decoupling - django db settings into a .env file with decouple

Question

I want to put my django database settings into a .env file for production.

While I successfully wrote SECRET KEY and DEBUG in my .env file, when I try to do the same thing for my database settings, I get an error in the webapp.

Here is the way I went about it:

SECRET_KEY = config('SECRET_KEY')

DEBUG = config('DEBUG', default=False, cast=bool)

DATABASE_ENGINE ='django_tenants.postgresql_backend'
DATABASE_NAME = config('DATABASE_NAME')
DATABASE_USER = config('DATABASE_USER')
DATABASE_PASSWORD = config('DATABASE_PASSWORD')
DATABASE_HOST = config('DATABASE_HOST', cast=db_url)
DATABASE_PORT = config('PORT', cast=int)

and in my .env file

SECRET_KEY = supersecretkey
DEBUG = False

DATABASE_NAME = mydb
DATABASE_USER = me
DATABASE_PASSWORD = greatpassword
DATABASE_HOST =urlurl
DATABASE_PORT = 5432

Previously I had my db settings written as such and everything was working great:

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django_tenants.postgresql_backend',
         'NAME': 'mydb',
         'USER': 'me',
         'PASSWORD' : 'greatpassword',
         'HOST': 'urlurl',
         'PORT': '5432',
    }
}

UPDATE: I have tried the following structure in settings.py thanks to the comments, but still get the same error:

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django_tenants.postgresql_backend',
        'NAME': config('DATABASE_NAME'),
        'USER': config('DATABASE_USER'),
        'PASSWORD' : config('DATABASE_PASSWORD'),
        'HOST': 'config('DATABASE_HOST', cast=db_url),
        'PORT': config('DATABASE_PORT'),
    }
}

Django's log is outputing this but I can't really see how it relates to the issue at hand:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/ubuntu/exo/lib/python3.6/site-packages/django/template/base.py", line 850, in _resolve_lookup
    (bit, current))  # missing attribute
django.template.base.VariableDoesNotExist: Failed lookup for key [redirect_to] in [{'True': True, 'False': False, 'None': None}, {'csrf_token': <SimpleLazyObject: '3UKtg6BF5E1qXSTE8nlEevd4e4jVZMcgpdx5W0NZIrB18yuOoCJqnW7xxc7WBfyG'>, 'request': <WSGIRequest: GET '/'>, 'user': <SimpleLazyObject: <function AuthenticationMiddleware.process_request.<locals>.<lambda> at 0x7fa6a25$

question from:https://stackoverflow.com/questions/65869390/django-db-settings-into-a-env-file-with-decouple

Answer 1

You still need to define your DATABASES setting as a dictionary:

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django_tenants.postgresql_backend',
        'NAME': config('DATABASE_NAME'),
        'USER': config('DATABASE_USER'),
        'PASSWORD' : config('DATABASE_PASSWORD'),
        'HOST': config('DATABASE_HOST'),
        'PORT': config('DATABASE_PORT'),
    }
}