# SECURITY WARNING: App Engine's security features ensure that it is safe to
# have ALLOWED_HOSTS = ['*'] when the app is deployed. If you deploy a Django
# app not on App Engine, make sure to set an appropriate host here.
ALLOWED_HOSTS = ["*"]

# Application definition

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    "polls.apps.PollsConfig",
    "django.contrib.admin",
    "django.contrib.auth",
    "django.contrib.contenttypes",
    "django.contrib.sessions",
    "django.contrib.messages",
    "django.contrib.staticfiles",
]

MIDDLEWARE = [
    "django.middleware.security.SecurityMiddleware",
    "django.contrib.sessions.middleware.SessionMiddleware",
    "django.middleware.common.CommonMiddleware",
    "django.middleware.csrf.CsrfViewMiddleware",
    "django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware",
    "django.contrib.messages.middleware.MessageMiddleware",
    "django.middleware.clickjacking.XFrameOptionsMiddleware",
]

ROOT_URLCONF = "mysite.urls"

TEMPLATES = [
    {
   "BACKEND": "django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates",
    "DIRS": [],
    "APP_DIRS": True,
    "OPTIONS": {
        "context_processors": [
            "django.template.context_processors.debug",
            "django.template.context_processors.request",
            "django.contrib.auth.context_processors.auth",
            "django.contrib.messages.context_processors.messages",
        ],
    },
   },
]

WSGI_APPLICATION = "mysite.wsgi.application"

# Database
# [START db_setup]
# [START gaestd_py_django_database_config]
# Use django-environ to parse the connection string
DATABASES = {"default": env.db()}

# If the flag as been set, configure to use proxy
if os.getenv("USE_CLOUD_SQL_AUTH_PROXY", None):
    DATABASES["default"]["HOST"] = "127.0.0.1"
    DATABASES["default"]["PORT"] = 5432

# [END gaestd_py_django_database_config]
# [END db_setup]

# Use a in-memory sqlite3 database when testing in CI systems
# TODO(glasnt) CHECK IF THIS IS REQUIRED because we're setting a val above
if os.getenv("TRAMPOLINE_CI", None):
    DATABASES = {
        "default": {
            "ENGINE": "django.db.backends.sqlite3",
            "NAME": os.path.join(BASE_DIR, "db.sqlite3"),
        }
    }

# Password validation

AUTH_PASSWORD_VALIDATORS = [
    {
        "NAME": "django.contrib.auth.password_validation.UserAttributeSimilarityValidator",  # noqa: 501
    },
    {
        "NAME": "django.contrib.auth.password_validation.MinimumLengthValidator",  # noqa: 501
    },
    {
        "NAME": "django.contrib.auth.password_validation.CommonPasswordValidator",  # noqa: 501
    },
    {
        "NAME": "django.contrib.auth.password_validation.NumericPasswordValidator",  # noqa: 501
    },
]

# Internationalization

LANGUAGE_CODE = "en-us"
TIME_ZONE = "UTC"
USE_I18N = True
USE_L10N = True
USE_TZ = True

# Static files (CSS, JavaScript, Images)

STATIC_ROOT = "static"
STATIC_URL = "/static/"
STATICFILES_DIRS = []

# Default primary key field type
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.2/ref/settings/#default-auto-field

DEFAULT_AUTO_FIELD = "django.db.models.BigAutoField"

Jakob · Answer 1 · 2021-07-15T07:11:00.263

Django wants you to provide a SECRET_KEY. There are a couple of ways to provide such key, but one way is to create an .env file containing the SECRET_KEY in the same folder where the manage.py file is located.

A SECRET_KEY can be generated using the following code snippet (run it wherever you find convenient, but don't add the resulting key string to your settings.py file):

from django.core.management.utils import get_random_secret_key 
get_random_secret_key()

Take the resulting output (it's a 50 character long string) and add it to the .env file with the following format:

SECRET_KEY="the-50-character-string-here"

You might potentially also have to replace BASE_DIR in the settings.py file with the following in order to properly load the .env file (note how the first row is out-commented).

#BASE_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)))
BASE_DIR = os.getcwd()

You might run into more problems further down the road related to your database setup. Check out this and this SO question.

You can also consider checking out the Guide which is what the tutorial you're referring to is following.

Configuring Google Cloud App Engine w Django

1 Answers1