mr-method / edurange-flask

Refactored version of the EDURange platform built on Flask

Edurange_Refactored

EDURange

Additional documentation can be found in the wiki

Installation

We recommend using a new Ubuntu 22.04 LTS installation, using Python 3.10

Support for other Operating Systems and Python versions is pending.

First, clone this repository

git clone https://github.com/edurange/edurange-flask.git --recurse-submodules

Then, run the installation script, and input credentials when prompted.

Please use unique responses for each prompt.

cd edurange-flask
./install.sh

To verify that you're ready to launch the app, check that "flask" and "celery" are recognized bash commands, and whether "docker run hello-world" works. If any of these fail, simply log out and back in, and they should work then.

Running Locally

Once installed, start the app using

cd edurange-flask
npm start

Or each service can be run separately

flask run --host=0.0.0.0
celery worker -B -E -f celery.log -l DEBUG -A edurange_refactored.tasks

After npm start has started flask (it continues running), you can open a browser and connect For example, with URL localhost:5000 Login to the server using the administrator credentials set in the .env file

FLASK_USERNAME = ...
PASSWORD = ...

creating a student group

As administrator, you can create a student group using the GUI. You can create default users in that group for testing purposes. You should save their credentials so that you can fully explore scenarios as a student. Those credentials are for the flask server, not for the Containers in the scanarios.

WSGI Server

To launch using best practice production settings, with SSL certificates and everything, you'll need to install and configure nginx and certbot

sudo apt install nginx certbot python3-certbot-nginx

Once installed, you'll need to edit your nginx config file. We have an example config file that should work with minor editing located in our docs repository: https://github.com/edurange/edurange-flask-docs/blob/master/configs/nginx.conf You'll only need to change the path to the edurange templates and static folders, which should only require changing the username (edurange_flask) in the template.

Once that's updated, the app runs using two commands (We highly recommend using tmux to split the terminal and detach the session)

gunicorn --threads 3 --bind 0.0.0.0:5000 edurange_refactored.wsgi:app
celery -A edurange_refactored.tasks worker -B -E -f celery.log -l

You'll then need to use your domain registrar to make your host server publicly discoverable.

Once the site is running and discoverable, you can generate and install your certificates using

sudo certbot --nginx

If you want to host the app on port 80, but don't have any WSGI set up, you can use the following iptables rules

sudo iptables -t nat -A OUTPUT -o lo -p tcp --dport 80 -j REDIRECT --to-port 5000
sudo iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -i eth0 -p tcp --dport 80 -j REDIRECT --to-port 5000

Database Upkeep

If at any point there are updates to this application that require database schema changes, you can use these commands to update

flask db init
flask db migrate
flask db upgrade

If you will deploy your application remotely (e.g on Heroku) you should add the migrations folder to version control.

Make sure folder migrations/versions is not empty.

Debug Settings

Debugging settings can be enabled by editing these values in the '.env' file

FLASK_ENV=debug
FLASK_DEBUG=1
npm run build   # build assets with webpack
flask run       # start the flask server

Shell

To open the interactive shell, run

flask shell

By default, you will have access to the flask app.

Running Tests/Linter

To run all tests, run

flask test

To run the linter, run

flask lint

The lint command will attempt to fix any linting/style errors in the code. If you only want to know if the code will pass CI and do not wish for the linter to make changes, add the --check argument.

Asset Management

Files placed inside the assets directory and its subdirectories (excluding js and css) will be copied by webpack's file-loader into the static/build directory. In production, the plugin Flask-Static-Digest zips the webpack content and tags them with a MD5 hash. As a result, you must use the static_url_for function when including static content, as it resolves the correct file name, including the MD5 hash. For example

<link rel="shortcut icon" href="{{static_url_for('static', filename='build/img/favicon.ico') }}">

If all of your static files are managed this way, then their filenames will change whenever their contents do, and you can ask Flask to tell web browsers that they should cache all your assets forever by including the following line in .env:

SEND_FILE_MAX_AGE_DEFAULT=31556926  # one year