Medium Clone User Management System

A standalone service for managing blog application users. This include administrators, authors, readers and moderators.

Project Overview

This is a web application that manages the users of a blogging application(A Medium clone). The application enables the various users to register as well as manage their accounts (view, update, delete.) Other functionality includes:

1. Authors can report offensive authors
2. Authors can subscribe to other authors and the subscribers can be sent notification emails.
3. Moderators can flag offensive authors and admins can suspend offensive author accounts.

Working

It's pretty easy to use the application. On the home page (http://localhost:5000/apidocs):

1. Create an account (post details through register route)
2. Send a confirmation email (post email address and user id theough the send_confirm_email route)
3. Confirm email address (submit the user id and token from step 2)
4. Log in using the login route (submit your email and password)
5. Use the access token from step 4 to authorize yourself.
6. Access other functionalities such as user update, viewing, deletion.

Local Setup

Here is how to set up the application locally:

1. Clone the application repo:
   

   git clone https://github.com/twyle/Medium-Clone-User-Management-Service.git

2. Navigate into the cloned repo:

   cd Medium-Clone-User-Management-Service

3. Create a Virtual environment:

   python3 -m venv venv

4. Activate the virtual environmnet:

   source venv/bin/activate

5. Install the project dependancies:

   pip install --upgrade pip # update the package manager
   pip install -r requirements.txt  

6. Create the environment variables for the service:

   touch .env

   Then paste the following into the file:

     FLASK_DEBUG=True
     FLASK_ENV=development
     FLASK_APP=manage.py
   
     SECRET_KEY=secret-key
   
     POSTGRES_HOST=localhost
     POSTGRES_USER=lyle
     POSTGRES_PASSWORD=lyle
     POSTGRES_DB=lyle
     POSTGRES_PORT=5432
   
     MAIL_USERNAME=<mail-user-name>
     MAIL_PASSWORD=<mail-password>
     MAIL_SERVER=<mail-server>
     MAIL_PORT=465
     MAIL_USE_SSL=True
     MAIL_DEFAULT_SENDER=<default-email>
   
     S3_BUCKET=<s3-bucket-name>
     AWS_ACCESS_KEY=<aws-access-key>
     AWS_ACCESS_SECRET=<aws-secret-key>
   

   Then create the database secrets:

   cd services/database
   touch .env

   Then paste the following into the file:

     POSTGRES_DB=lyle
     POSTGRES_PORT=5432
     POSTGRES_USER=postgres
     POSTGRES_PASSWORD=lyle

7. Start the database containers:

   docker-compose -f database/docker-compose.yml up --build -d

8. Create the database migrations:

   flask db migrate -m "Initial migration."
   flask db upgrade

9. Start the services:

   python manage.py run

10. View the running application

    Head over to http://0.0.0.0:5000/apidocs

Development

1. Application Design

1. Services

   The application consists of a single service.

   1. User Management Service

   

   This service is resposible for the registration of new users, as well as the authentication and authorization of registered users. The routes include:

   Route	Method	Description
   'api/v1/auth/register/admin'	POST	Register a new admin.
   'api/v1/auth/register/author'	POST	Register a new author.
   'api/v1/auth/register/moderator'	POST	Register a new moderator.
   'api/v1/auth/login'	POST	Login as a registered user.
   'api/v1/auth/logout'	POST	Logout as a logged in user.
   'api/v1/auth/confirm_email'	GET	Confirm email address.
   'api/v1/auth/reset_password'	POST	Reset password .
   'api/v1/author'	DELETE	Delete a author.
   'api/v1/author'	PUT	Update author info.
   'api/v1/author'	GET	Get a author's info.
   'api/v1/authors'	GET	List all authors.
   'api/v1/author/follow'	GET	Follow an author.
   'api/v1/author/followers'	GET	Get an authors followers.
   'api/v1/author/follows'	GET	A list of author this author follows.
   'api/v1/author/subscribe'	GET	Subscribe to an author.
   'api/v1/author/subscribed_to'	GET	Find an authors subscribes.
   'api/v1/author/subscribers'	GET	Get anauthors subscribers.
   'api/v1/author/unfollow'	GET	Unfollow an author.
   'api/v1/author/unsubscribe'	GET	Unsubscribe to an author.
   'api/v1/admin'	DELETE	Delete a admin.
   'api/v1/admin'	PUT	Update admin info.
   'api/v1/admin'	GET	Get a admins info.
   'api/v1/admins'	GET	List all admins.
   'api/v1/moderator'	DELETE	Delete a moderator.
   'api/v1/moderator'	PUT	Update moderator info.
   'api/v1/moderator'	GET	Get a moderators info.
   'api/v1/moderators'	GET	List all moderators.
   'api/v1/report/author'	POST	Report an offensive author.
   'api/v1/report/authors'	GET	List reported authors.
   'api/v1/flag/author'	POST	Flag an offensive author.
   'api/v1/flag/authors'	GET	List flagged authors.
   'api/v1/suspend/author'	POST	Suspend an offensive author.
   'api/v1/suspend/authors'	GET	List suspended authors.

   This service uses Postgres to store the user info, AWS S3 to store the images, AWS SES to send the emails and celery for the email sending and photo upload.

2. Database

   The application uses Postgres and AWS S3. The postgres database is used to store user details. The AWS S3 bucket is used to store the profile pictures.

3. Security

   The application uses JSON Web Tokens to authorize access to protected routes. The passwords are also encrypted.

Contribution

1. Fork it https://github.com/twyle/repo-template/fork
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b feature/fooBar)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add some fooBar')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/fooBar)
5. Create a new Pull Request

Developer

Lyle Okoth – @lylethedesigner on twitter

lyle okoth on medium

My email is lyceokoth@gmail.com

Here is my GitHub Profile

You can also find me on LinkedIN

License

Distributed under the MIT license. See LICENSE for more information.