How does one set up multiple accounts with separate databases for Django on one server?

Question

What options are there for installing Django such that multiple users (each with an \"Account\") can each have their own database?

The semantics are fairly intuitive

Answer 1

The Django ORM doesn't provide multiple database support classes, but it is definitely possible - you'll have to write a custom manager and make a few other tweaks. Eric Florenzano has a great article with detailed code samples:

http://www.eflorenzano.com/blog/post/easy-multi-database-support-django/

Answer 2

The Django way would definitely be to have separate installations with their own database name (#1). #2 would involve quite a bit of hacking with the ORM, and even then I'm not quite sure it's possible at all.

But mind you, you don't need a WHOLE new installation of all the site's models/views/templates for each user, just a new settings.py with all the appropriate paths to the common source files. Plus, to run all these installations in Apache, do it the way I do here:

<VirtualHost 1.2.3.4>
        DocumentRoot /www/site1
        ServerName site1.com
        <Location />
                SetHandler python-program
                SetEnv DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE site1.settings
                PythonPath "['/www'] + sys.path"
                PythonDebug On
                PythonInterpreter site1
        </Location>
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost 1.2.3.4>
        DocumentRoot /www/site2
        ServerName site2.com
        <Location />
                SetHandler python-program
                SetEnv DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE site2.settings
                PythonPath "['/www'] + sys.path"
                PythonDebug On
                PythonInterpreter site2
        </Location>
</VirtualHost>

assuming you've got /www/site1/settings.py, www/site2/settings.py and so on...

Of course, you now need to have a main site where people log in, that then redirects you to the appropriate site (here I've just put it as "site1.com", "site2.com", but you get the idea.)