Ak-Blog

Simple Flask blog application which allows users to follow other users and view their posts. The app also has language translations to cater for a wide range of users.

• Acknowledgment

Technologies/Tools used & needed.

• Python - A programming language.

• Flask - A microframework for Python.

• Virtualenv - A tool to create isolated virtual environments

• SQLITE - Small, fast, self-contained, high-reliability, full-featured, SQL DB.

• Vagrant - Development Environments Made Easy.

• Docker / Docker-compose - set of platform as a service products that use OS-level virtualization to deliver software in packages called containers.

Table of contents

• Installation or Deployment
  • Local Machine
  • Docker
• Usage
• Additional Information

Installation or Deployment

Local machine

• NB

  • Run the following commands on your terminal.
  • This commands are per a linux based OS.

• Clone or download repo

  git clone https://github.com/Xerrex/ak-Blog.git

• Create virtual environment

  virtualenv -p python3 venv

• Environment variables.

  • Copy .env file

    cp .env.examples .env

  • Edit the following lines on .env file.

    • Replace your- with your actual value.

      • export SECRET_KEY="your-secret-key"
      • export DATABASE_URL=""
      • export MS_TRANSLATOR_KEY="paste-your-key-here"
      • export ADMINS=["admin-email2","admin-email2"]
      • export MAIL_SERVER=smtp.googlemail.com
      • export MAIL_PORT=587
      • export MAIL_USE_TLS=1
      • export MAIL_USERNAME=your-gmail-username
      • export MAIL_PASSWORD=your-gmail-password
      • export REDIS_URL="your-ip-address:your-port"

    • To change Enviroment add

      • export FLASK_DEBUG=1

    • Activate virtual environment & export variables.

      • source .env

    • Install Dependancies now with virtual environment active.

      • pip install -r requirements.txt

• Apply Database migrations

  • flask db upgrade

• Run the app

  • flask run

Docker

• NB

  • Pull individual docker images first for easier building, otherwise its not necessary

• Create environment variable files for mysql and app files

  • touch .envapp .envsql

• Add/edit the following in the files

  • .envsql

    MYSQL_RANDOM_ROOT_PASSWORD=yes
    MYSQL_DATABASE=akblog
    MYSQL_USER=akblog
    MYSQL_PASSWORD="your-db-pass"

  • .envapp

    FLASK_CONFIG=development #optional
    SECRET_KEY="your-secret-key"
    DATABASE_URL=mysql+pymysql://akblog:your-db-pass@dbserver/akblog
    MS_TRANSLATOR_KEY=your-ms key
    ADMINS="["admin-email-1"]"
    ELASTICSEARCH_URL=http://elasticsearch:9200
    FLASK_DEBUG=1 #optional
    MAIL_SERVER=smtp.googlemail.com
    MAIL_PORT=587
    MAIL_USE_TLS=1
    MAIL_USERNAME=your-gmail-username #optional
    MAIL_PASSWORD=your-gmail-password #optional
    REDIS_URL="redis://redis:6379/0"

    • remove optional lines if not using.
    • your-db-pass is same as the one defined in .envsql

• Build/Run images

  • Build

    • build images with the command:

      docker-compose build

  • Run

    • run the built images with:

      docker-compose up

Usage

• Access the app by going to the address with your browser

  • http://0.0.0.0:5000
  • http://127.0.0.1:5000

• To view database changes

  • Uncomment the adminer part of the docker-compose.yml file

  # adminer:
  #     image: adminer:latest
  #     container_name: adminer
  #     restart: always
  #     ports:
  #         - 8080:8080

  • head over to this address with your browser.

    • http://0.0.0.0:8080
    • http://127.0.0.1:8080

  • Use the same login credentials as defined in .envsql

Additional Information

App contains additional commands to help with language translations

• flask translate init LANG to add a new language. LANG is the new language
• flask translate update to update all language repositories.
• flask translate compile to compile all language repositories.
• vagrant up to create a virtual machine.