MEDIA_URL and MEDIA_ROOT do not serve the files

[lzap@…]

I use latest stable:

# Absolute path to the directory that holds media.
# Example: "/home/media/media.lawrence.com/"
MEDIA_ROOT = '/home/lzap/public_html/nc/media/',

# URL that handles the media served from MEDIA_ROOT.
# Example: "http://media.lawrence.com"
MEDIA_URL = '/media/'

# URL prefix for admin media -- CSS, JavaScript and images. Make sure to use a
# trailing slash.
# Examples: "http://foo.com/media/", "/media/".
ADMIN_MEDIA_PREFIX = '/media_admin/'

I start the devel server on port 8080 and try to access some files from the media directory. I always get 404. I tried to set the MEDIA_URL either to '/media' or to '​http://localhost:8080/media' but with no luck. Strace commands shows the Python is not trying to access a disc - it simply do not recognize the URL.

I know I should a web server for this, but I do not want to run an Apache for developing. The documentation is brief about this settings. I think this is a bug or something.

[lzap@…]

I was told to use 'flatfiles' but this seems to be "pages in a database".

How to setup the devel server to serve static files? Are these MEDIA_* settings the right place? If so why this doesnt work?

[anonymous]

Check out ​http://www.djangoproject.com/documentation/static_files/

Please don't use bug tracker for support q - django-users mailing list is the place.

[anonymous]

You should wrote in the documentation near the MEDIA_URL (or in the tutorial) that man needs to use django.views.static.serve for this...

[anonymous]

And please note this is very unclear. I thought this was a bug... The documentation do not shows what is MEDIA_* for...

[anonymous]

This *still* needs documentation fixes! No where near MEDIA_* is this mentioned!

[Tim Graham <timograham@…>]

In fb7c347f7bd360b567c0b30697a6a200be2d6778:

Fixed #1349 -- Clarified docs on serving files from STATIC/MEDIA_URL.

[Tim Graham <timograham@…>]

In 5783088eecddd935be3c641437748040669f91c0:

[1.6.x] Fixed #1349 -- Clarified docs on serving files from STATIC/MEDIA_URL.

Backport of fb7c347f7b from master

[Tim Graham <timograham@…>]

In 2a2d7db01f0032c9dbf446757c121fa2a5904a45:

[1.7.x] Fixed #1349 -- Clarified docs on serving files from STATIC/MEDIA_URL.

Backport of fb7c347f7b from master