MyChat

A real-time chat application built with Django, Django Channels, and WebSockets. Supports public chat rooms, user profiles, and a friend system.

• Backend: Python 3.10+, Django 4.2, Django Channels 4.1, Daphne (ASGI)
• Database: PostgreSQL
• Real-time: WebSockets via Django Channels
• Channel layer: Redis (recommended for production) or in-memory (dev only)
• Media/uploads: Pillow

Install the following before starting:

git clone <your-repo-url>
cd MyChat

# Create
python -m venv venv

# Activate — Windows
venv\Scripts\activate

# Activate — Linux/macOS
source venv/bin/activate

pip install -r requirements.txt

If you are not using Redis, channels_redis is still listed in requirements but won't be used unless you set REDIS_URL. It will install without issue.

Copy the example file and fill it in:

cp .env.example .env

Then open .env and edit every value:

# Django
SECRET_KEY=some-long-random-string-here   # generate with: python -c "from django.core.signing import get_cookie_signer; print(get_cookie_signer().key)"
DEBUG=True                                 # set to False in production
ALLOWED_HOSTS=127.0.0.1 localhost

# PostgreSQL
DB_NAME=mychat
DB_USER=mychat_user
DB_PASSWORD=your_password
DB_HOST=localhost
DB_PORT=5432

# Email (you can use Gmail SMTP or leave blank during development)
EMAIL_FROM_USER=noreply@yourdomain.com
EMAIL_HOST=smtp.gmail.com
EMAIL_HOST_USER=your@gmail.com
EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD=your_app_password
EMAIL_USE_TLS=True
EMAIL_PORT=587

# Redis (leave commented out for in-memory dev mode)
# REDIS_URL=redis://localhost:6379/0

LOG_LEVEL=DEBUG

Generating a SECRET_KEY — run this in your terminal:

python -c "import secrets; print(secrets.token_urlsafe(50))"

sudo apt install postgresql postgresql-contrib

PostgreSQL does not start automatically — you must start it manually each session:

sudo service postgresql start

Verify it is running:

sudo service postgresql status

You should see Active: active. If you want it to start automatically every time you open WSL, add this to your ~/.bashrc:

sudo service postgresql start > /dev/null 2>&1

Connect as the PostgreSQL superuser:

sudo -u postgres psql

Inside psql, run:

CREATE DATABASE mychat;
CREATE USER mychat_user WITH PASSWORD 'your_password';
ALTER ROLE mychat_user SET client_encoding TO 'utf8';
ALTER ROLE mychat_user SET default_transaction_isolation TO 'read committed';
ALTER ROLE mychat_user SET timezone TO 'UTC';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON DATABASE mychat TO mychat_user;
\q

PostgreSQL 15 and later removed default write access to the public schema. You must grant it explicitly, connected to the mychat database specifically:

sudo -u postgres psql -d mychat

Inside psql:

GRANT ALL ON SCHEMA public TO mychat_user;
\q

Note: This step is easy to miss. Without it, python manage.py migrate will fail with permission denied for schema public.

Check PostgreSQL is on the expected port:

sudo -u postgres psql -c "SHOW port;"

Should output 5432 — matching DB_PORT in your .env.

Make sure the DB_NAME, DB_USER, DB_PASSWORD, DB_HOST, and DB_PORT values in your .env match what you just created.

python manage.py migrate

This creates all tables including the custom user model (USERS.ChatUser), chat rooms, messages, and friend relationships.

python manage.py createsuperuser

You will be prompted for a username, email, and password. Use these credentials to log in to the Django admin at /admin/.

Note: The custom user model requires first_name, last_name, and email. The createsuperuser command will prompt for all of them.

For development, Django serves static files automatically. For production:

python manage.py collectstatic

This project uses Daphne (ASGI server) to support WebSockets. Do not use runserver — it does not support WebSockets properly.

daphne -b 127.0.0.1 -p 8000 MyChat.asgi:application

The app will be available at: http://127.0.0.1:8000

Alternatively, during development Django's runserver will also work for basic testing (it has limited ASGI/WebSocket support in Django 4.2):

python manage.py runserver

When a user registers, they receive an activation email. During development:

• If you do not want to configure real SMTP, switch the email backend in .env or directly in settings.py to print emails to the console:

  # In MyChat/settings.py (temporary, dev only)
  EMAIL_BACKEND = 'django.core.mail.backends.console.EmailBackend'

  Activation links will be printed to your terminal instead of sent.

For production or running multiple Daphne workers, set REDIS_URL in your .env:

REDIS_URL=redis://localhost:6379/0

Start Redis:

# Linux/macOS
redis-server

# Windows (with WSL or Redis for Windows)
redis-server

Without REDIS_URL, the app falls back to InMemoryChannelLayer which only works with a single process.

# After pulling new changes
pip install -r requirements.txt   # in case new packages were added
python manage.py migrate           # in case new migrations were added
daphne -b 127.0.0.1 -p 8000 MyChat.asgi:application