[Django]-Prevent syncdb from updating database in Django?

If you don’t need syncdb, don’t run it, simple as that. Updating the database is what it does, so if you don’t need that, you shouldn’t run it – it doesn’t do anything else.

However if you’re actually asking how to prevent syncdb from running at all, one possibility would be to define a ‘dummy’ syncdb command inside one of your apps. Follow the custom management command instructions but just put pass inside the command’s handle method. Django will always find your version of the command first, making it a no-op.

This issue came up for me when working with read-only mirrors of Microsof SQL Server databases (uhhg). Since you can’t selectively run syncdb on a single app or database. But you have to run syncdb when you first create a new Django project or install an new app that requires it (like south). What I did was to put my read-only database in its own Django app and then add an empty South migration to that app. That way syncdb thinks south is handling db setup for those apps, and south doesn’t do anything to them!

manage.py schemamigration ap_with_read_only_database --empty initial_empty_migration_that_does_nothing

That leaves you free to manage the schema of that db outside of django.