How do I set up a test duplicate of a Django and Postgresql based web application?

Question

Not sure if this is an excessively broad and newbie-ish question for Stack Overflow but here goes:

I paid someone else to build a web application for me and now I want to tweak certain aspects of it myself. I learn best by trial and error – changing stuff and seeing what happens. Obviously that's not a great way to treat a live site, so I need to duplicate the site on some kind of test server which I can play with without fear of the consequences.

Unfortunately the closest I've come to programming has been creating ActionScript-based websites. I've never touched a database. So I really don't know where to start with setting up a test server.

I would really appreciate any advice about where to start. I am completely ignorant and lost here.

The web application is built in python/django using a Postgresql database. I use Mac OS X 10.6 if that makes any difference.

Answer 1

You can run the site locally on your Mac. See the installation documentation for details on how to install Django and set it up to work with Postgres, then you can run the site just by going into the directory that contains the manage.py file and running python manage.py runserver.

The site will now be available in your browser by going to http://127.0.0.1:8000/