Configuring postgresql database for local development in Django while using Heroku

Assuming you have postgres installed, connect via pgadmin or psql and create a new user. Then create a new database and with your new user as the owner. Make sure you can connect via psql with the new user into to the database. you will then need to set up an env variable in your postactivate file in your virtualenv's bin folder and save it. Here is what I have for the database:

export DATABASE_URL='postgres://{{username}}:{{password}}@localhost:5432/{{database}}'

Just a note: adding this value to your postactivate doesn't do anything. The file is not run upon saving. You will either need to run this at the $ prompt, or simply deactivate and active your virtualenv.

Your settings.py should read from this env var:

DATABASES = {'default': dj_database_url.config()}

You will then configure Heroku with their CLI tool to use your production database when deployed. Something like:

heroku config:set DATABASE_URL={{production value here}}

(if you don't have Heroku's CLI tool installed, you need to do it)

If you need to figure how exactly what that value you need for your production database, you can get it by logging into heroku's postgresql subdomain (at the time this is being written, it's https://postgres.heroku.com/) and selecting the db from the list and looking at the "Connection Settings : URL" value.

This way your same settings.py value will work for both local and production and you keep your usernames/passwords out of version control. They are just env config values.