SelfHelp WebApp

The SelfHelp WebApp is a tool that allows to create a web application that serves as a platform for research experiments. The basic concept is as follows:

Pages are organized as a collection of sections that are rendered on the page, one below the other. Sections have different styles which define the appearance of the sections. Depending on the style of a section, the section has different fields which define the content of the section. The value of a field can be a simple plaintext or a collection of child sections which have their own styles and children.

Currently available styles include, but are not limited to, alert boxes, buttons, card containers, forms, media elements, tabs, lists, and support for markdown texts.

• For information about documentation refer to DOCUMENTS
• For information about recent changes refer to CHANGELOG

Installation

Install Dependencies

• sudo apt update
• sudo apt install apache2
• sudo apt install mysql-server
• sudo apt-get install php php-fpm php-mysql libapache2-mod-php libapache2-mod-fcgid php-apcu php-uopz php-mbstring php8-intl -y

Install SelfHelp

• sudo git clone https://github.com/humdek-unibe-ch/sh-selfhelp.git project_name
• cd project_name
• git checkout latest_release
• cd server/utils/
• sudo su
• sudo ./install.sh -n __project_name__ -p __db_password__
• sudo chown -R www-data.www-data project folder

Configure Apache for SelfHelp

• Create Apache site for SelfHelp. Create /etc/apache2/sites-available/selfhelp.conf with following lines where you adjust __project_name__, __project_path__ and __cert_folder__ for the SSL files:

Define PROJECT_NAME __project_name__
Define PROJECT_PATH __project_path__
Define PROJECT_PATH_SERVER ${PROJECT_PATH}/server

<VirtualHost *:80>
   ServerName example.com
   ServerAlias www.example.com
   Redirect permanent / https://example.com/home
</VirtualHost>

<VirtualHost *:443>
   ServerName example.com
   ServerAlias www.example.com
   DocumentRoot ${PROJECT_PATH}
   <Directory "${PROJECT_PATH}">
       Options FollowSymLinks
       AllowOverride All
       Require all granted
   </Directory>
   <Directory "${PROJECT_PATH_SERVER}">
       Require all denied
       <Files ~ "\.css$">
           Require all granted
       </Files>
       <Files ~ "\.js$">
           Require all granted
       </Files>
   </Directory>
   <Directory "${PROJECT_PATH_SERVER}">    
       <Files ~ "\.json$">
           Require all granted
       </Files>    
   </Directory>
   # enable HTTP/2, if available
   Protocols h2 http/1.1

   # HTTP Strict Transport Security (mod_headers is required) (63072000 seconds)
   Header always set Strict-Transport-Security "max-age=63072000"

   # X-Content-Type-Options header
   Header set X-Content-Type-Options nosniff

   # intermediate configuration
   SSLProtocol             all -SSLv3 -TLSv1 -TLSv1.1
   SSLCipherSuite          ECDHE-ECDSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:ECDHE-ECDSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-ECDSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305:ECDHE-RSA-CHACHA20-POLY1305:DHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256:DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384
   SSLHonorCipherOrder     off
   SSLSessionTickets       off    

   ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error-${PROJECT_NAME}.log
   CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access-${PROJECT_NAME}.log combined

   RedirectMatch 301 ^/$ https://example.com/home

   SSLCertificateFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/__cert_folder__/fullchain.pem
   SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/__cert_folder__/privkey.pem
   Include /etc/letsencrypt/options-ssl-apache.conf

</VirtualHost>

SSLUseStapling On
SSLStaplingCache "shmcb:logs/ssl_stapling(32768)"

• Enable the site with: sudo a2ensite selfhelp
• Enable URL rewriting with: sudo a2enmod rewrite
• Finally, reload apache2 to apply all these changes: sudo service apache2 reload

Update

• run the sql files in the correct order from folder server/db/update_scripts.
• after update clear the cache. Now as a workaround it could be done from page cms->preferences, on save of this page the cache is cleared

Code check

• for code check use PHPStan