SASSY_API

An API for the Student Attendance and Submission System.

Requirements

The following is required for development:

• Ubuntu
• PostGres
• Python 3
• PyCharm (Professional version recommended - Obtainable through the Github student pack)

Installation

Installation takes place in a few steps.

1. First, install Pycharm
   $ snap install pycharm-professional

2. Configure Postgres. Items in <> brackets are variables

   $ sudo su - postgres  
   $ psql
   $ CREATE DATABASE sassy;
   $ CREATE USER <username> WITH PASSWORD '<password>';
   $ ALTER ROLE <username> SET client_encoding TO 'utf8';
   $ ALTER ROLE <username> SET default_transaction_isolation TO 'read committed';
   $ ALTER ROLE <username> SET timezone TO 'UTC+2';
   $ GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON DATABASE sassy TO <username>;
   $ \q
   $ exit
   $ sudo /etc/init.d/postgresql restart
   

3. Pull the repository:
   Open PyCharm and select "open from repository". Enter the following URL: https://github.com/kcranky/SASSY_API Pycharm will take a while to index the project.

4. Set Up Pycharm

   • Open Pycharm
   • Select File - Open and open the seat directory (~/PycharmProjects/SASSY_API)
   • Navigate to File - Settings
   • Under "Project: seat" - "Project Interpreter", ensure that the project interpreter is set to \verb| ~/PycharmProjects/SASSY_API/venv/bin/python|
   • Close and reopen PyCharm to complete the loading

5. Setting Configurations

   • Import settings.py to /SASSY_API/Sassy
   • In settings.py, adjust the username and password for database access
   • Run $ python manage.py makemigrations
   • Run $ python manage.py makemigrations sassy_api
   • Run $ python manage.py migrate

6. Create a superuser

   • Run python manage.py createsuperuser and follow the prompts. You do not need to use a legitimate email address.

7. Run the server
   You can run a local development server by using $ python manage.py runserver. Navigate to 127.0.0.1:8000/api/ in your browser to see the server running.

Hosting

The API is hosted on a server.

1. SSH in
2. Create a virtual environment
3. use git to clone (into the /webapps directory)
4. Set up database as above (being sure to run migrations)
5. The settings file is available on the server. Changes are as follows:
   • Changes to debug (set to false)
   • Changes to allowed hosts (set to IP of server) Additions to the settings file are as follows:
   • USE_X_FORWARDED_HOST = True
6. Set up gunicorn_cfg.py in the same directory as manage.py as follows:

   pythonpath = '/webapps/sassy/Sassy'
   bind = '127.0.0.1:8001'
   workers = 5
   user = 'nobody'

7. Edit /etc/nginx/sites-available/Sassy with the following

   server {
       listen 80;
   
       server_name 165.22.68.223;
   
       access_log off;
   
       location /static/ {
           alias /webapps/sassy/static/;
       }
   
       location / {
           proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8001/;
           proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Host $server_name;
           proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
           add_header P3P 'CP="ALL DSP COR PSAa PSDa OUR NOR ONL UNI COM NAV"';
       }
   }
   

8. Run the following:

   cd /etc/nginx/sites-enabled
   sudo ln -s ../sites-available/Sassy
   sudo rm default
   sudo service nginx restart
   

9. Enter back into /webapps/sassy and run gunicorn -c gunicorn_cfg.py Sassy.wsgi

Resetting the DB

It shouldn't happen, but sometimes migrations become irrecoverable. Run the following:

• drop the db and create it again

  sudo su - postgres
  psql
  drop database <sassy_db>;
  CREATE DATABASE <sassy_db>;
  GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON DATABASE <sassy_db> TO <username>;
  \q
  exit
  

• Delete all migrations

  find . -path "*/migrations/*.py" -not -name "__init__.py" -delete
  find . -path "*/migrations/*.pyc"  -delete
  pip install --upgrade --force-reinstall  Django
  

• Make and Run migrations
• Create a new superuser