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I'm using apache+mod_wsgi for django.
And all css/js/images are served through nginx.
For some odd, reason when others/friends/colleagues try accessing the site, jquery/css is not getting loaded for them, hence the page looks jumbled up.

My html files use code like this -

<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="http://x.x.x.x:8000/css/custom.css"/>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://1x.x.x.x:8000/js/custom.js"></script>

My nginx configuration in sites-available is like this -

    server {   
         listen   8000;   
         server_name  localhost;

         access_log  /var/log/nginx/aa8000.access.log;    
         error_log  /var/log/nginx/aa8000.error.log;    

           location / {   
               index  index.html index.htm;    

         location /static/ {    
            autoindex on;    
            root   /opt/aa/webroot/;    

There is a directory /opt/aa/webroot/static/ which have corresponding css & js directories.

The odd thing is that the pages show fine when I access them.
I have cleared my cache/etc, but the page loads fine for me, from various browsers.

Also, I don't see 404 any error in the nginx log files.

Any pointers would be great.

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4 Answers 4

up vote 6 down vote accepted
  1. server_name must match hostname in link/script URLs. Either declare your configuration as default for this interface:port pair (listen 8000 default)
  2. Nginx must listen on the interface where your host's IP is bound (seems ok in your case)
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I think using root in location block is incorrect. I use alias and it works fine, even without re-configuring django.

# django settings.py
MEDIA_URL = '/static/'

# nginx server config
server {   
    location /static {    
        autoindex on;    
        alias /opt/aa/webroot/;    

Hope this makes things simpler.

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Indeed, alias is the proper method to serve entire directories. –  xyzman Apr 25 '12 at 12:27
Same works for me, because /static and /static/ are different locations and in second variant I always got permission error from nginx. –  Dracontis Aug 17 '12 at 12:13

Fim & Alexander - Thanks for the hints those helped.
Here is how I solved it for anyone stuck in the same boat -

settings.py -

>MEDIA_ROOT = ''    
MEDIA_URL = 'http://x.x.x.x:8000/static/'    

In my html -

<script type="text/javascript" src="{{MEDIA_URL}}js/jquery-1.3.2.min.js"></script>

In my views.py -

return render_to_response('templates/login-register.html', {},

nginx inside the sites-available config file -

listen x.x.x.x:8000;    
server_name x.x.x.x.;

Restarted nginx
Restarted apache

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Unless you also have the "location /static" etc in your nginx conf Django will be serving the static files. Fine for testing and dev but not a good idea for production. –  ajostergaard Apr 10 '13 at 11:05

MEDIA_URL shall not be used to serve the Static content like js etc. Django provides a separate STATIC_URL settings option that can be used.

So this can be changed as

<script type="text/javascript" src="{{STATIC_URL}}js/jquery-1.3.2.min.js"></script>

Also, its more standard to use staticfile app templatetag like this:

{% load static from staticfiles %}
<script type="text/javascript" src="{% static 'js/jquery-1.3.2.min.js' %}"></script>

Docs Here

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