About

A centralized website to connect RPI undergraduate students with research or lab positions
posted by professors, graduate students, or lab staff.

Built With

Prerequisites

• Clone
  • Clone repo through CLI

    $ git clone https://github.com/LabConnect-RCOS/LabConnect-Backend.git

  • or through Github Desktop
• Install Python 3.12.4
  • Mac

    brew install python@3.14
    

  • Windows: here
  • Linux:

    $ sudo apt install python3
    

• Install PostgreSQL
  • The application is built and tested with postgresql 17
  • Mac: UI here or

  brew install postgresql@17
  

  • Windows: here
  • Linux:

    $ sudo apt install postgresql
    

• Install Libraries

  $ python3 -m pip install -r requirements.txt
  

• Setup user and initialize database

  • Windows:

    $ psql -U postgres -d postgres
    CREATE DATABASE labconnect;
    ALTER USER postgres WITH PASSWORD 'root';
    \q

  • macOS (Homebrew):

    # start postgres if not running
    $ brew services start postgresql
    $ psql -U postgres -d postgres
    CREATE DATABASE labconnect;
    ALTER USER postgres WITH PASSWORD 'root';
    \q

  • macOS (Postgres.app):

    # open Postgres.app, then in a terminal (Postgres.app adds psql to PATH)
    $ psql -d postgres
    CREATE DATABASE labconnect;
    ALTER USER postgres WITH PASSWORD 'root';
    \q

  • Linux:

    $ sudo -i -u postgres
    $ psql
    ALTER USER postgres WITH PASSWORD 'root';
    \q
    $ exit
    $ sudo -u postgres createdb labconnect

  • Final step

    • Run the db initialization with test/dummy data make create

Testing

• Run pytest
  • Run all the test files and generate a coverage report. Coverage reports are set up to output to the terminal and provide an HTML file that can be viewed to show what branches or statements are not covered. It is in the project's best interest to have high coverage to ensure all statements and branches work as expected.

  $ make test

  or manually

  $ python3 -m pytest

  or manually with a coverage report generated

  $ python3 -m pytest --cov

  or individual tests

  $ python3 -m pytest -q tests/(file_name).py

Development

• Run flask with python directly
  • Run all the test files

  $ make develop

  or

  $ python run.py

Deployment

Create PRs to the main branch. Upon merging, a new Docker container will be created and pushed to the packages for this repo.

Production

Use the Docker container in the packages tab. You can set these environment variables:

Environment Variables

Variable Name	Default Value	Description
SECRET_KEY	main-secret	Secret Key for Flask
JWT_SECRET_KEY	jwt-secret	Secret Key for JWT
FRONTEND_URL	None	URL to the frontend server
DB	None	URI for postgres database eg. postgresql+psycopg2://${POSTGRES_USER}:${POSTGRES_PASSWORD}@postgres/labconnect
CONFIG	config.TestingConfig	URL to the backend server

• Run gunicorn to test how the service runs in production

  $ make run

  or with Makefile

  $ gunicorn run:app -w 6 --preload --max-requests-jitter 300 --bind 0.0.0.0:8000

Contact Us

License

Distributed under the Apache License. See LICENSE for more information.