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FAMNM Website Backend

This is the backend for FAMNM's website.

All commands in this guide should be run in the root directory of this repository unless otherwise stated. They might not work otherwise.

Tools You Will Need

Check if you have them installed:

git --version
python3 --version
heroku --version
psql --version

Setup Python Virtual Environment

Python virtual environments allow you to keep an installation packages specific to a project seperate from your global environment (and other virtual environments). Full Documentation.

Create the virtual environment in the directory venv/ (only needs to be done once):

python3 -m venv venv/

Activate the virtual environment (needs to be done for every shell you open):

source venv/bin/activate

Install packages listed in requirements.txt (needs to be done at the start and whenever the file changes):

pip3 install -r requirements.txt

Note: If you install any new packages (or uninstall existing ones), you must update requirements.txt to reflect these changes, otherwise other people and the web host won't be able to run the code. Please make these updates by hand, since using pip3 freeze can result in dependency hell.

Login to and Setup Heroku CLI

This step is optional, and won't be possible unless you have access to the FAMNM Webmaster Heroku account. But if you don't do it, most of the subsequent heroku commands won't work.

Login:

heroku login

Connect your local repository to the application running on Heroku:

heroku git:remote --app famnm-website-backend

Setup Database

Local Database

Since the application interacts with a database, you will have to set up a test database if you wish to run the application locally.

Create a new local database called famnm-test-db:

createdb famnm-test-db

Initialize the local database with the correct tables:

psql famnm-test-db < initialize.sql

Now set the DATABASE_URL environmental variable to postgresql://localhost/famnm-test-db to tell the locally running application where is can find the database. See the section on environmental variables for how to do this easily.

You can access the PostgreSQL interactive terminal of the local database with the following command:

psql famnm-test-db

Deployed Database

The deployed database should already exist and be initialized. If it isn't, you can make it so with the following commands:

Create the deployed database:

heroku addons:create heroku-postgresql:hobby-dev

Initialize the deployed database with the correct tables:

heroku pg:psql < initialize.sql

Heroku will automatically set DATABASE_URL for you in the config variables of the deployed application. Do not attempt to set it manually, because the actual URL may change without notice.

You can access the PostgreSQL interactive terminal of the deployed database with the following command:

heroku pg:psql

Environmental Variables

This application uses the following variables for the following purposes:

Name Use
DATABASE_URL The URL of the PostgreSQL database
FAMNM_PASSPHRASE The password for HTTP Basic Auth (username is "famnm")

For local development, you can set environmental variables by making a .env file in the following format:

VARIABLE_NAME_1=value 1
VARIABLE_NAME_2=value 2

For the deployed application, config variables can be set using the following command:

heroku config:set 'VARIABLE_NAME_1=value 1' 'VARIABLE_NAME_2=value 2'

You can copy the config variables that are currently being used on the deployed application to the end of your local .env file with the following command:

heroku config:get VARIABLE_NAME --shell >> .env

Run Locally

The flask development server will automatically reload whenever you change any of the source code, and it will show an interactive debugger in the browser if an error occurs during a request. It does this because of the additional variables set in .flaskenv. It is not safe for production.

Run the development server locally:

flask run

The gunicorn production server should behave identically to how it does on the flask server, but in a way that's safe for production. It is defined in the Heroku Procfile as what should be run when the application is deployed, which means that the following command will do the same thing, but locally.

Run the production server locally:

heroku local web

Deploying

The application on Heroku is configured to automatically redeploy every time something new is added to the master branch on GitHub.

Any packages listed in requirements.txt will be installed, then the application will be run with the command(s) specified in Procfile.