Serving a HTTPS only Django Application is very important to secure your users data. If your application have user authentication it is already a good reason to start using HTTPS only. Otherwise usernames and passwords will be exposed traveling over HTTP in plain text. Meaning if a user is using a public internet connection, and he logs in your application, he is vulnerable to a sniffer attack.

It is important to not only secure login, password change and payment pages with HTTPS, but the whole application. Otherwise you will be only protecting your user base only temporarily.

In this tutorial I will guide you through all the necessary steps to correctly secure your Django Application, using an inexpensive SSL certificate from Namecheap.

Getting a SSL Certificate

The first step is to get a SSL for your Django Application. There are a few options: you can generate your own certificate, you can get a free one from Let’s Encrypt or you can purchase one from the many companies on the internet.

In this tutorial I will use a simple commercial SSL certificate by Positive SSL registered from Namecheap. You can get it for $9.00/yr clicking here.

PS: I get commission for purchases using the link above.

Generate a CSR code

CSR stand for Certificate Signing Request and it is a base64 encoded data usually generated in the server-side.

Since we will be using Nginx for the web server, we will use openssl.

Usually CSR openssl configuration contains by default the details as follows below:

• Common Name (the domain name certificate should be issued for)
• Country
• State (or province)
• Locality (or city)
• Organization
• Organizational Unit (Department)
• E-mail address

To generate the CSR code run the following code in your server terminal:

openssl req -new -newkey rsa:2048 -nodes -keyout simpleacademy.key -out simpleacademy.csr

After hitting enter you should see something like that:

.............+++
....................................+++
writing new private key to 'simpleacademy.key'
-----
You are about to be asked to enter information that will be incorporated
into your certificate request.
What you are about to enter is what is called a Distinguished Name or a DN.
There are quite a few fields but you can leave some blank
For some fields there will be a default value,
If you enter '.', the field will be left blank.
-----
Country Name (2 letter code) [AU]:

You will be prompted a few questions:

Country Name (2 letter code) [AU]:FI
State or Province Name (full name) [Some-State]:Oulu
Locality Name (eg, city) []:Oulu
Organization Name (eg, company) [Internet Widgits Pty Ltd]:Simple is Better Than Complex
Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) []:IT
Common Name (e.g. server FQDN or YOUR name) []:simple.academy
Email Address []:admin@simpleisbetterthancomplex.com

Please enter the following 'extra' attributes
to be sent with your certificate request
A challenge password []:samplepassword
An optional company name []:Simple is Better Than Complex

After answering all the questions, check if the files was created correctly:

ubuntu@simpleacademy:~$ ls -l
total 8
-rw-rw-r-- 1 ubuntu ubuntu 1196 May 11 14:26 simpleacademy.csr
-rw-rw-r-- 1 ubuntu ubuntu 1704 May 11 14:26 simpleacademy.key
ubuntu@simpleacademy:~$

Activate the SSL Certificate

Grab the contents of the file simpleacademy.csr and paste it into the activation page:

After submitting the data, you will be asked to confirm it. Now it is time to validate that you actually own the domain. Usually there are three different ways to validate you own a domain: Email, HTTP-based or DNS-based. Pick the most suitable option for you. In my case, DNS-based it is.

Visit the details page to get the instructions to create the CNAME (in case you have selected the DNS-based validation).

Add a CNAME record with the given values:

Installing the SSL Certificate

After the activation process of your certificate, you should receive the necessary certificate files in your email address. It comes usually in a .zip archive containing the files:

• simple_academy.crt
• simple_academy.ca-bundle

Concatenate the two files:

cat simple_academy.crt simple_academy.ca-bundle >> simple_academy_cert_chain.crt

Upload those files to your server using scp:

scp simple_academy_cert_chain.crt ubuntu@52.26.32.151:/home/ubuntu

Now you will need two files:

• simple_academy_cert_chain.crt
• simpleacademy.key (the key you genered while creating the CSR)

Copy both files to /etc/ssl/:

sudo cp simpleacademy_cert_chain.crt /etc/ssl/
sudo cp simpleacademy.key /etc/ssl/

Edit your virtual hosts file:

upstream simple_academy_server {
  server unix:/opt/simple_academy/run/gunicorn.sock fail_timeout=0;
}

# Redirect all non-encrypted to encrypted
server {
    server_name simple.academy;
    listen 80;
    return 301 https://simple.academy$request_uri;
}

server {
    server_name simple.academy;

    listen 443;  # <-

    ssl on;  # <-
    ssl_certificate /etc/ssl/simpleacademy_cert_chain.crt;  # <-
    ssl_certificate_key /etc/ssl/simpleacademy.key;  # <-

    client_max_body_size 4G;

    access_log /opt/simple_academy/logs/nginx-access.log;
    error_log /opt/simple_academy/logs/nginx-error.log;

    location / {
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto https;  # <-
        proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
        proxy_redirect off;

        if (!-f $request_filename) {
            proxy_pass http://simple_academy_server;
            break;
        }
    }
}

Restart the nginx:

sudo service nginx restart

And it is already working, serving all requests with HTTPS only:

Finally, add a few extra configurations to your settings.py:

SECURE_PROXY_SSL_HEADER = ('HTTP_X_FORWARDED_PROTO', 'https')
SECURE_SSL_REDIRECT = True
SESSION_COOKIE_SECURE = True
CSRF_COOKIE_SECURE = True

Restart your Django application and it is all set up.

Conclusions

I strongly recommend reading the official Django Documentation on SSL/HTTPS before adding the extra configurations to your settings.py, as if not done correctly can seriously expose your application.

Even though I’m using the Namecheap SSL certificate as an example, the steps described in this tutorial is applicable for any commercial SSL certificate.

Affiliate Link

If you want to purchase the same certificate I used in this tutorial, click in the link below:

Get PositiveSSL for $9.00/yr.

Disclaimer: I get commission from purchases using the link above.