Imperative-DL-Study-Web-App

Web App for the Imperative DL Study https://tranquil-anchorage-16644-bbe77c4a9151.herokuapp.com/

Setup/Run Instructions

Pre-requisites

Version Requirements

Python 3.13.1
Pip: 3.13
Django: 5.1.4

• Ensure Django is set up: https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/5.1/topics/install/
• For MySQL databases, ensure mysql is set up: https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.0/en/installing.html
  • Additionally, also ensure mysqlclient is installed (either via Brew or other methods) https://pypi.org/project/mysqlclient/
  • Ensure the below PATH is exported in your environment export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH="/usr/local/mysql/lib/"
• For PostgreSQL databases, pip install psycopg2-binary

Run Instructions

1. Ensure all pre-requisites above are met.
2. Install dependencies: pip install -r requirements.txt
3. Ensure database is set up correctly (both remote and local as needed), see instructions below.
4. Run the app: python manage.py runserver 5) To enable debugging mode, export env variable: export DJANGO_DEBUG="True"
5. Navigate to: localhost:8000 to view the app.
6. To create an admin account, python manage.py createsuperuser and follow instructions to provide account credentials.

• Debug: If the above localhost:8000 page throws an access error, consider adding localhost to ALLOWED_HOSTS in the settings.py file.
• Debug: If you run into error regarding STATIC_ROOT see: OpenToAllCTF/OTA-University#9 suggestion to change STATIC_ROOT assignment to just /static/

Connect to a database

1. Create a database and configure the DATABASES dictionary in the settings.py file to connect to it. 2) See steps below to set up a local database if needed.
2. Run migrations to create the schema using the commands:

python manage.py makemigrations

python manage.py migrate

3. Use SQL commands to populate the tables with data.

Populate Database with Initial Data

The database can be populated with initial data by first dumping the data into a fixture (fixtures can also be written manually).

1. To dump initial data from a specific database into a fixture (data.json for example), use the dumpdata command:

python manage.py dumpdata --exclude=auth.permission --exclude=contenttypes > ponder/fixtures/data.json

2. Fixtures can be JSON, XML, or YAML files. For YAML fixtures, pip install PyYAML.
3. To load to the database, run data migrations using the loaddata command:

python manage.py loaddata data.json

4. Then configure the group permissions from the Admin page.

Local DB

The fixture can be used to load data to a local database.

1. First connect to a local database, then configure the DATABASES dictionary in settings.py as follows:

DATABASES = {
    'default': {
        'ENGINE': '<YOUR_BUILT_IN_DB_BACKEND>',
        'NAME': '<YOUR_LOCAL_DB_NAME>',
        'USER': '<YOUR_LOCAL_DB_USER>',
        'PASSWORD': '<YOUR_LOCAL_DB_USER_PASSWORD>',
        'HOST': 'localhost',
    }
}

2. Run migrations and use the command: python manage.py loaddata data.json
3. Note that running the loaddata command will reload the data from the fixture into the database, removing any changes that you might have made to the database tables.

Testing

Use this command to run the tests in tests.py:

python manage.py test

Tests that require a database will run on a separate test database. Make sure that the USER in settings.py is granted privileges to create a database.

Docker Image

• Docker Compose should be installed to build the app's container image.
• On Windows or Mac systems, install Docker Desktop. It includes Docker Engine, Docker CLI client and Docker Compose.
• For information on how to install Docker Compose on Linux systems, the instructions are listed in this page: https://docs.docker.com/compose/install/
• The Docker directory currently includes only two files:
  • Dockerfile
  • docker-compose.yml
• Include the following to the above directory:
  • manage.py
  • mysite
  • ponder
  • requirements.txt
• This should be the final Docker directory tree:

.
├── Dockerfile
├── docker-compose.yml
├── manage.py
├── mysite
│   ├── __init__.py
│   ├── __pycache__
│   ├── asgi.py
│   ├── settings.py
│   ├── urls.py
│   └── wsgi.py
└── ponder
    ├── __init__.py
    ├── __pycache__
    ├── admin.py
    ├── apps.py
    ├── fixtures
    ├── forms.py
    ├── migrations
    ├── test
    ├── models.py
    ├── static
    ├── tables.py
    ├── templates
    ├── urls.py
    └── views.py   

To build the Docker image:

• In the terminal, go to the top level directory and run the  command: docker-compose up
• This will build the image on Docker Desktop with multiple containers (web and db containers). Go to http://localhost:8000/ in your browser to view the running app.
• You need to add localhost to ALLOWED_HOSTS in the settings.py file.
• To shutdown the services, type CTRL-C in the same shell or run docker-compose down from another shell.

User Roles

The app has a complex relationship between different kinds of users. The roles are described in our wiki.