Questions about backend database and configuration design

[pr0ton11]

Hi

I am currently thinking about adding support for other databases as it should be easy to implement with GORM.

I love how the backend codebase is setup, but one thing is a bit confusing. Do you have a specific reason on why you store the configuration within the database instead of using a config file?
If you agree, I would also implement dynamic configuration with config file and env configuration support.

Thanks for letting me know

[balzack]

To me a config file is good for updating in a text editor. For Databag, the admin configuration can be set from a web frontend (through the go backend). Given this, is there an advantage to having a config file?

[pr0ton11]

I looked a bit further into the code and I saw this as well. How about we store the config file in the asset directory and update the file whenever someone calls the update routes (if the file is writable, otherwise I just update it in memory).
Benefit is that people can preconfigure the server and you could document the configuration file (I for myself am planning to host it on k8s, so using a configmap would be very easy for me).
Also by removing the configuration from the database, mangling the sqlite tables (see entrypoint.sh) before the container starts is also no longer needed.

[pr0ton11]

You can follow the implementation here: https://github.com/pr0ton11/databag/pull/1/files
Feel free to leave any comments that you may have

[balzack]

Using a config file is fine with me. If it makes things easier for people with other configurations, then I'm all for it.

I really appreciate your changes adding support for PostgresSQL! I'm sure to merge your changes when you do a PR, but could you also include some documentation / instructions on setup.

I have some minor concerns around database behavior that we may need to account for. For example with sqlite, when I would delete a record, and then insert a record, it would reuse the deleted record's ID even though it supposed to auto-increment, creating unexpected problems. If they exist, hopefully your setup will reveal any of these types of DB specific issues.

[pr0ton11]

Yeah I have some experience with this as well, obviously we will have to test thoroughly