AEGEE-Europe's Online Membership System

MyAEGEE

Description

The repository for the "Online Membership System" (OMS), an open-source intranet project of the student/youth association AEGEE-Europe.

It makes use of docker, and docker-compose.

Read more about the project

A short perspective: the educational value of this project. Head to roadmap.sh and see all you could learn thanks to this project (almost everything, short of blockchain):

1. software architecture
2. devops
3. backend
4. cybersecurity
5. frontend
6. QA
7. ... and more ;)

Installation

Pre-requisites: installations required

Install

1. First Git (you might already have Git installed through other sources if you worked with git/GitHub before)
2. then Virtualbox,
3. and finally Vagrant.

Even if you have a linux box, this is very recommended. If you decide to not do it, sigh... but don't come to cry to us.

If you decide you know better than us, install docker and docker-compose on your Windows/Linux/Mac machine, instead of Virtualbox and Vagrant. (Make sure you install the correct versions, they can be found in the provisioning scripts -- also, Mac and linux have different versions of grep so again, your problem ;-) )

Note: if you use Vagrant, Docker will be already automatically on the virtual machine.

Memory requirements for the VM bootstrapped with Vagrant: 2GB (i.e. you need a machine with at least 3GB physical RAM)

Pre-requisites: terminology

Explanation of the installation are here. Explanation of why we're doing it this way is at the bottom.

A note on terminology:

• The computer you run Virtualbox on is the HOST.
• The created VM which runs Docker is the GUEST.

Install the web application

NOTE on URL MAPPING: to be able to use advanced features, the hosts file has to be edited. The procedure is handled by a script (both for Linux and Windows machine) provided in the repo. Details are explained below.

For manual edits, see Advanced URL mapping and troubleshoot.

Linux

On the HOST

git clone --recursive https://github.com/AEGEE/MyAEGEE.git
cd MyAEGEE
./start.sh

URL MAPPING for Linux: You don't have to do anything, the mapping is handled by start.sh.

You will have to wait for up to 20'. A message appears when the bootstrap completes, and you can check if it works in the ways described in the Usage section. Note that sometimes there WILL be red output, but it is not necessarily indicator of an error (unless it's the VERY last message, and it begins with the word "ERROR")

See below for explanation of start.sh

Non-linux

Foreword: if you want to learn WSL (windows subsystem for linux) and help us improve the next steps, you're most welcome!

On the HOST

git clone --recursive https://github.com/AEGEE/MyAEGEE.git
cd MyAEGEE

URL MAPPING for Windows: As a helper in the windows case, you have the script "run_as_win_administrator.bat" (not very advanced). When you open it, it will tell you what to do, which is written below. To open it:

1. To open it you have to right-click it and click "run as administrator".
2. It will open the file you need to edit in notepad, AND open a different terminal window that will tell you the line to copy (which you can find below).
3. Paste the content at the last line of the file 192.168.168.168 appserver.test my.appserver.test traefik.appserver.test portainer.appserver.test pgadmin.appserver.test
4. Delete the file called Vagrantfile and rename Vagrantfile.windows into Vagrantfile
5. Save, and exit.

For any troubleshoot, see Advanced URL mapping and troubleshoot.

Once set up the mapping, you can continue the installation:

vagrant up

You will have to wait for up to 25 minutes. A message appears when the bootstrap completes, and you can check if it works in the ways described in the Usage section.

Advanced URL mapping and troubleshoot

MANUAL EDIT If the script above did not work, you can also manually edit the /etc/hosts file on the HOST machine (on Windows: C:\Windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts) to add the entry:

Vagrant case: 192.168.168.168 appserver.test my.appserver.test traefik.appserver.test portainer.appserver.test pgadmin.appserver.test

Pure docker case: 127.0.0.1 appserver.test my.appserver.test traefik.appserver.test portainer.appserver.test pgadmin.appserver.test

Windows write-permission issue For security reason, Windows could have rescrited writing permession. A workaround (original source) is to copy the hosts file to a different location:

1. Go to C:\Windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts and locate hosts file.
2. Copy it to your Desktop, or any other folder that you can easily access.
3. Open the hosts file on your Desktop with Notepad or any other text editor.
4. Make the necessary changes (see above) and move the hosts file back to C:\Windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts directory.

