Running maintenance on a Django web app on the app service with manage.py

Question

Running maintenance on a Django web app on the app service with manage.py

I'm stuck on how to implement a Django based web app on the Azure App Service. I can get the thing up and running. The problem is, I'm using Wagtail, which like many Django-based apps relies on regular management function runs. There's a script, manage.py, in the root of the app which you run in order to do this.

Whilst I can do this with SSH for one-off tasks, some of the functions need to run every hour or so, and other triggered by certain events. So, I need to find a way to automate these. If this was a full OS instance it would be a simple as a cron job and whatever orchestration framework I wanted to use, but obviously those options aren't available to me in App Engine.

Have you found a way to run Django management functions in your app on a schedule, or on a trigger of some sort? Without them, App Engine is functionally useless for my project. I can't believe many people would be running Django apps on the platform without being able to do this somehow! Or is everyone running Django apps in containers instead?

Answer 1

Hello @Matthew Bellringer

You can run background tasks with WebJobs in Azure App Service Windows.
WebJobs is a feature of Azure App Service that enables you to run a program or script in the same instance as a web app, API app, or mobile app. There is no additional cost to use WebJobs.

You can use the Azure WebJobs SDK with WebJobs to simplify many programming tasks. WebJobs is not yet supported for App Service on Linux.

There are several WebJob types:

Continuous - Starts immediately when the WebJob is created. To keep the job from ending, the program or script typically does its work inside an endless loop. If the job does end, you can restart it. Typically used with WebJobs SDK.
Triggered - Starts only when triggered manually or on a schedule.

The following file types are supported:

.cmd, .bat, .exe (using Windows cmd)
.ps1 (using PowerShell)
.sh (using Bash)
.php (using PHP)
.py (using Python)
.js (using Node.js)
.jar (using Java)
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/app-service/webjobs-create

If you are going to run background tasks using Django Python in Linux or Docker I would recommend Azure Function instead
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-functions/functions-reference-python?tabs=azurecli-linux%2Capplication-level

Matthew Bellringer 26 Reputation points

2022-01-25T17:50:30.12+00:00

Thank you, WebJobs were my immediate thought. However, there's a big problem. WebJobs are only available for Windows-based web apps, and Python is only available on Linux-based ones. So, at least for new implementations, there's no Webjob support for Python at all.

I've been through the documentation on Azure Functions, and I can't see how it would integrate directly with a web app. The only approach I could come up with was to deploy the code in two places; once to the web app and once to a function, and then to expose the management stuff by writing further code to do that. Or is there a simpler way?
Ryan Hill 16,776 Reputation points Microsoft Employee

2022-01-27T02:32:31.817+00:00

You are correct @Matthew Bellringer in that WebJobs is only available on Windows based plans, however you can still run python files as @Andriy Bilous pointed out above. However, this would mean having two separate app service plans.

The best course of action would be to use Azure Functions as you've determined on a consumption plan. I'm not too familiar with Wagtail but it does appear it is middleware for your django app. You could look at proxying and surfacing your manage.py to an HTTP endpoint from a timer-based Azure Function.

Running maintenance on a Django web app on the app service with manage.py

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