When DEBUG is disabled in Django, the framework stops serving static files automatically. This causes the admin itnerface to render without CSS and JavaScript. To resolve this, you must configure a dedicated web server to handle these assets.

Begin by updating your Django settigns:

# config/settings.py
import os
from pathlib import Path

BASE_DIR = Path(__file__).resolve().parent.parent

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

Execute the collection command to aggregate all static resources from installed applications:

cd /srv/django-project
source venv/bin/activate
python manage.py collectstatic --clear --noinput

Configure Nginx to serve the collected files directly while proxying dynamic requests to your application server:

user nginx;
worker_processes auto;
error_log /var/log/nginx/error.log warn;
pid /var/run/nginx.pid;

events {
    worker_connections 1024;
}

http {
    include /etc/nginx/mime.types;
    default_type application/octet-stream;

    log_format main '$remote_addr - $remote_user [$time_local] "$request" '
                    '$status $body_bytes_sent "$http_referer" '
                    '"$http_user_agent" "$http_x_forwarded_for"';

    server {
        listen 80;
        server_name django-app.local;

        location /static/ {
            alias /srv/django-project/collected_static/;
            expires 6M;
            access_log off;
        }

        location / {
            include uwsgi_params;
            uwsgi_pass unix:/run/uwsgi/django.sock;
            uwsgi_param Host $host;
            uwsgi_param X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        }
    }
}

For the uWSGI application server, create a configuartion file:

# /etc/uwsgi/django.ini
[uwsgi]
chdir = /srv/django-project
module = config.wsgi:application
socket = /run/uwsgi/django.sock
chmod-socket = 660
chown-socket = nginx:nginx
processes = 4
threads = 2
master = true
vacuum = true
die-on-term = true
harakiri = 30
max-requests = 5000

Ensure the static files directory has proper permissions for the web server user. Avoid placing files under /root as the nginx process cannot access them:

mkdir -p /srv/django-project/collected_static
chown -R nginx:nginx /srv/django-project/collected_static
chmod -R 755 /srv/django-project/collected_static

Start the application server:

uwsgi --ini /etc/uwsgi/django.ini

The resulting directory structure should resemble:

/srv/django-project/
├── config/
│   ├── __init__.py
│   ├── settings.py
│   ├── urls.py
│   └── wsgi.py
├── collected_static/
│   ├── admin/
│   │   ├── css/
│   │   ├── img/
│   │   └── js/
│   └── rest_framework/
├── venv/
└── manage.py