Configuration file

Everything related to the behaviour of the app is defined in the top-most .env file. Most important parameters are:

ENABLED_SERVICES: telling which parts of the system are enabled

MYAEGEE_ENV: telling in which mode the system is run

<servicename>_SUBDOMAIN: telling how to access a specific service

See below for more info.

Usage

Accessing it

After launching the system, you have two ways to check everything is working:

1. on the HOST

# on the _HOST_ you run the following

vagrant ssh

# ...which connects you to the _GUEST_, where docker is.

Let's run the commands and see that they should yield an output like

username@computername:~/Documents/aegee/MyAEGEE$ vagrant ssh
Welcome to Ubuntu 18.04.4 LTS (GNU/Linux 4.15.0-111-generic x86_64)

 * Documentation:  https://help.ubuntu.com
 * Management:     https://landscape.canonical.com
 * Support:        https://ubuntu.com/advantage

 System information disabled due to load higher than 1.0

 * Kubernetes 1.19 is out! Get it in one command with:

     sudo snap install microk8s --channel=1.19 --classic

   https://microk8s.io/ has docs and details.

97 packages can be updated.
70 updates are security updates.


This system is built by the Bento project by Chef Software
More information can be found at https://github.com/chef/bento
Last login: Fri Sep 18 14:13:43 2020 from 10.0.2.2

appserver[/vagrant]$ [stable !?]

So now you can run docker ps:

appserver[/vagrant]$ [stable !?] docker ps
CONTAINER ID        IMAGE                                  COMMAND                  CREATED             STATUS                 PORTS                                      NAMES
cbe689ea9ee2        aegee/discounts:dev                    "docker-entrypoint.s…"   5 hours ago         Up 5 hours (healthy)   8084/tcp                                   myaegee_discounts_1
ed1c20a4e65a        aegee/statutory:dev                    "docker-entrypoint.s…"   5 hours ago         Up 5 hours (healthy)   8084/tcp                                   myaegee_statutory_1
f60476fa4a6c        aegee/events:dev                       "docker-entrypoint.s…"   5 hours ago         Up 5 hours (healthy)   8084/tcp                                   myaegee_events_1
06add303acd0        aegee/core:dev                         "docker-entrypoint.s…"   5 hours ago         Up 5 hours (healthy)   8084/tcp                                   myaegee_core_1
72a7cb2d4100        postgres:10                            "docker-entrypoint.s…"   5 hours ago         Up 5 hours             5432/tcp                                   myaegee_postgres-statutory_1
316ced849d6f        postgres:10                            "docker-entrypoint.s…"   5 hours ago         Up 5 hours             5432/tcp                                   myaegee_postgres-core_1
f3110b11d9c6        postgres:10                            "docker-entrypoint.s…"   5 hours ago         Up 5 hours             5432/tcp                                   myaegee_postgres-discounts_1
9985f6cd3042        postgres:10                            "docker-entrypoint.s…"   5 hours ago         Up 5 hours             5432/tcp                                   myaegee_postgres-events_1
623356e7ef0d        dpage/pgadmin4:4.23                    "/entrypoint.sh"         6 hours ago         Up 6 hours             80/tcp, 443/tcp, 5050/tcp                  myaegee_pgadmin_1
0728da470558        erikdubbelboer/phpredisadmin:v1.11.4   "tini -- php -S 0.0.…"   6 hours ago         Up 6 hours             80/tcp                                     myaegee_redisadmin_1
8263f843df15        portainer/portainer:1.22.1             "/portainer -H unix:…"   6 hours ago         Up 6 hours             9000/tcp                                   myaegee_portainer_1
d056ce2c92e3        swaggerapi/swagger-ui:v3.28.0          "/docker-entrypoint.…"   6 hours ago         Up 6 hours             80/tcp, 8080/tcp                           myaegee_swagger_1
4ee964dede44        traefik:v1.7.4-alpine                  "/entrypoint.sh --we…"   6 hours ago         Up 6 hours (healthy)   0.0.0.0:80->80/tcp, 0.0.0.0:443->443/tcp   myaegee_traefik_1
30963e2faf63        aegee/portal:dev                       "docker-php-entrypoi…"   6 hours ago         Up 6 hours             80/tcp                                     myaegee_portal_1
49485e19dc87        aegee/frontend:dev                     "nginx"                  6 hours ago         Up 6 hours             80/tcp, 8083/tcp                           myaegee_frontend_1
e81bcc38bf76        aegee/nginx-static:latest              "nginx -g 'daemon of…"   6 hours ago         Up 6 hours (healthy)   80/tcp                                     myaegee_statutory-static_1
dc2ea7b33c97        aegee/nginx-static:latest              "nginx -g 'daemon of…"   6 hours ago         Up 6 hours (healthy)   80/tcp                                     myaegee_events-static_1

