apicrud 0.0.10

Flask REST framework for role-based access

apicrud

What is this

Skip the python/React.js learning curve and put your ideas in production!

The apicrud framework was created to make it far easier to get started on full-stack development of REST-based services ranging from a simple CLI wrapper for queries of local APIs to full web-scale consumer-facing applications.

The essential components of a modern full-stack application include a back-end API server, a front-end UI server, a database, a memory-cache and a background worker for performing actions such as emailing, photo uploading or report generation. This is the API back-end and worker, with an example application.

Usage

Clone this repo to your local environment. To start the example application in a shell session (on a Linux or Mac laptop):

• Set environment variables as defined below
• Install docker (desktop for Mac or Linux/Ubuntu and enable kubernetes; Linux kubeadm setup is beyond scope of this README
• Set up a local MariaDB or MySQL instance using helm (TODO still beyond scope of this doc, the goal is to provide a single command that just-plain-works); create ablank database example_local and add a role user/password
• Invoke make run_local to bring up the back-end API with its dependent services redis and rabbitMQ
• Invoke make messaging_worker to bring up the email/SMS worker back-end
• Clone the instantlinux/apicrud-ui repo to a separate directory and follow the instructions given in its README to start the front-end
• Optional: if setting up to run API within a docker container, configure kubernetes secrets as defined below (need at least the example-db-password)
• Optional for Linux: a full ansible-based bare-metal k8s cluster management suite is published at instantlinux/docker-tools

The example MVC application is provided here in this repo is also used as a fixture for its unit tests. You can fork / clone this repo and experiment with your own extensions to the database models, controller logic, and openapi.yaml REST endpoints. See the instantlinux/apicrud-ui for definitions of the views (as React.js code).

Environment variables

Variable	Default	Description
AMQ_HOST	example-rmq	IP address or hostname of rabbitMQ
DB_HOST	db00	IP address or hostname of MySQL-compatible database
DB_NAME	example_local	Name of the database
DB_PASS		Password for database
DOMAIN		Domain for service URLs
EXAMPLE_API_PORT	8080	TCP port for API service
KUBECONFIG		Config credentials filename for k8s
RABBITMQ_IP		IP address to use for rabbitMQ under k8s
REDIS_IP		IP address for redis under k8s

TODO: the published docker image won't read these values at startup until the implementation of env-config.js is completed.

Secrets

Kubernetes needs secrets defined. (TODO add default k8s yaml files and provide instructions here; this is a ridiculously-steep learning curve for k8s rookies.)

Secret	Description
example-db-aes-secret	Encryption passphrase for secured DB columns (~16 bytes)
example-db-password	Database password
example-flask-secret	Session passphrase (32 hex digits)
example-redis-secret	Encryption passphrase for redis values (~16 bytes)
mapquest-api-key	API key for address lookups (sign-up: mapquest)

Background

The rise of Docker and Kubernetes starting around 2017 made it possible to set up these production-grade services directly on the laptop of any developer. Only recently have the tools been easier to configure and set up. This framework provides working example code you can use to get started creating your own secure, web-scale services.

Implementation/design includes these technologies: celery, CloudFront and S3, docker, flask, kubernetes, MapQuest geocoding, mapbox, MariaDB, python 3, RabbitMQ, react.js, react-admin, sqlalchemy, uWSGI.

Contributions

Your pull-requests and bug-reports are welcome here. See CONTRIBUTING.md.

License

Software copyright © 2020 by Richard Braun • Apache 2.0 license