How to test DB connection Using Google Cloud SQL, Secrets Manager with Django 4.1 gcloud setup.

[CharlyLimaHotel]

I am following this tutorial Django Cloud Run and when I get to "python manage.py make mirations" I get the error - Models aren't loaded yet
cloud-sql-proxy.exe is running on another cmd. I am trying to troubleshoot this but I am very new to Google Cloud SQL and Secrets Manager. Is there a way to determine if the issue is the secrets manager, the code or the DB?  Also posted on : Stack Overflow (Whis is usually hopeless)  Can I connect to the Cloud SQL DB directly without secrets manager?

After running python manage.py I get -  Note that only Django core commands are listed as settings are not properly configured (error: Set the (cat /dev/urandom | LC_ALL=C tr -dc '[:alpha:]'| fold -w 50 | head -n1) environment variable).

It looks like the tutorial is flawed.  The Secrets manger part that sets the Secrets Key is broken. My change below.

DATABASE_URL=postgres://db-user-ms:Lebowski2023@//cloudsql/ map-sync-383712:us-central1:db-mapsync/db-msync
GS_BUCKET_NAME= map-sync-383712_map-sync-bucket
SECRET_KEY=$(cat /dev/urandom | LC_ALL=C tr -dc '[:alpha:]'| fold -w 50 | head -n1)
SECRET_KEY=SUperMan2023

[ms4446]

The error message "Models aren't loaded yet" often occurs when Django is trying to access models before the app has been fully initialized. This can happen if you're trying to use models in a script, outside of a view, or in other locations where the app has not been fully initialized.

To troubleshoot the issue, you may want to consider the following:

1. Ensure that the Django app is correctly initialized before running the python manage.py makemigrations command.

2. Double-check that the DATABASES setting in your Django settings.py file is correctly configured to connect to your Cloud SQL instance.

3. Verify that the Cloud SQL Proxy is running and properly configured to connect to your Cloud SQL instance.

4. Verify that the necessary secrets for database connection details (e.g., username, password, database name) are correctly set in Google Cloud Secret Manager and are being retrieved by your Django app.

To connect to the Cloud SQL instance directly without using Secret Manager, you can provide the database connection details directly in your Django settings.py file. However, this is not recommended for production environments, as it exposes sensitive information in your codebase. Instead, you may consider doing this temporarily for testing and troubleshooting purposes.

Here's an example of how to configure the DATABASES setting in your settings.py file to connect to a Cloud SQL instance directly:

DATABASES = {
'default': {
'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.mysql', # Or 'django.db.backends.postgresql' for PostgreSQL
'NAME': 'your-database-name',
'USER': 'your-username',
'PASSWORD': 'your-password',
'HOST': 'ip-address-of-cloud-sql-instance',
'PORT': '3306', # Use '5432' for PostgreSQL
}

Please make sure to replace the placeholders (your-database-name, your-username, your-password, and ip-address-of-cloud-sql-instance) with the actual values for your Cloud SQL instance.

After troubleshooting, you can revert to using Secret Manager to securely store and retrieve the database credentials.

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