what do we see here? That we can connect to vagrant (we are inside the virtual machine with vagrant ssh), and that a bunch of containers are up (we ask the docker containers with docker ps). We'll see later that we should use some commands (make start) on the GUEST, so knowing how to access the virtual machine is important.

HOORAY! YOUR SYSTEM IS UP!

For any issue, see Troubleshooting

2. you can navigate to it in your HOST web browser.

For accessing it, the three most important URLs (NB there is no https for development):

Service	URL	Description
The app (MyAEGEE)	http://my.appserver.test	What you're here for
Traefik	http://traefik.appserver.test	Quick test to see if everything works well
Portainer	http://portainer.appserver.test	Visual docker manager

Do you connect to any of these three URLs without troubles? HOORAY! YOUR SYSTEM IS UP!

See right below for the URL of extra services.

See at the bottom for the default credentials of MyAEGEE's fresh install.

Subdomains registered on traefik

read "subdomain.appserver.test"; e.g. you put in your HOST browser http://traefik.appserver.test

Subdomain	What	Container
my	MyAEGEE	frontend
portainer	Easier container mgmt (development only) (under login)	portainer
traefik	Traefik's dashboard (under login)	traefik
pgadmin	Administration of databases (development only) (under login)	pgadmin
www	Website	wordpress
wiki	AEGEE's Wiki, the backbone of knowledge	mediawiki

You can customise these subdomains by editing the .env file as mentioned above, and relaunching the script (see below about Makefile).

FIXME: For more detailed usage guides see this usage tips page. For container-specific usage guides see the container's repository.

Easy script to manipulate the installation

(At the end of this section there will be links to detailed explanations, don't panic!)

There is a file called Makefile that gives some easy shortcut to do stuff. This must be launched on the GUEST.

On first run of vagrant, the bootstrap target will be invoked (you don't need to do it). If you are stubborn and decide to not use Vagrant, you still don't have to invoke it (it is invoked by start.sh)

The general flow is that once you edit the .env file, make start should be run (on the GUEST) to update the running configuration.

You can invoke the easy scripting in the following way (this shell command must be run in the same folder of the Makefile):

On the GUEST

Command	What
make bootstrap	(init, build, start) in this order. (Run only the first time by vagrant/start.sh)
make init	Initialise the system (most likely you don't need to launch this)
make build	Build the containers registered in the .env file
make start	Run the containers registered in the .env file
make monitor	If you didn't enable kibana, then you may want to have a look at the logs through this
make live-refresh	Updates the containers to the new version (if any) and restarts them
make stop/restart/hard-restart	Just don't use them on the server, EVER
make bump	Only for development: updates the submodules

Guest? Host? wtf? read the under the hood section, and the difference between start.sh and makefile.

Reading the logs

For now, if one wants to follow some specific logs, they have to invoke helper.sh manually e.g.

./helper.sh --monitor container1 container2...containerN

Likewise, for now if one wants to execute a command on a container they have to invoke helper.sh manually e.g.

./helper.sh --execute containername command

What's next?

It's your time to shine! Your system is set up, now it's up to you to create a new service, to improve an existing one, or to play with integrations leveraging existing services (e.g. wordpress, magento...). See the moving parts section that explain how to configure the system after you add something new.

For better development experience: the files in your HOST folder MyAEGEE are mounted inside the GUEST (location /vagrant), which means that if you create a file in the GUEST /vagrant folder you will find it in your HOST <your cloned dir>/MyAEGEE, and vice versa if you edit a file in your repository it is reflected in the VM. This way you can use the IDE you use normally on the system you use normally, without the need of getting accustomed to some new tool!

