Django deployment problem in Apache/mod_wsgi. ImportError: Could not import settings 'site.settings'

Question

When I'm executing

django-admin.py startproject site

it works.
But if I'm only copying site folder it doesn't work.
Why?

<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerName django.stanislavfeldman.com

# Django settings
WSGIScriptAlias / /var/www/django/wsgi_handler.py
WSGIDaemonProcess django.stanislavfeldman.com maximum-requests=200 stack-size=524288

ErrorLog /var/www/django/error.log
LogLevel warn
</VirtualHost>

wsgi_handler.py:

import os, sys

sys.path.append('/var/www/django')

os.environ['DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE'] = 'site.settings'

import django.core.handlers.wsgi

application = django.core.handlers.wsgi.WSGIHandler()

Answer 1

If you have something like this in apache configs:

WSGIScriptAlias /path /base/path/devel/your_project.wsgi

And this inside your_project.wsgi:

sys.path.append('/base/path')
os.environ['DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE'] = 'devel.settings'

Then apache will look at /base/path/devel/settings.py. If you move or copy /base/path/devel to /base/path/production you have to edit DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE at your_project.wsgi pointing to 'production.settings'.

Answer 2

Ensure you have read:

http://code.google.com/p/modwsgi/wiki/IntegrationWithDjango

and also watch this presentation:

http://code.google.com/p/modwsgi/wiki/WhereToGetHelp?tm=6#Conference_Presentations

Your problem is going to be a sys.path or permissions issue which are both covered by the above.

That you are using 'maximum-requests=200 stack-size=524288' options to WSGIDaemonProcess directive makes me question whether you have referred to the mainstream documentation as basic instructions don't tell you to use them. Instead looks like you have used some arbitrary persons blog post for how to set it up, or relying on some folklore given to you on an IRC channel. :-)