========================================
Deployment in the production environment
========================================

:Author: Sixu Wei <reisa@sust.edu.cn>, Zhenyu Yang <yangzhenyu@sust.edu.cn>
:Last updated: Jan 24, 2026

This document provides a step-by-step guide for deploying the project in a production environment.
In production, **Nginx** is used as the reverse proxy, and **Gunicorn** runs the backend application.

Step 1: Configure environment variables
=======================================

Based on ``prod.env``, create a ``.env`` file in the project root directory.

.. code-block:: text

   # .env
   MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=your_secure_password_here        # Database password
   DJANGO_SECRET_KEY=your-very-long-random-secret-key   # Django secret key (at least 50 characters)
   DOMAIN=example.com                                   # Your domain (optional)

Step 2: Build and run
=====================

.. code-block:: bash

   # Build and run
   sudo docker compose -f docker-compose.prod.yml up --build -d

   # Check service status
   sudo docker compose -f docker-compose.prod.yml ps

   # View logs (if any issues occur)
   sudo docker compose -f docker-compose.prod.yml logs -f

Step 3: Initialize the database and create a user
=================================================

.. code-block:: bash

   # Run database migrations
   sudo docker compose -f docker-compose.prod.yml exec backend python manage.py migrate

   # Create an administrator account
   sudo docker compose -f docker-compose.prod.yml exec backend python manage.py createsuperuser

Step 4: Configure HTTPS (optional but recommended)
==================================================

Refer to the :doc:`HTTPS Deployment Guide <https-deployment-guide>` for detailed instructions on setting up HTTPS with Nginx.

Production access endpoints
===========================

+--------------+------------------------+
| Service      | URL                    |
+==============+========================+
| Frontend     | http://localhost       |
+--------------+------------------------+
| Backend API  | http://localhost/api/  |
+--------------+------------------------+
| Admin Panel  | http://localhost/admin/|
+--------------+------------------------+

Domestic (China) image mirror configuration
===========================================

If image pulls fail, configure a Docker mirror registry in your ``Dockerfile``.