Django Rest Framework - Missing Static Directory

In my case I was relying on Gunicorn to run the server. I tried updating my settings.py file by following the above threads but unfortunately nothing seemed to work for me.

In the end I scratched my head around DRF docs specially this part https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/howto/static-files/

I managed to solve this problem by updating by urls.py as following.

from django.contrib import admin
from django.urls import path, include
from django.conf import settings
from django.conf.urls.static import static

urlpatterns = [
    path('admin/', admin.site.urls), 
] + static(settings.STATIC_URL, document_root=settings.STATIC_ROOT)

Then updating my settings.py as follows.

BASE_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)))
STATIC_URL = '/static/'

STATIC_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'staticfiles')

And now execute => python manage.py collectstatic

First, You need to set static url and static root in django settings.py

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

Then collect all static files

python manage.py collectstatic

I have found the solution to my problem!

After much mind boggling research, I re-read this stack overflow question that didn't seem to help me the last time I took a look at it.

My new settings.py in my django_project folder now looks like this.

"""
Django settings for django_project project.

For more information on this file, see
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.6/topics/settings/

For the full list of settings and their values, see
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.6/ref/settings/
"""

# Build paths inside the project like this: os.path.join(BASE_DIR, ...)
import os
BASE_DIR = os.path.dirname(os.path.dirname(__file__))


# Quick-start development settings - unsuitable for production
# See https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.6/howto/deployment/checklist/

# SECURITY WARNING: keep the secret key used in production secret!
SECRET_KEY = 'DwGCDqtcqzzGO2XK87u7bVSEUqHogZRFl4UdhkcCudSHxLUVvx'

# SECURITY WARNING: don't run with debug turned on in production!
DEBUG = True

TEMPLATE_DEBUG = True

ALLOWED_HOSTS = ['*']


# Application definition

INSTALLED_APPS = (
    'django.contrib.admin',
    'django.contrib.auth',
    'django.contrib.contenttypes',
    'django.contrib.sessions',
    'django.contrib.messages',
    'django.contrib.staticfiles',
    'rest_framework',
)

REST_FRAMEWORK = {
    # Use hyperlinked styles by default.
    # Only used if the `serializer_class` attribute is not set on a view.
    'DEFAULT_MODEL_SERIALIZER_CLASS':
        'rest_framework.serializers.HyperlinkedModelSerializer',

    # Use Django's standard `django.contrib.auth` permissions,
    # or allow read-only access for unauthenticated users.
    'DEFAULT_PERMISSION_CLASSES': [
        'rest_framework.permissions.DjangoModelPermissionsOrAnonReadOnly'
    ]
}

MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES = (
    'django.contrib.sessions.middleware.SessionMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.common.CommonMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.csrf.CsrfViewMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.auth.middleware.AuthenticationMiddleware',
    'django.contrib.messages.middleware.MessageMiddleware',
    'django.middleware.clickjacking.XFrameOptionsMiddleware',
)

ROOT_URLCONF = 'django_project.urls'

WSGI_APPLICATION = 'django_project.wsgi.application'


# Database
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.6/ref/settings/#databases

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql_psycopg2',
        'NAME': 'django',
        'USER': 'django',
        'PASSWORD': 'mpOQzpYFci',
        'HOST': 'localhost',
        'PORT': '',
    }
}

# Internationalization
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.6/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/1.6/howto/static-files/

STATIC_ROOT = '/home/django/django_project/django_project/static'
STATIC_URL = '/static/'

STATICFILES_DIRS = (
    os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'static'),
)

I now have a folder named 'static' right next to my settings.py file in my django_project folder with all necessary resources such as 'rest_framework' and 'admin'. I restarted gunicorn after this change and reloaded my web page and it worked!

Thanks to those of you who tried to help, you did lead me in the right direction and probably made this go by a lot faster.