Newspaper Management System

Overview

The Newspaper Management System is a backend API service that manages user authentication, news creation, approval workflows, and user management. The project uses Spring Boot for rapid application development, JWT for secure authentication, and MySQL for persistent storage. The service supports role-based access control for three main roles: USER, CONTENT_WRITER, and ADMIN.

Features

1. Authentication:

   • Login with JWT token issuance.
   • Secure token refresh mechanism.
   • Role-based access control.

2. User Management:

   • User signup, CRUD operations for users.
   • Password encryption using BCrypt.
   • Admin can create, update, and delete users.

3. News Management:

   • News CRUD operations.
   • Pending approval mechanism for news created by content writers.
   • Auto-soft deletion of news after exceeding the publishing date.

4. Security:

   • JWT-based authentication with token expiry and refresh support.
   • Role-based authorization for secure API access.

Prerequisites

• Java 11+
• MySQL Server
• Maven (or any build tool of choice)

Setup

1. Database Setup

Before running the application, you need to create the MySQL database and the user. You can run the following SQL script to set up the database:

-- Create the MySQL user
CREATE USER 'newspaper_admin' IDENTIFIED BY 'P@ssw0rd';

-- Create the schema
CREATE SCHEMA newspaper;

-- Grant privileges
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON newspaper.* TO 'newspaper_admin'@'%';

-- After the application creates the 'user' table please run this insert statement.
-- Password for 'admin@gmail.com' is 'password123' (BCrypt hashed)
INSERT INTO newspaper.user (created_at, modified_at, date_of_birth, email, full_name, password, role, created_by_id, modified_by_id)
VALUES (null, null, '1990-01-01', 'admin@gmail.com', 'System Admin',
        '$2a$10$zDKaUgSFGHvwUuJo4hc1sOMTET.30U0ziOfaeYiokLYcaQy4DTR8O', 'ADMIN', null, null);

2. Build and Run

After setting up the database and configuration, you can build and run the application using Maven:

mvn clean install
mvn spring-boot:run

The application will start and listen on the default port 8099. You can access the API using Postman or any other HTTP client.

API Documentation

The project is integrated with Swagger UI for API documentation. After starting the application, you can view the available API endpoints by navigating to:

http://localhost:8099/swagger-ui.html

Alternatively, the raw JSON documentation is available at:

http://localhost:8099/v3/api-docs

Key API Endpoints

Authentication:

• POST /login: Authenticate a user and receive a JWT.
• POST /refresh-token: Refresh the access token using a refresh token.
• POST /logout: Invalidate the user’s token and log them out.

User Management:

• POST /v1/users: Create a new user (Admin-only).
• GET /v1/users: Retrieve a list of all users (Admin-only).
• GET /v1/users/{id}: Get a specific user by ID (Admin-only).
• PUT /v1/users/{id}: Update a user’s details (Admin-only).
• DELETE /v1/users/{id}: Delete a user (Admin-only).

News Management:

• POST /v1/news: Create a news article (Content Writer or Admin).
• PUT /v1/news/{newsId}/approve: Approve a pending news article (Admin-only).
• DELETE /v1/news/{newsId}: Request to delete a news article (Content Writer for pending news, Admin for approved news).
• GET /v1/news: Retrieve all approved news articles.
• GET /v1/news/{newsId}: Retrieve a specific approved news article.

Testing

Unit and integration tests can be implemented using JUnit and Mockito.

Running Tests:

mvn test

Potential Improvements

Here are a few ways you can further enhance the project:

1. Custom Exceptions:

   • Implement custom exception classes for various error scenarios (e.g., UserNotFoundException, InvalidTokenException).

2. Unit Testing:

   • Write unit tests for controller, service, and repository layers using JUnit and Mockito.
   • Test API endpoints using integration testing frameworks like Spring Boot Test.

3. Caching:

   • Introduce caching mechanisms like Redis or EhCache to improve performance for frequently accessed resources like news articles.

4. Rate Limiting:

   • Implement rate limiting to protect APIs from abuse, ensuring secure and fair usage of resources.

5. Email Verification:

   • Add email verification during the signup process to ensure the validity of user accounts.

Conclusion

This project demonstrates the core functionality of a newspaper management system, with user authentication, news workflows, and role-based access control. By following the suggested improvements, the system can be further enhanced in terms of security, performance, and maintainability.

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