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Follow these steps to prepare and deploy SIGEP to a production server.
Complete steps 1–3 before exposing SIGEP to the internet. Running with DEBUG = True or the default SECRET_KEY is a serious security risk.
1

Set SECRET_KEY to a strong random value

Generate a new secret key and set it in settings.py (or load it from an environment variable):
python -c "from django.core.management.utils import get_random_secret_key; print(get_random_secret_key())"
settings.py
SECRET_KEY = 'your-generated-secret-key'
Store this value securely — for example, in an environment variable or a secrets manager — and never commit it to version control.
2

Set DEBUG = False

Disable debug mode so Django does not expose error details to users:
settings.py
DEBUG = False
3

Set ALLOWED_HOSTS to your domain

Add your domain name or server IP address:
settings.py
ALLOWED_HOSTS = ['yourdomain.com', 'www.yourdomain.com']
4

Switch the database to PostgreSQL

SQLite is not recommended for production workloads. Configure PostgreSQL in settings.py:
settings.py
DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql',
        'NAME': 'sigep_db',
        'USER': 'sigep_user',
        'PASSWORD': 'your-database-password',
        'HOST': 'localhost',
        'PORT': '5432',
    }
}
Install the adapter if you haven’t already:
pip install psycopg2-binary
5

Configure the email backend

SIGEP sends invite emails containing set-password links. Set your SMTP credentials in settings.py:
settings.py
EMAIL_BACKEND = 'django.core.mail.backends.smtp.EmailBackend'
EMAIL_HOST = 'smtp.yourprovider.com'
EMAIL_PORT = 587
EMAIL_USE_TLS = True
EMAIL_HOST_USER = '[email protected]'
EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD = 'your-email-password'
DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL = 'SIGEP <[email protected]>'
6

Collect static files

Gather all static assets into the staticfiles/ directory so your web server can serve them:
python manage.py collectstatic
Configure your web server to serve the staticfiles/ directory at the /static/ URL path.
7

Configure nginx and gunicorn

A common production setup uses gunicorn as the application server behind nginx.Install gunicorn:
pip install gunicorn
Start the application server:
gunicorn SIGEP.wsgi:application --bind 127.0.0.1:8000 --workers 3
Then configure nginx to proxy requests to gunicorn and serve static files directly:
nginx.conf
server {
    listen 80;
    server_name yourdomain.com www.yourdomain.com;

    location /static/ {
        alias /path/to/SIGEP/staticfiles/;
    }

    location /media/ {
        alias /path/to/SIGEP/media/;
    }

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8000;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
    }
}
8

Configure media file serving

Uploaded files (event images, documents) are stored under MEDIA_ROOT (the media/ directory). Your web server must serve this directory at the /media/ URL path. In production, Django does not serve media files automatically — that only happens when DEBUG = True.
Make sure the media/ directory exists and is writable by the process running gunicorn:
mkdir -p /path/to/SIGEP/media
chown -R www-data:www-data /path/to/SIGEP/media
9

Run migrations on the production database

Apply all database migrations to your production database:
python manage.py migrate
Then create a superuser for the production administrator account:
python manage.py createsuperuser

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Next steps

Configuration reference

Full reference for all configurable settings in SIGEP.

Installation

Set up a local development environment.

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