COMP3130 Major Project Backend

Python Flask server to handle requests from mobile application to the "Events Hub" web service.

Installation - Local

First, download Python 3.12. Then, initialise a python environment using py -m venv ./venv. After, run py -m pip install -r ./events-hub-backend/requirements.txt while inside the environment.

The project can be started using py ./events-hub-backend/app.py. It will start a web service that runs on the 3000 port on the localhost interface. The interface and ports can be changed by setting the following environment variables, HOSTNAME and PORT.

In order to use the whole server, you will need to create a SightEngine account so that content scanning is available. You can disable content scanning but only for the Admin through the ENABLE_UNSAFE_ADMIN environment variable.

Installation - Docker

A Docker Compose file has been included to build and deploy the project through Dockers. In order to use this, ensure that you have the Docker Engine downloaded on your respective operating system. Then ensure that the .env.example file it filled out and renamed to .env. From here, you can then add your SSL certificate to the ./nginx/ssl folder. The server only runs over a HTTPS connection so if you want to change that, you'll need to edit nginx.conf. Finally, run the following commands:

docker compose build events-hub-backend
docker compose up events-hub-backend nginx

The backend flask server will always run on port 3000 in the local Docker network, this should not be changed through passing environment variables.