Make sure however to use an extension in your IDE called editorconfig! It will avoid pains especially if your HOST is a windows machine.

Example first tasks:

1. change subdomain name, instead of accessing the app at my.appserver.test make it imthebest.appserver.test
2. change the top left logo of AEGEE-Europe to some other (small enough) logo
3. change background colour, instead of a white one make it green (and I don't mean by going to "inspect element" and changing it temporarily!)
4. change content and/or style of the footer
5. change order/remove one of the microservices from the menubar on the left
6. In resources > resources, add another box linking to your antenna's website
7. Add an user to an antenna/circle (this is less programming-wise, more getting to know the platform)
8. Change the email address of the first 5 users generated: instead of @example.com, make them @example.org
9. Core-specific: change how many results you can visualise at a time
10. Events-specific: in the Board view add an emoji to statuses "Accepted"/"Pending"/"Rejected"
11. Statutory-specific: ?? (propose your own!)
12. SU-specific: ?? (propose your own!)

Contribute

You can read more about contributing on our confluence.

Issue tracker

We use JIRA as our preferred issue tracker.

Licence

Apache License 2.0, see LICENSE.txt for more information.

Under the hood

Virtualbox is a utility that lets people creating virtual machines (VM) on your computer. The created VM is the GUEST. The computer you run Virtualbox on is the HOST

Vagrant is used as a tool to define VMs characteristics, that will be then run through Virtualbox - in other words, it is used so we can write a manifesto that defines the characteristics of a VM, and the VM generated has always the same characteristics. It is useful in this case to model the development VM just as if it was the server on which we will run the application.

Make is a tool that, among other things, chains commands together. So, for instance, you write in the Makefile that a runs a specific long command, b a different long command, and you can call the commands with make a or make b. You can also write a command c which is a chain of a followed by b. We use it to set a 'flow' of operations that should be followed (e.g. as explained, make bootstrap chains 3 operations, and one such operation is used very often i.e. build and/or start). This is used on the GUEST.

start.sh runs either vagrant up or make bootstrap (according to how you want to run your system in local) so one has to literally only launch one command and it's set to be working, after the startup time of around 10-20 minutes (according to internet connection speed). This is used on the HOST.

start.sh and Makefile

start.sh

On the HOST, i.e. the machine that runs the virtual machine, you use start.sh which can either:

• Start the vm
  • Use ./start.sh for normal development cycle: app runs in development mode
  • Use ./start.sh --fast for sysops/integration development cycle: app runs in production mode so you can concentrate on developing integration to the app, not the app itself
• Reset the settings to recreate the virtual machine (./start.sh --reset). This is in case you experimented so hard that you made something exploooode. Doing so, you will lose the users and other content you created on your local instance of MyAEGEE, but this will not remove your source code.

If you are a know-it-all who doesn't want to use Vagrant, use ./start.sh --no-vagrant (but again, if you're in trouble you will only get superficial support from our side)

Makefile

On the GUEST, i.e. the virtual machine that runs docker, you use make which uses the Makefile (explained above).

Individual containers

For prerequisites and installation of individual containers, see their docker(/-compose) files, located in the (service)/docker folder in their respective repository.

For more detailed info, we hoped to have a better knowledge base here, it's not great right now but it's a something ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Moving parts

.env

The file contains variables where e.g. you define the base url (aegee.test) and where will various app be reachable (e.g. my. for my.aegee.test to reach the frontend).

List of defined variables:

• base url
• subdomain urls
• activated services
• runtime environment
• some default passwords
• SMTP user/pass/server for mailer
• Sendgrid user/pass
• Superadmin credentials (for other services to read; it does not set them in the system)
• folder locations

so for instance...

Example 1: you would use this file if you had a problem with 1 microservice and wanted to remove it from the setup. Note: the removal of the ms would not stop a container if there was one running already, so make sure you cleanup (not mandatory, just avoids headaches in case of troubleshooting and "oh, I forgot about this). How would you do that? Example: discounts

• Edit .env file
• Remove the service from the array ENABLED_SERVICES
• docker stop myaegee_discounts_1 && docker rm myaegee_discounts_1 (on the GUEST)

Example 2: you would use this file if you wrote a new microservice and wanted to add it from the setup. How would you do that? Example: your service is into a folder called boombastic (at the same level of the folders core,events etc)

• Edit .env file
• Add the service at the end of the array ENABLED_SERVICES=<whatever is here already>:boombastic. Remember: all the services are separated by colon (:)
• make start (on the GUEST)

docker-compose.yml

In the docker-compose files there are the definitions of where an app should be reached.

