Nexus Website

A self-contained Django web application for EverQuest Emulator servers. A live instance runs at www.eqarchives.com.

Features

• Account management — Login Server account registration, password reset, and self-service character transfers between accounts you own
• Inventory search — Account-wide search across all characters' banks and inventories
• Magelo-style character profiles
• Alla-clone database browser:
  • Items, Discovered Items, and Best-in-Slot lists
  • NPCs, Factions, Pets
  • Spells (search + per-class listings)
  • Tradeskill recipes
  • Zone pages (items, NPCs, foraged items, ground spawns, lore)
  • Patch messages
• Quest pages linking to/from Items, NPCs, and Zones (in progress)

Requirements

• Python 3.11+
• MySQL (three databases — see Configuration)
• Redis (for caching)
• An EverQuest Emulator server with its Login Server and game databases accessible

Setup

1. Clone and install dependencies

git clone https://github.com/nazwadi/Nexus.git
cd Nexus
python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate   # Windows: .venv\Scripts\activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

2. Configure environment

Copy the template and fill in your values:

cp .env.template .env

Edit .env — see Configuration below for a description of each variable.

3. Set up the database

python manage.py migrate

4. Populate app data

After migrating, run the bootstrap script to generate spell data, import Best-in-Slot entries, and build the item expansion table:

bash scripts/bootstrap.sh

This runs the following commands in order — you can also run them individually if you need to refresh a specific dataset:

Command	What it does
generate_spell_data	Builds per-class spell JSON files used by character spell tabs
import_bis_from_markdown	Seeds the Best-in-Slot table from items/templates/items/best_in_slot/
resolve_bis_item_ids	Matches BIS entry names to item IDs in the game database
compute_item_expansions --seed-ranges	Populates the item ID → expansion range table with defaults
compute_item_expansions	Infers each item's expansion from zone provenance and ID ranges

Re-running after game DB updates: generate_spell_data and compute_item_expansions --force should be re-run whenever the game database receives a significant content update.

Adjusting item expansion ranges: Edit the ranges via the Django admin (Item Expansion ID Ranges), then run python manage.py compute_item_expansions --force to recompute. Individual item exceptions can be pinned by setting is_override=True on the item's Item Expansion admin entry.

5. Collect static files

python manage.py collectstatic

This assembles all static assets (including Django admin and third-party app assets) into staticfiles/. Your web server should be pointed at that directory.

6. Run (development)

python manage.py runserver

For production, use Gunicorn or uWSGI behind Nginx or Apache. Configure your web server to serve the staticfiles/ directory at /static/.

Configuration

All configuration is done via environment variables. Copy .env.template to .env and set the following:

Databases

This app connects to three MySQL databases:

Variable	Description
DJANGO_APP_DB_NAME	Django app database name
DJANGO_APP_DB_USER	Django app database user
DJANGO_APP_DB_PASSWORD	Django app database password
DJANGO_APP_DB_HOST	Django app database host (default: 127.0.0.1)
DJANGO_APP_DB_PORT	Django app database port (default: 3306)
GAME_DB_NAME	EverQuest game database name
GAME_DB_USER	Game database user
GAME_DB_PASSWORD	Game database password
GAME_DB_HOST	Game database host (default: 127.0.0.1)
GAME_DB_PORT	Game database port (default: 3306)
LS_DB_NAME	Login Server database name
LS_DB_USER	Login Server database user
LS_DB_PASSWORD	Login Server database password
LS_DB_HOST	Login Server database host (default: 127.0.0.1)
LS_DB_PORT	Login Server database port (default: 3306)

Application

Variable	Description
DJANGO_APP_SECRET_KEY	Django secret key — generate a unique value for production
DEBUG	Set to TRUE for development, FALSE for production
ALLOWED_HOSTS	Comma-separated list of allowed hostnames (e.g. myserver.com,www.myserver.com)
CSRF_TRUSTED_ORIGINS	Comma-separated list of trusted origins (e.g. https://myserver.com)
ADMIN_URL	URL path for the Django admin (default: admin/) — change this in production
SITE_URL	Full public URL of the site (e.g. https://myserver.com) — used in email links
SITE_NAME	Display name shown throughout the site and in email subjects (default: Nexus)

Email

Variable	Description
DJANGO_EMAIL_BACKEND	Django email backend class
DJANGO_EMAIL_HOST	SMTP host
DJANGO_EMAIL_PORT	SMTP port
DJANGO_EMAIL_USE_TLS	True or False
DJANGO_EMAIL_HOST_USER	SMTP username
DJANGO_EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD	SMTP password
DJANGO_DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL	From address for outgoing mail

Static Files

Source assets live in static/ and are tracked in git — no extra download needed. The staticfiles/ directory is generated by collectstatic and is intentionally excluded from version control.

Contributing

Pull requests are welcome. Please open an issue first to discuss significant changes.