Connecting Soulmate

Project Title:

Connecting Soulmate

Project Description:

Connecting Soulmate is a comprehensive matchmaking website designed to facilitate seamless registration, profile management, and user interactions, with advanced features to ensure a user-friendly and secure experience.

Key Features:

User Registration:

• Multi-Page Registration: Users can fill out information across six pages.
• Save Progress: Users' progress is saved at each step, allowing them to continue from where they left off if they leave and return later.
• Partner Preferences: Matches are shown based on partner preferences specified in the sixth form.

User Interaction:

• Shortlist, Ban, and Requests: Users can shortlist, ban, and send two kinds of requests (profile and interest).
• Inbox Management: Profile requests allow users to view details except phone numbers and emails. Interest requests enable chatting and viewing all details.
• Notifications: Users receive notifications for interest sent, interest accepted, and bans.
• Unblocking: Banned users can be unblocked, making them visible again to the user.

Chat Functionality:

• Real-time Chat: Implemented using socket.io with reconnection and Redux middleware for frontend socket setup.
• Features: Includes latest message display, auto-scrolling to the last message, message editing, deleting, and seen/unseen status.
• Reporting: Users can report offenders. Verified reports result in permanent bans for the reported user.

Admin Side:

• User Management: Admins can view a list of registering users. Approved users can access the website, rejected users can re-register after 15 days, and deleted users' data is soft-deleted for easy reapproval without re-filling all six pages.
• Notifications: Admins receive notifications for user actions like sending, accepting, and initiating chats, as well as user reports.
• Dynamic Currency Rates: Admins can dynamically update currency rates, ensuring they are always up-to-date.

Benefits:

Enhanced User Experience:

• Multi-page registration and save progress features make it easy for users to complete their profiles at their own pace.
• Partner preferences ensure relevant matches, improving user satisfaction.

Streamlined User Interactions:

• The ability to shortlist, ban, and send requests, along with comprehensive inbox management, facilitates smooth user interactions.
• Real-time chat with advanced features enhances communication between users.

Robust Admin Controls:

• Admins have comprehensive tools to manage user registrations, approvals, and rejections efficiently.
• Dynamic currency rate updates keep the platform financially relevant and accurate.

Security and Accountability:

• Reporting features and strict actions against offenders maintain a safe and respectful community environment.
• Notifications keep users and admins informed about important actions, enhancing transparency and responsiveness.

Deployment

To deploy this project and run on AWS with free SSL

Installation Intruction

Deployment Instructions for EC2 Instance Setup

Create an EC2 Instance:

After successfully creating an EC2 instance, navigate to the AWS Management Console. Click on the Instances section and find your newly created instance.

(while creating make sure to select a appropriate instance type t3 micro or t3a medium and so on.) Assign a Elastic IP to the instance so that even if the instance stops or restarts the IP will be same.

Instance Summary:

Click on the Instance ID to access the instance summary.

Connect to Instance:

On the instance summary page, locate the Connect button.

CloudShell Access for Windows Users:

Click Connect to access the "Connect to Instance" page. On the new page, click on the Connect button located at the bottom.

CloudShell Access:

You will be redirected to the CloudShell of your EC2 instance.

Deployment Commands:

Follow the commands below in CloudShell for a successful deployment: Install node version manager (nvm) by typing the following at the command line.

    #to become a root user
    #don't need to be a root user, can continue without this
    sudo su -

  curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.34.0/install.sh | bash

Activate nvm by typing the following at the command line.

    . ~/.nvm/nvm.sh

Use nvm to install the latest version of Node.js by typing the following at the command line.

  nvm install node

Now After Installing Node Lets Move To Installing Git In Our EC2 Server

To install git, run below commands in the terminal window:

  sudo apt-get update -y

  #sudo apt upgrade
  #sudo apt upgrade
  #sudo apt install -y git htop wget
  #well you don't have to get htop or wget until necessary so : 
  sudo apt-get install git -y

now to ensure that git is installed type the follwing command:

  git --version

This command will print the git version in the terminal.

