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Teaching Website Backend

The backend for our teaching website.

Dev Dependencies

In order to use .env files, the dotenv-cli must be installed globally:

yarn global add dotenv-cli

Code Formatting

For a consistent code style, the project uses Prettier. To format the code, run

yarn run format

to format all typescript files.

Environment Variables

Variable Description Example
DATABASE_URL The URL to connect to the PostgreSQL database. postgresql://{user}:{pw}@localhost:5432/{db_name}
USER_EMAIL The email of the user to be created on seeding. reto.holz@gbsl.ch
USER_ID The UUID of the user to be created on seeding. * fc0dfc19-d4a3-4354-afef-b5706046b368
NO_AUTH If set (and not running production mode), clients can authenticate as any user by supplying {'email': 'some@email.ch'} in the Auhorization header, for any user email in the database** NO_AUTH=true
PORT (optional) The port the server should listen on. 3002 (default)
FRONTEND_URL The URL of the frontend. http://localhost:3000
SESSION_SECRET The secret for the session cookie.*** secret
MSAL_CLIENT_ID The client id for the web api from Azure.
MSAL_TENANT_ID The Tenant ID from your Azure instance
APP_NAME The name of the app. Used for the cookie name prefix {APP_NAME}ApiKey xyzTeaching, default: twa
WITH_DEPLOY_PREVIEW When set to true, the app will allow requests from https://deploy-preview-\d+--teaching-dev.netlify.app and use sameSite=none instead of strict.

* When using MSAL Auth, use your localAccountId (check your local-storage when signed in, eg. at https://ofi.gbsl.website).
** To change users, clear LocalStorage to delete the API key created upon first authentication.
*** Generate a secret with openssl rand -base64 32.

These variables are stored in a .env file in the root directory. Make sure to not check this file into version control. Copy the .example.env file and fill in the values as described above.

cp .example.env .env

Dev Services

Database

Docker Compose

Run scripts/purge_dev_services.sh or the purge_dev_services run config to remove all containers and volumes associated with the dev services.

Run

docker compose --file dev_services.compose.yml up

to start the dev services.

Postgres

docker compose rebuilds the container PostgreSQL container on restart. When building the container, all files in db/docker/sql are copied to /docker-entrypoint-initdb.d/. They are executed by PostgreSQL only if no volume exists yet. These init files reflect the expected database setup for a production deployment, including a dedicated user for the backend.

The db/scripts directory contains files for purging the DB. Volumes stay intact, which means that the aforementioned init scripts will not be run again.

The following users are created:

  • Admin: postgres / qSpEx2Zz8BS9
  • User for DB teaching_api: teaching_api / zW4SMEXLHpXXxxk

→ For the teaching-api, the resulting DB URL is postgresql://teaching_api:zW4SMEXLHpXXxxk@localhost:5432/teaching_api.

Local Setup

To set up a local dev database, run

psql postgres # sudo -u postgres psql

postgres=> CREATE ROLE teaching_website WITH LOGIN PASSWORD 'teaching_website';
postgres=> ALTER ROLE teaching_website CREATEDB;
postgres=> \du
postgres=> \q

psql -d postgres -h localhost -U teaching_website

postgres=> CREATE DATABASE teaching_website;
postgres=> CREATE DATABASE teaching_website_test; # for testing
postgres=> \list
postgres=> \c teaching_website

make sure to set the db-name and the password in the .env file:

DATABASE_URL="postgresql://teaching_website:teaching_website@localhost:5432/teaching_website"

Create the Database

Run all prisma migrations:

yarn db:migrate

or when you change the schema during development, run

yarn db:migrate:dev

to be prompted for a version name.

Seed Database

To seed the database with some basic users, documents, groups and relations between them, run

yarn db:seed

the seed file is located in prisma/seed.ts. It will create

  • a user for USER_EMAIL and USER_ID from the .env file (if present)
  • a test user foo@bar.ch with the uuid 4e90b891-7e31-4a49-9ac7-a71a0ad6863a
  • a group test_group with the memebers

Reset Database

To reset the database, run

yarn db:reset

This will

  • drop all tables
  • drop all database types

Recreate Database

when you want to reset, migrate and seed the database, run

yarn db:recreate

Prisma Studio

Run Prisma Studio - a simplistic local database viewer - with

yarn run prisma studio

Generate Database Documentation

run

yarn run prisma generate

this will generate

the docs will be publically available under /prisma/index.html.

Deployment

PostgreSQL

  • Set up a database and user according to the scripts in db/docker/sql.
  • Create the required tables according to db/scripts/01_create_tables.sql (probably...).

Next steps

  • Introduce an ORM and connect to DB.
  • Introduce passport.js and set up a first authenticated endpoint (username / password)

Dokku

dokku apps:create dev-teaching-api
dokku domains:add dev-teaching-api domain.tld

dokku postgres:create dev-teaching-api
dokku postgres:link dev-teaching-api dev-teaching-api

dokku config:set dev-teaching-api MSAL_CLIENT_ID="XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX"
dokku config:set dev-teaching-api MSAL_TENANT_ID="XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX"
dokku config:set --no-restart dev-teaching-api DOKKU_LETSENCRYPT_EMAIL="foo@bar.ch"
dokku config:set dev-teaching-api SESSION_SECRET="$(openssl rand -base64 32)"
dokku config:set dev-teaching-api FRONTEND_URL="https://..."

dokku nginx:set dev-teaching-api client-max-body-size 5m

dokku nginx:set dev-teaching-api x-forwarded-proto-value '$http_x_forwarded_proto'
dokku nginx:set dev-teaching-api x-forwarded-for-value '$http_x_forwarded_for'
dokku nginx:set dev-teaching-api x-forwarded-port-value '$http_x_forwarded_port'


######### on local machine #########
# 1. add the remote to your project:
git remote add dokku dokku@<dokku-ip>:dev-teaching-api
# 2. push the code to the dokku server:
git push dokku
# or if you want to push a branch other than the main:
# git push dokku <branch>:main

################# on the server ################# - firs one who does it...
dokku letsencrypt:enable dev-teaching-api
## when it succeeds, re-enable the cloudflare proxy for domain.tld...

Speed Improvements

If the API and the Database are running on the same server, you can improve the speed by disabling the tcp connection for the database. This can be done by setting the DATABASE_URL to postgresql://teaching_website:teaching_website@localhost/teaching_website?sslmode=disable.

Troubleshooting

Caution

Authentication Error: When your API can not authenticate requests

  • set the debug level in authConfig to 'info' and check the logs
  • when it is a 401 error and the issue is about Strategy.prototype.jwtVerify can not verify the token, ensure to set "requestedAccessTokenVersion": 2 in the API manifest (!! not in the Frontend's manifest, there it must still be null !!)