When working inside of a virtualenv, you need to modify the Upstart script to use gunicorn from inside the virtualenv. So the exec stanza would be something like:

exec exec /home/envs/myapp/bin/gunicorn \
   --name=myproject \
   --pythonpath=myproject \
   --bind=0.0.0.0:9000 \
   --config /etc/gunicorn.d/gunicorn.py \
   conf.wsgi:application

The problem you are facing with Django REST framework is a little unclear. Any further information you could provide would probably help. To install it with pip the command is: pip install djangorestframework

I’m using supervisor with the following start up script maybe this will help

#!/bin/bash

NAME="project_name"                               # Name of the application
DJANGODIR=/var/www/my_project/project_name/project_name            # Django project directory
SOCKFILE=/var/www/my_project/env/run/gunicorn.sock      # we will communicte using this unix socket
USER=nobody                                         # the user to run as
NUM_WORKERS=3                                       # how many worker processes should Gunicorn spawn
DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE=config.settings.production      # which settings file should Django use
DJANGO_WSGI_MODULE=config.wsgi              # WSGI module name

echo "Starting $NAME as `whoami`"

# Activate the virtual environment
cd $DJANGODIR
source ../../env/bin/activate
export DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE=$DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE
export PYTHONPATH=$DJANGODIR:$PYTHONPATH

# Create the run directory if it doesn't exist
RUNDIR=$(dirname $SOCKFILE)
test -d $RUNDIR || mkdir -p $RUNDIR

# Start your Django Unicorn
# Programs meant to be run under supervisor should not daemonize themselves (do not use --daemon)
exec ../../env/bin/gunicorn ${DJANGO_WSGI_MODULE}:application \
  --name $NAME \
  --workers $NUM_WORKERS \
  --user=$USER \
  --bind=0.0.0.0:8001 \
  --log-level=debug \
  --log-file=-

My project structure is:

/var/www/my_project
   - /env (Virtual Environment)
   - /project_name   
      - /bin
      - /logs
      - /project_name (Django)
      - /requirements
      - requirements.txt

The route I went was to install gunicorn in my virtual environment and then call gunicorn from there. Here is my upstart config:

#!/bin/bash

description "Gunicorn daemon for Django project"

start on (local-filesystems and net-device-up IFACE=eth0)
stop on runlevel [!12345]

# If the process quits unexpectedly trigger a respawn
respawn

setuid django
setgid django

script
    exec 2>>/tmp/upstartconfig.log
    set -x
    # Run gunicorn from the virtualenv
    cd /home/django/my_virtualenv

    exec /home/django/my_virtualenv/bin/gunicorn \
        --name=my_project \
        --pythonpath=my_project \
        --bind=127.0.0.1:9000 \
        --config /etc/gunicorn.d/gunicorn.py \
        wsgi:application
end script

/tmp/upstartconfig.log will give you any errors upstart encounters when executing the “script” portion of your upstart config.

I installed “myproject” in the “myvirtualenv” directory.