Trying to run django-static-sitemaps in terminal using "django-admin refresh_sitemap" gives error of "Unknown command: 'refresh_sitemap''

Question

I'm trying to use django-static-sitemaps as I'd like to serve millions of urls in my sitemap.

I've installed it, it's in the installed apps, but when I try to generate the sitemap itself (https://github.com/xaralis/django-static-sitemaps), by typing in django-admin refresh_sitemap into terminal (with/without .py after admin..) I get:

"No Django settings specified. Unknown command: 'refresh_sitemap' Type 'django-admin help' for usage. "

Using django 1.9, and python 2.7 This is my settings

BASE_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)))

DEBUG = True

ALLOWED_HOSTS = []


# Application definition

INSTALLED_APPS = [
'myProject.apps.MyProjectConfig',
'django.contrib.admin',
'django.contrib.auth',
'django.contrib.contenttypes',
'django.contrib.sessions',
'django.contrib.messages',
'django.contrib.staticfiles',
'django.contrib.sites',
'django.contrib.sitemaps',
'static_sitemaps',
]

SITE_ID = 1

STATICSITEMAPS_ROOT_SITEMAP = 'myProject.sitemaps.sitemaps'

MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES = [
'django.middleware.security.SecurityMiddleware',
'django.contrib.sessions.middleware.SessionMiddleware',
'django.middleware.common.CommonMiddleware',
'django.middleware.csrf.CsrfViewMiddleware',
'django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware',
'django.contrib.auth.middleware.SessionAuthenticationMiddleware',
'django.contrib.messages.middleware.MessageMiddleware',
'django.middleware.clickjacking.XFrameOptionsMiddleware',
]

ROOT_URLCONF = 'myProject.urls'

TEMPLATES = [
{
    'BACKEND': 'django.template.backends.django.DjangoTemplates',
    'DIRS': [],
    'APP_DIRS': True,
    'OPTIONS': {
        'context_processors': [
            'django.template.context_processors.debug',
            'django.template.context_processors.request',
            'django.contrib.auth.context_processors.auth',
            'django.contrib.messages.context_processors.messages',
        ],
    },
},
]

WSGI_APPLICATION = 'myProject.wsgi.application'


# Database
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.9/ref/settings/#databases

DATABASES = {
'default': {
    'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.sqlite3',
    'NAME': os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'db.sqlite3'),
}
}



# Internationalization
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.9/topics/i18n/

LANGUAGE_CODE = 'en-us'

TIME_ZONE = 'UTC'

USE_I18N = True

USE_L10N = True

USE_TZ = True


# Static files (CSS, JavaScript, Images)
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.9/howto/static-files/

STATIC_URL = '/static/'
STATIC_ROOT= os.path.join(BASE_DIR,'static_media/')

Thank You :)

Answer 1

When using django-admin you either have to set DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE environment variable or explicitly pass in the settings module each time you run the command.

Before you run django-admin refresh_sitemap, run:

export DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE=myProject.settings

or run:

django-admin refresh_sitemap --settings=myProject.settings

For more details see: https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.9/topics/settings/#the-django-admin-utility

Answer 2

This problem continues to persist in Django 2.0+. The solution presented by ozren1983 works in most situations. In some operating systems the connection of path variables remains a problem (in my case Windows).

You can try the following steps to mitigate the same.

Include the following in your settings.py:

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    ...
    'django.contrib.sites', # this was missing for me
    'django.contrib.sitemaps',
    ...
    'static_sitemaps',
]

SITE_ID = 1

Then you need to ensure that your database contains the required tables:

python manage.py makemigrations
python manage.py migrate

Finally, you simply need to run the refresh_sitemap command using manage.py, not django-admin:

python manage.py refresh_sitemap

Hope this helps someone else.