Question

In attempting to run ./manage.py runserver or shell or any other command for that matter, I’m getting the error: You must define a ‘default’ database.

I’m running this in a virtualenv and settings.py includes DATABASE_NAME, along with Host, Port and Engine. Where is django expecting definition of the default database?

Here’s the traceback:

(env)fox-ser01:common wmfox3$ ./manage.py shell
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "./manage.py", line 31, in <module>
execute_manager(settings)
  File "/Users/wmfox3/Sites/photo_project/env/src/django/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 442, in execute_manager
utility.execute()
  File "/Users/wmfox3/Sites/photo_project/env/src/django/django/core/management/__init__.py", line 379, in execute
self.fetch_command(subcommand).run_from_argv(self.argv)
  File "/Users/wmfox3/Sites/photo_project/env/src/django/django/core/management/base.py", line 191, in run_from_argv
self.execute(*args, **options.__dict__)
  File "/Users/wmfox3/Sites/photo_project/env/src/django/django/core/management/base.py", line 220, in execute
output = self.handle(*args, **options)
  File "/Users/wmfox3/Sites/photo_project/env/src/django/django/core/management/base.py", line 351, in handle
return self.handle_noargs(**options)
  File "/Users/wmfox3/Sites/photo_project/env/src/django/django/core/management/commands/shell.py", line 46, in handle_noargs
from django.db.models.loading import get_models
  File "/Users/wmfox3/Sites/photo_project/env/src/django/django/db/__init__.py", line 12, in <module>
raise ImproperlyConfigured("You must define a '%s' database" % DEFAULT_DB_ALIAS)
django.core.exceptions.ImproperlyConfigured: You must define a 'default' database

Answer 1

DATABASE_NAME is deprecated since django 1.2 so if you’re using newer version, you should use the new way of defining databases:

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.sqlite3',
        'NAME': 'mydatabase'
    }
}