Directory indexes not allowed here Django

Question

I have a django app. Here is my directory structure.

.
+--media
   +--index.html
+--static
   +--extjs
      +--<extjs files>
   +--updater
      +--app
      +--images
      +--ux
      +--app.js
      +--index.html
   +--index.html
+--templates
   +--<template files>
+--uapp
   +--__init__.py
   +--models.py
   +-- <etc>
+--manage.py
+--settings.py
+--urls.py

here is my settings.py

import os
# Django settings for uproject project.

DEBUG = True
TEMPLATE_DEBUG = DEBUG

ADMINS = (
    # ('Your Name', '[email protected]'),
)

MANAGERS = ADMINS

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.mysql', # Add 'postgresql_psycopg2', 'postgresql', 'mysql', 'sqlite3' or 'oracle'.
        'NAME': 'updates',                      # Or path to database file if using sqlite3.
        'USER': '<user>',                      # Not used with sqlite3.
        'PASSWORD': '<password>',                  # Not used with sqlite3.
        'HOST': '',                      # Set to empty string for localhost. Not used with sqlite3.
        'PORT': '',                      # Set to empty string for default. Not used with sqlite3.
    }
}

# Local time zone for this installation. Choices can be found here:
# http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tz_zones_by_name
# although not all choices may be available on all operating systems.
# On Unix systems, a value of None will cause Django to use the same
# timezone as the operating system.
# If running in a Windows environment this must be set to the same as your
# system time zone.
TIME_ZONE = 'America/Los_Angeles'

# Language code for this installation. All choices can be found here:
# http://www.i18nguy.com/unicode/language-identifiers.html
LANGUAGE_CODE = 'en-us'

SITE_ID = 1

# If you set this to False, Django will make some optimizations so as not
# to load the internationalization machinery.
USE_I18N = True

# If you set this to False, Django will not format dates, numbers and
# calendars according to the current locale
USE_L10N = True

# Path to project installation.
SITE_ROOT = os.path.dirname(os.path.realpath(__file__))

# Absolute path to the directory that holds media.
# Example: "/home/media/media.lawrence.com/"
#MEDIA_ROOT = os.path.join(SITE_ROOT, 'static')
MEDIA_ROOT = os.path.join(SITE_ROOT, 'media')

# URL that handles the media served from MEDIA_ROOT. Make sure to use a
# trailing slash if there is a path component (optional in other cases).
# Examples: "http://media.lawrence.com", "http://example.com/media/"
MEDIA_URL = '/updater/media/'

# Absolute path to the directory static files should be collected to.
# Don't put anything in this directory yourself; store your static files
# in apps' "static/" subdirectories and in STATICFILES_DIRS.
# Example: "/var/www/example.com/static/"
STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(SITE_ROOT, 'static')

# URL prefix for static files.
# Example: "http://example.com/static/", "http://static.example.com/"
STATIC_URL = "/static/"

# Additional locations of static files
STATICFILES_DIRS = (
    #os.path.join(SITE_ROOT, 'static'),
    # Put strings here, like "/home/html/static" or "C:/www/django/static".
    # Always use forward slashes, even on Windows.
    # Don't forget to use absolute paths, not relative paths.
)

# List of finder classes that know how to find static files in
# various locations.
STATICFILES_FINDERS = (
    'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.FileSystemFinder',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.AppDirectoriesFinder',
    # 'django.contrib.staticfiles.finders.DefaultStorageFinder',
)


# Make this unique, and don't share it with anybody.
SECRET_KEY = 'hnu51442$#@gdsvx5v!61w^4-vjevy8xm6tqb56#bc216!nw-nl-%'

# List of callables that know how to import templates from various sources.
TEMPLATE_LOADERS = (
    'django.template.loaders.filesystem.Loader',
    'django.template.loaders.app_directories.Loader',
#     'django.template.loaders.eggs.Loader',
)

MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES = (
    'django.middleware.gzip.GZipMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.common.CommonMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.sessions.middleware.SessionMiddleware',
    #'django.middleware.csrf.CsrfViewMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.messages.middleware.MessageMiddleware',
)

ROOT_URLCONF = 'urls'

# WSGI_APPLICATION = 'wsgi.application'

TEMPLATE_DIRS = (
    # Put strings here, like "/home/html/django_templates" or "C:/www/django/templates".
    # Always use forward slashes, even on Windows.
    # Don't forget to use absolute paths, not relative paths.
    os.path.join(SITE_ROOT, 'templates'),
)

INSTALLED_APPS = (
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.sites',
    'django.contrib.messages',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles',
    'haystack',
    'uapp',
    # Uncomment the next line to enable the admin:
    'django.contrib.admin',
    # Uncomment the next line to enable admin documentation:
    # 'django.contrib.admindocs',
)

HAYSTACK_CONNECTIONS = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'haystack.backends.whoosh_backend.WhooshEngine',
        'PATH': os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), 'whoosh_index'),
    },
}
HAYSTACK_SIGNAL_PROCESSOR = 'haystack.signals.RealtimeSignalProcessor'

LOGIN_URL = '/updater/uapp/login/'
LOGOUT_URL = '/updater/uapp/logout/'
LOGIN_REDIRECT_URL = '/updater/media/updater/'
CACHE_BACKEND = 'db://listclient_cache'

When I go to localhost:8000/static/updater/ I get Directory Indexes not allowed here error.

Any idea? I think there is some error in the way static files are being served. I am using extjs by the way.

I am expecting the index.html in static/updater/ directory to show up. Does it happen by default?

Answer 1

It seems that for some reason Django doesn't want to serve the directory listing of /static/updater/. Because static updater is a directory, not a file, try doing /static/updater/index.html or just /static/index.html and see if either are served. If they are not served, it may be an issue with your static files setup. If so, then I am not sure if it's just Django refusing to serve directory indexes within static folders or something else.

(This feels like it should be a comment, but I don't have enough rep to comment.)

Answer 2

Your STATICFILES_DIRS is empty - the dev server will serve from here.

Answer 3

You must edit your urls.py and add these lines to it then go to django.views.static.serve and change show_indexes argument to True. Addition of urls.py:

from django.contrib.staticfiles.urls import staticfiles_urlpatterns
#import this at top
url(r'^static/(?P<path>.*)$', 'django.views.static.serve',{'document_root':"path\to\your\static\folder"}),
#add this to urlpatterns variable
urlpatterns += staticfiles_urlpatterns()
#add this in last line of urls.py

Now you are finished and django shows indexes if you want to change the html view of it you must follow instructions in django.views.static.serve and add your favourite html file to static/directory_index.html

Answer 4

In addition to henrikstroem's answer:

You should have a look at the official documentation on STATIC_ROOT and STATICFILES_DIRS.

Basically, STATIC_ROOT is the location where the collectstatic command will collect all the static files to, and STATICFILES_DIRS is the location (or are the locations) where that command will look for static files.

My development setup looks like this:

project_root
    + apps
    + project
        __init__.py
        settings.py
        urls.py
        wsgi.py
    + run
        dev.sqlite3
        + media
        + static
    + static
    + templates

I point STATIC_ROOT to project_root/run/static and include project_root/static in STATICFILES_DIRS. As you can see, I store my static assets in project_root/static and they get served.

During development (meaning: while using the runserver command), your static assets will be served directly from their location, in my case project_root/static. When deploying, you will collect your static assets to STATIC_ROOT. This can be a folder in your project (as my project_root/run/static or even a directory in a totally other environment, you may even copy them over to a CDN [Content Delivery Network]).

Personally, I like deploying with Apache. I will setup one virtualenv to handle the Django parts. Static assets are served by another virtualenv which totally bypasses all dynamic handling and simply serves static files. You could even use another server, like nginx, for this task.

In shameless self-advertising, you can fetch my project skeleton here.