FlytLabs

This repository is an archive of the (almost) original source code of the FlytLabs website. I was the lead designer and developer of the startup and created this website for it. The original startup was founded on January 18, 2020 but our team has since disbanded.

⚠️ Warning ⚠️

This project is no longer actively maintained. Issues may arise later if my VM shuts down.

Technologies

Note

This was originally a LAMP stack site, but the database has now been migrated to SQLite.

• PHP was used for the back end of the website.
• SQLite was used to store community post updates and collect emails for our newsletter.
• HTML + CSS + JS was used for the front end.
• Oracle Cloud + Linux + Apache was used to deploy/host the website.

Screenshots

More screenshots can be found on the updates page of the website!

Home (Dark)	Home (Light)

Unifye (Dark)	Unifye (Light)

Mobile (Dark)	Mobile (Light)

How to Deploy

1. Setup

• Open up your preferred terminal and clone this repository:

  git clone https://github.com/tthn0/FlytLabs.git
  

• In your preferred IDE or text editor, open the newly cloned repository.

  • Open src/config/example.env.
    • Change the ADMIN_PASSWORD to whatever you want (this will be explained later).
    • Ignore IMGUR_CLIENT_ID for now.
    • Rename the file to .env.

• Register a new Imgur application (optional).

  [!NOTE] This step may be skipped if you don't care about posting images.

  • Sign in if needed.
  • Give your application a meaningful name.
  • For Authorization type, select OAuth 2 authorization without a callback URL.
  • Enter your email.
  • Fill out the CAPTCHA and submit.
  • Copy the Client ID provided into the IMGUR_CLIENT_ID field in src/config/.env.

• Switch back to your terminal, and make sure you're in the src directory of the project. To test the website's functionality, and run the following:

  php -S localhost:8080 -t public

  • Visit localhost:8080 in your browser.

  • In order to make a post, edit a previous post, or delete an existing post, you'll need to give yourself admin privileges:

    • Visit /{ADMIN_PASSWORD} (replace {ADMIN_PASSWORD} with the password you entered in the environment file earlier).

    • This will grant you admin privileges temporarily.

      [!WARNING] A bug may occur when editing a post. See Notes + Things to Fix for more info.

  • Also, there is an API endpoint at localhost:8080/api that will display all of the posts in JSON format.

    • To find a post w/ a specific ID, visit /api?id={ID}, where {ID} is the ID of the post you want to find.
    • This endpoint only accepts GET requests.

  • After making sure everything is working properly, go back into your terminal and kill the website.

2. Host on Ubuntu Instance Using Oracle Cloud

• Sign into Oracle Cloud.

  • Create a VM instance.
    • Give it a meaningful name.
    • Under Placement, make sure the Availability domain is Always-Free-eligible.
    • Under Image and shape, click Change image and select the latest version of Canonical Ubuntu and click Select image. Make sure both the image and shape are Always-Free-eligible.
    • Under Networking, choose an existing VCN and subnet or create a new one.
    • Under Add SSH keys, upload an existing public key file or generate a new one.
    • Click Create.
  • This step is optional if you'd like to run the website on a different port. On the reloaded page showing your newly created instance:
    • Under Instance access, take note of your Public IP address for later use.
    • Under Primary VNIC, click on your subnet's name.
    • Click on the default security list.
    • Click Add Ingress Rules.
      • Check Stateless.
      • Under Source CIDR, enter 0.0.0.0/0.
      • Under Destination Port Range, enter any port.
      • Click Add Ingress Rules.

• To connect to the newly created instance, locate your private key file and run the following in your terminal:

  ssh -i /path/to/private.key ubuntu@164.152.23.94

  [!IMPORTANT] Make sure to use appropriate substitutions for the private key path, username, and public IP address of your instance for this step and all subsequent steps.

• Now we're ready to set up the VM.

  • Install PHP:

    sudo apt update
    sudo apt upgrade -y
    sudo apt autoremove
    sudo apt autoclean
    sudo apt install -y php php-sqlite3 apache2 apache2-doc apache2-utils

  • Make a www folder in your home directory:

    mkdir ~/www

  • Switch back to your local machine.

    • Open src/pubilc/robots.txt.

      • On line 4, change 164.152.23.94 to your VM's public IP address.

    • Open src/pubilc/sitemap/sitemap.xml.

      • Change all instances of 164.152.23.94 to your VM's public IP address.

    • Copy the FlytLabs directory to the VM:

      scp -i /path/to/private.key -r /path/to/FlytLabs ubuntu@164.152.23.94:~/www/FlytLabs

  • Now switching back to the VM, make sure your home directory has execute privileges:

    chmod +x /home/ubuntu

  • Ensure the database folder has write privileges:

    chmod -R a+w ~/www/FlytLabs/src/database

  • For now, we'll be using port 80 to serve the website, but you may choose any open port. Switching back to the VM, open up the port:

    sudo iptables -I INPUT 6 -m state --state NEW -p tcp --dport 80 -j ACCEPT
    sudo netfilter-persistent save

  • Create a symlink to the configuration file and check if it correctly links:

    sudo ln -s ~/www/FlytLabs/src/config/FlytLabs.conf /etc/apache2/sites-available/FlytLabs.conf

    • If you decided to use another port (like 5000), change ~/www/FlytLabs/src/config/FlytLabs.conf to look like the following:

      Listen 5000
      <VirtualHost *:5000>
          DocumentRoot /home/ubuntu/www/FlytLabs/src/public
          ErrorLog /home/ubuntu/www/FlytLabs/src/logs/error.log
          CustomLog /home/ubuntu/www/FlytLabs/src/logs/access.log combined
          <Directory "/home/ubuntu/www/FlytLabs/src/public">
              Require all granted
              AllowOverride All
          </Directory>
      </VirtualHost>

  • Disable the default site, enable the newly created site, enable mod_rewrite, and reload apache2:

    sudo a2dissite 000-default.conf
    sudo a2ensite FlytLabs
    sudo a2enmod rewrite
    sudo systemctl reload apache2

  • Now everything should be up and running, publically available to the entire internet. Visit your public IP address in any browser to see!

3. Add a Domain Name (Optional)

• Review Oracle's documentation page for Creating a Public Zone.
• In your tenant's root compartment, create a zone for your domain, e.g. example.com.
• Create an two A zone records pointing to your public IP address.
  • example.com ⇒ 164.152.23.94.
  • www.example.com ⇒ 164.152.23.94.
• Publish the record.
• On your Registrar's DNS management console, update the name server records to point to Oracle Cloud's name servers assigned to the zone.

4. Install SSL Certificate (Optional)

• Follow this tutorial.

Notes + Things to Fix

• If you're viewing a post in /post and want to edit it, pasting content from your clipboard results in pasting rich text. This is unwanted behavior and will result in a bug when saving the changes. Instead of pasting the usual way, use the keyboard shortcut:
  • ⌥ + ⌘ + ⇧ + V if you're on macOS,
  • Ctrl + Shift + V if you're on Windows or Linux.
• Type hinting was not used in this codebase.
• Collecting emails for the newsletter is disabled by default. In order to enable it, locate src/templates/components/footer.php and uncomment lines 2-4.
• Pages for non-404 HTTP errors aren't implemented.