static files in the top level

I'm building a django site, but I have a lot of static files from my old server served at the root directory that I want to still work.

For example these links should still work, even though there is now a django site at the top level as well.

www.domain.com/one.jpg
www.domain.com/two
www.domain.com/two/index.html

I have all the old static files stored under /home/username/webapps/static/.

I want it so that the static file is served if it exists, if not send the url to django to process.

How can I achieve this?

static django

asked Jan 21 '11 at 18:25

Jakob
3●1●5

edited Jan 21 '11 at 18:25

2 Answers:

oldest newest most voted

Hi Jakob,

In this case what you should do is create the URLs in your Django app's urls.py file then doing something like a direct_to_template:

http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/ref/generic-views/

to still serve the files/pages you had there.

answered Jan 21 '11 at 18:42

klynton ♦♦
1481●2●8

Hi, I can see how that would work for a few pages, but would this work for other files, like zip files? I sent hundreds of URLs to clients in the past year including lots of zip file URLs and I'd like all these URLs to keep working. Ideally I don't want to list them all out, since there are hundreds, but I can since they shouldn't be changing any more now that new stuff will be handled in django.

(Jan 21 '11 at 18:50) Jakob

I found this info about using mod_wsgi to handle static files, would this be applicable? http://code.google.com/p/modwsgi/wiki/ConfigurationGuidelines#Hosting_Of_Static_Files

I suppose I will try that...

(Jan 21 '11 at 19:09) Jakob

That should definitely work! It's probably a better solution for all of those files as well.

(Jan 21 '11 at 19:17) klynton ♦♦

Ok, got it working with mod_rewrite. I added the following to my httpd.conf, before the django WSGIScriptAlias. This checks if the request matches a filename or directory in the static directory, else sends the request on to django.

RewriteEngine on

#   first try to find it in static/...
#   ...and if found stop and be happy:
RewriteCond         /home/user/webapps/static/%{REQUEST_FILENAME}  -f [OR]
RewriteCond         /home/user/webapps/static/%{REQUEST_FILENAME}  -d
RewriteRule  ^(.+)  /home/user/webapps/static/$1  [L]

#   else go on for other Alias or ScriptAlias directives,
#   etc.
RewriteRule   ^(.+)  -  [PT]

answered Jan 22 '11 at 09:05

Jakob
3●1●5

edited Jan 22 '11 at 09:21

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Asked: Jan 21 '11 at 18:25

Seen: 1,109 times

Last updated: Jan 22 '11 at 09:21

static files in the top level

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