Django - how to specify a database for a model?

Solution 1:

You can't specify a database for a model, but you can define it in a custom DB router class.

# app/models.py
class SomeModel(models.Model):
    ...

# app/dbrouters.py
from app.models import SomeModel
...
class MyDBRouter(object):

    def db_for_read(self, model, **hints):
        """ reading SomeModel from otherdb """
        if model == SomeModel:
            return 'otherdb'
        return None

    def db_for_write(self, model, **hints):
        """ writing SomeModel to otherdb """
        if model == SomeModel:
            return 'otherdb'
        return None


# app/settings.py
DATABASE_ROUTERS = ('app.dbrouters.MyDBRouter',)
...
DATABASES = {
    ...
    'otherdb': {
        ....
    }
}

Solution 2:

As far as I know you can't specify the database directly with the model since it would kind of prevent the app from ever being reusable, but from what I can see in the docs:

https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.8/topics/db/multi-db/