Django over HTTPS in local Docker

· 2 minutes read

Edit. This can be done in a much simpler manner with Caddy

sudo caddy reverse-proxy --from my-site.test --to localhost:8000

h/t Ben Dickinson who also notes

any subdomain of localhost resolves to localhost, which save lots of time messing around with hosts files

which is so true, unless you prefer .test or .local instead.

I needed to test a local build over HTTPS due SSO requirements in the past, and Referrer-Policy more recently.

The project(s) have the following layout:

. 
└── Project root/ 
│   ├── docker/ 
│   │   ├── Procfile 
│   │   └── other-docker-related-files 
│   ├── the_project/ 
│   ├── Dockerfile 
│   └── docker-compose.yaml
│   ...

Where Procfile is for honcho. A Procfile specifies commands that are executed on startup by an app that supports it and uses a <process type>: <command> format:

web: python manage.py runserver 0.0.0.0:8000

On my host:

  1. Install mkcert
  2. Generate a new self-signed certificate
cd <path/to/project/>docker

mkcert -cert-file dev-cert.pem -key-file dev-key.pem localhost 127.0.0.1 my-project.local

  1. Run mkcert -install from the docker/ directory which contains the self-signed certificate (dev-cert.pem and dev-key.pem)

  2. (optional) Create a Procfile_https file with

    web: python manage.py runserver_plus 0.0.0.0:8000 --cert-file docker/dev-cert.pem --key-file docker/dev-key.pem --keep-meta-shutdown

  3. In your web container:

    • if you use honcho and created Procfile_https, use honcho_https run instead of honcho run
    • if running runserver directly, then run python manage.py runserver_plus 0.0.0.0:8000 --cert-file docker/dev-cert.pem --key-file docker/dev-key.pem --keep-meta-shutdown

  4. Access the site at https://my-site.test:8000

    Note: add this domain to your local hosts file, if it’s not there already