Now Clone Your Server Repository where you have your server code

  git clone https://github.com/clone-your-repo

now change the directory to your cloned folder or directory and install the packages in your package.json file:

  cd Connecting_Soulmate_Server

  npm install

to run the server:

  node app.js

Install pm2

  npm install -g pm2

Starting the app with pm2 (Run nodejs in background and when server restart)

  pm2 start app.js

  pm2 save

the above command # saves the running processes # if not saved, pm2 will forget # the running apps on next boot

If you want pm2 to start on system boot :

  pm2 startup # starts pm2 on computer boot

Now all the steps required to run the server on EC2 is completed.

Install Nginx For Proxy Setup And For Free SSL

sudo apt install nginx

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/default

Add the following to the location part of the server block

before setting it up make sure you do not change anything but the location part:

    server_name yourdomain.com www.yourdomain.com;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://localhost:5000; #whatever port your app runs on
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header Connection 'upgrade';
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_cache_bypass $http_upgrade;
    }

check nginx config and restart it if no error occur :

sudo nginx -t

sudo service nginx restart

Obtain and Install SSL Certificate

Installing Certbot

Use Let's Encrypt to obtain a free SSL certificate with Certbot:

sudo apt install certbot python3-certbot-nginx

Run Certbot to obtain the SSL certificate:

sudo certbot --nginx -d yourdomain.com -d subdomain.yourdomain.com

Configure Nginx for SSL

Modify the Nginx configuration to use SSL:

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/default

Update the configuration to include SSL settings:

server {
    listen 443 ssl;
    server_name yourdomain.com;

    ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/yourdomain.com/fullchain.pem;
    ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/yourdomain.com/privkey.pem;

    location / {
        # Your Nginx configuration goes here
    }
}

You should now be able to visit your IP with no port (port 80) and see your app. Now let's add a domain

This step is to point your ip address from the domain

 ->Check that Port 80 redirect to Nodejs server

confirm it by the same testing command

sudo nginx -t

sudo systemctl reload nginx

Now you have successfully applied the SSL to your domain

The last step is to set the certbot for auto-renewal

sudo systemctl status snap.certbot.renew.service

Check the crontab for Certbot's auto-renewal job:

Certbot usually adds a cron job or a systemd timer to handle the renewal process. You can check if it exists by running:

sudo crontab -u root -l

You should see something like this:

0 */12 * * * /usr/bin/certbot renew --quiet
#12 hrs

0 0 1 * * /usr/bin/certbot renew --quiet --deploy-hook "systemctl restart nginx"
#1st day of month

If it's not set up, you can manually edit the cron job:

sudo crontab -u root -e

Add the following line to restart Nginx after renewal:

0 */12 * * * /usr/bin/certbot renew --quiet --deploy-hook "systemctl restart nginx"

To test the renewal process, you can do a dry run with certbot:

sudo certbot renew --dry-run

Environment Variables

To run this project, you will need to add the following environment variables to your .env file

For MongoDB Connection

`MONGODB_URI`

For jwt

`SECRET_KEY`
`JWT_SECRET`

Brevo Keys

`BREVO_API_KEY`
`SENDER_IDENTITY` # connecting-soulmate
`DOMAIN_EMAIL` # domain email from which the email will be sent
`ADMIN_EMAIL` # email of admin
`LOGO_IMAGE_URL` # logo url in emails
`FRONTEND_URL` # domain url for registration number url

S3 CREDENTIALS

`SECRET_ACCESS_KEY`
`ACCESS_KEY`
`BUCKET_NAME`
`BUCKET_REGION`

OTPless CREDENTIALS

`CLIENT_SECRET`
`CLIENT_ID`
`APP_ID`

Few Minute Details For Migrating Objects From One S3 To S3

# Copy Objects from Source Bucket to Destination Bucket
aws s3 sync s3://one-container s3://second-container

# Verify the Copy Operation
aws s3 ls s3://second-container --recursive

# Delete Objects from Source Bucket (Optional)
aws s3 rm s3://one-container --recursive

Tech Stack

Client: React JS, Context API, TailwindCSS, interceptors, axios, mui, OTPless

Server: Node, Express, Bcrypt, jsonwebtoken, MongoDB, Mongoose