Django with MySQL

After PostgreSQL, MySQL is probably the most popular DBMS (database management system) used with Django. Here is how I set it up

1. Install MySQL, etc
   1. Use the Software Manager to install mysql-server (write down the root password you entered here) and phpmyadmin
2. In your browser, go to http://localhost/phpmyadmin. Enter “root” and the password you wrote down
   1. Note, on my LinuxMint 17 installation I got an error “The mcrypt extension is missing. Please check your PHP configuration”. I used the instructions at http://stackoverflow.com/questions/22721630/the-mcrypt-extension-is-missing-please-check-your-php-configuration to fix this. The commands I used were
      sudo apt-get install mcrypt php5-mcrypt
      php5enmod mcrypt
      sudo service apache2 restart
      The first line may not have been necessary. I made the beginner’s mistake of not using “sudo” at the start of the first line, so apache didn’t actually reboot, until I got this right
3. Create a database and a user for Django (still in phpmyadmin in your browser)
   1. Second line from the top, click on “Databases”
      1. Create database, enter the name (e.g. “HelloWorldDjango”)
      2. For collation, https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/ref/databases/  suggests using utf8_general_ci, but read the note about case sensitivity
      3. Click on Create
   2. Second line from the top, click on “Users”
      1. Click on “Add user”
      2. Enter the user name – e.g. “DjangoUser” – and write it down
      3. Set the host to “localhost”
      4. Enter a password, or click on the “Generate” button to get a random (and fairly secure) password  and write it down (or copy it into an editor  – you’ll need it soon)
      5. Leave the rest as it is, and click on “Go”
   3. Against your new user, click on the “Edit Privileges” link
      1. Scroll down to the “Database-specific privileges” block, next to “Add privileges on the following database:” click on the “Use text field:” dropdown, and select the new database name (e.g. “HelloWorldDjango”)
      2. At the top of the first box, next to “Database-specific privileges”, click on “Check All”
      3. Click on the “Go” button
   4. Now tell Django to use the database
      1. Open <dev root>Projects/HelloWorldDjango/HelloWorldDjango/settings.py
      2. Replace the 6 lines which start with “DATABASES = {” with:
         DATABASES = {
         ‘default’: {
         ‘ENGINE’: ‘django.db.backends.mysql’,
         ‘NAME’: ‘HelloWorldDjango’,
         ‘USER’: ‘DjangoUser’,
         ‘PASSWORD’: ‘(your password)’,
         ‘HOST’: ‘localhost’, # Or an IP Address that your DB is hosted on
         ‘PORT’: ‘3306’,
         }
         }
   5. Install python-mysql – so Python/Django can access the MySQL database
      1. sudo apt-get install libmysqlclient-dev
      2. sudo apt-get install python-dev
      3. Switch to the virtual env
         source <dev root>/envs/DjangoTest/bin/activate
      4. pip install MySQL-python
   6. And test that it is all working correctly
      1. Still in the virtual env (see previous step)
      2. cd <dev root>Projects/HelloWorldDjango
      3. python manage.py shell
      4. >>> from django.db import connection
      5. >>> cursor = connection.cursor()

Congratulations. You can now create some Django models to start using the database