Docker-compose will use the variables defined above, and put them under the labels section of a container (if a container needs it). The labels section is parsed by traefik to route all the HTTP calls to the correct containers. In other words, this is where the values contained in the .env file are used to specify that the app replies on 'my.appserver.test' instead of e.g. 'magic.appserver.test'.

/etc/hosts

This file which is located on the HOST machine is used to add new subdomains for the services: e.g. add pgadmin to be able to go to pgadmin.appserver.test and use a visual tool for the databases. The important part is that this name of subdomain matches the one defined in the file .env

Troubleshooting / other

• Remember to check what is running on your GUEST via docker ps (or portainer). Enter your GUEST with vagrant ssh (from your HOST).

• By running the system in development mode, you may get "NGINX error 403 (forbidden)" when you vist my.appserver.test the first time. To fix it, follow the steps after frontend helper in the file orchestrate_docker.sh

• If you are stuck and something doesn't seem to work, make sure you don't have a mismatch between /etc/hosts, the URL you type in the browser, and the address that the system expects. See file current-config.yml for that: it is a file which is generated every time make start is launched. It contains the description of the desired state of the app. NB: /etc/hosts is the only file mentioned in this README that only exists in the HOST and is not mounted (as described above).

• You can add dev-tools to the array of services and troubleshoot docker using portainer (mentioned above). Make sure that you have added also the URL to the hostfile (/etc/hosts) and that it matches the variable defined in .env

• As written in the 'moving parts' section: if you remove services from array ENABLED_SERVICES, they are not stopped. This is not a problem in general, just don't be surprised if when you start (having the configuration ENABLED_SERVICES=core:frontend:events) and stop later (with the configuration ENABLED_SERVICES=events) docker writes a message WARNING: found orphan containers.

• make start calls a script helper.sh that will look into all folders described in ENABLED_SERVICES for a docker-compose.yml file. Then it creates in-memory a giant docker-compose configuration which is what will be run. This configuration is also outputted to a file (current-config.yml) for ease of troubleshoot.

• Running the system in development mode means that every docker-compose.yml has extra-settings in a docker-compose.dev.yml file (in the same folder). Some modules are not thought for development mode, if you find an error about a missing docker-compose.dev.yml just create an empty one where the system wants it.

How to run unit/integration tests when you start the system

?? @serge1peshcoff

Default credentials

From the core readme: there are test users. All users have 5ecr3t5ecr3t as password.

• admin@example.com - admin
• board@example.com - board member of antenna
• member@example.com - regular member of antenna
• not-confirmed@example.com - member who is not confirmed
• password-reset@example.com - member who requested a password reset
• suspended@example.com - a suspended member

You can use 5ecr3t for a password reset token (for a member with email password-reset@example.com) and 5ecr3t for a mail confirmation (for a member with email not-confirmed@example.com).

NOTICE if you use the --fast mode of start.sh, then core does NOT provision in production mode, so you will be fast in bootstrapping but without users to play with. This should not be an issue for you if you are interested in only the infrastructure work; if you however need a user, you can register yourself.

How to reset the database and recreate

A couple of options

1. As mentioned above, you can enable dev-tools for pgadmin. From there you can delete the db

• Notice unfortunately you have to configure pgadmin when you first login: specify the host, username, password.
  • Username and password of the database is NOT the same username and password of pgadmin. Find everything in the files mentioned in 'moving parts', or current-config.yml for ease.
  • You put the name of the service as hostname (docker internally resolves stuff with its internal DNS). In other words, every container is reachable at the host named like its service (e.g. frontend, core, postgres-core, etc). The 'service' is named in the docker-compose.yml under the key services:. Again: the title of the container is also the hostname of the container

2. Use portainer to delete the service and db, then make start to fix everything.

• The service must be deleted/restarted because it runs the migrations and therefore fills the DB with the important data. If you delete only the db, the service will expect the db to be filled with data, causing errors