Static Files Not Loading in Production in Django-React application

Question

I'm running a Django application in a Docker container, and I'm having trouble serving static files in production. Everything works fine locally, but when I deploy to production, the static files don't load, and I get 404 errors.

Here are the relevant parts of my setup:

Django settings.py:

TEMPLATES = [
    {
        'BACKEND': 'django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates',
        'DIRS': [os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'build')],
        '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',
            ],
        },
    },
]

STATIC_URL = '/static/'
MEDIA_URL = '/media/'
STATIC_ROOT = '/vol/web/static'
STATICFILES_DIRS = [os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'build', 'static')]

The build folder was generated by npm run build command in a react application.

After running collectstatic, the volume /vol/web/static is correctly populated. However, the browser shows 404 errors for the static files, e.g.,

GET https://site/static/js/main.db771bdd.js [HTTP/2 404 161ms]
GET https://site/static/css/main.4b763604.css [HTTP/2 404 160ms]

Loading failed for the <script> with source “https://mysite/static/js/main.db771bdd.js”.

These files exist in the build/static directory, but I thought the browser should use the static files collected into /vol/web/static.

Nginx Configuration:

server {
    listen ${LISTEN_PORT};

    location /static {
        alias /vol/static;
    }

    location / {
        uwsgi_pass              ${APP_HOST}:${APP_PORT};
        include                 /etc/nginx/uwsgi_params;
        client_max_body_size    10M;
    }
}

Dockerfile:

FROM python:3.9-alpine

ENV PYTHONUNBUFFERED 1
ENV PATH="/scripts:${PATH}"

RUN pip install --upgrade "pip<24.1"

COPY ./requirements.txt /requirements.txt
RUN apk add --update --no-cache postgresql-client jpeg-dev \
    && apk add --update --no-cache --virtual .tmp-build-deps \
       gcc libc-dev linux-headers postgresql-dev musl-dev zlib zlib-dev libffi-dev \
    && pip install -r /requirements.txt \
    && apk del .tmp-build-deps

RUN mkdir -p /app /vol/web/media /vol/web/static
RUN adduser -D user
RUN chown -R user:user /vol /app

COPY ./app /app
COPY ./scripts /scripts
COPY ./requirements.txt /requirements.txt

RUN chmod -R 755 /vol/web /app /scripts \
    && chmod +x /scripts/*

USER user
WORKDIR /app

VOLUME /vol/web

CMD ["entrypoint.sh"]

For further context, I deployed the Django application and the proxy in separated containers inside a ECS task:

[
    {
        "name": "api",
        "image": "${app_image}",
        "essential": true,
        "memoryReservation": 256,
        "environment": [
            {"name": "DJANGO_SECRET_KEY", "value": "${django_secret_key}"},
            {"name": "DB_HOST", "value": "${db_host}"},
            {"name": "DB_NAME", "value": "${db_name}"},
            {"name": "DB_USER", "value": "${db_user}"},
            {"name": "DB_PASS", "value": "${db_pass}"},
            {"name": "ALLOWED_HOSTS", "value": "${allowed_hosts}"},
            {"name": "S3_STORAGE_BUCKET_NAME", "value": "${s3_storage_bucket_name}"},
            {"name": "S3_STORAGE_BUCKET_REGION", "value": "${s3_storage_bucket_region}"}
        ],
        "logConfiguration": {
            "logDriver": "awslogs",
            "options": {
                "awslogs-group": "${log_group_name}",
                "awslogs-region": "${log_group_region}",
                "awslogs-stream-prefix": "api"
            }
        },
        "portMappings": [
            {
                "containerPort": 9000,
                "hostPort": 9000
            }
        ],
        "mountPoints": [
            {
                "readOnly": false,
                "containerPath": "/vol/web",
                "sourceVolume": "static"
            }
        ]
    },
    {
        "name": "proxy",
        "image": "${proxy_image}",
        "essential": true,
        "portMappings": [
            {
                "containerPort": 8000,
                "hostPort": 8000
            }
        ],
        "memoryReservation": 256,
        "environment": [
            {"name": "APP_HOST", "value": "127.0.0.1"},
            {"name": "APP_PORT", "value": "9000"},
            {"name": "LISTEN_PORT", "value": "8000"}
        ],
        "logConfiguration": {
            "logDriver": "awslogs",
            "options": {
                "awslogs-group": "${log_group_name}",
                "awslogs-region": "${log_group_region}",
                "awslogs-stream-prefix": "proxy"
            }
        },
        "mountPoints": [
            {
                "readOnly": true,
                "containerPath": "/vol/static",
                "sourceVolume": "static"
            }
        ]
    }
]

The entrypoint.sh script called by the Dockerfile is given by

#!/bin/sh

set -e
python manage.py collectstatic --noinput --settings=app.settings.staging
python manage.py wait_for_db --settings=app.settings.staging
python manage.py wait_for_es --settings=app.settings.staging
python manage.py migrate --settings=app.settings.staging
python manage.py search_index --rebuild --settings=app.settings.staging -f
uwsgi --socket :9000 --workers 4 --master --enable-threads --module app.wsgi --env DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE=app.settings.staging

In terraform, my code is essentially equal to the configuration found here

I suspect there might be an issue with file permissions, but after I change the permission the errors continue. Any insights on what might be going wrong or how to debug this further?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

I think the error lies in your nginx config. You are setting the alias for the static route to /vol/static, instead of /vol/web/static:

server {
    listen ${LISTEN_PORT};

    location /static {
        alias /vol/web/static;
    }
    ...
}