flask-blog

Flask blog template integrated with Bootstrap 5.3 and custom css styling. Based on the tutorial by Miguel Grinberg

This project includes a flask blueprint application divided primarily into 3 parts with various features:

• Blog
  • Post
  • Explore
  • View Users
  • Follow/Unfollow Users
  • Search Posts
  • Profile management
• Authentication
  • Registration
  • Login
  • Password Reset
• Error handling

The app is configured to use a mysql or sqllite database, and the repo is set-up for running via Docker.

The search posts capability is provided via Elasticsearch and is also primarily done through docker-container registration.

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To get a local copy up and running follow these steps.

To fully try this project on your machine you will need at minimum:

• Python
• Docker
• VSCode

1. Clone the repo

   git clone https://github.com/rdarneal/flask-blog.git

2. Navigate to the new folder and open with VS Code

   cd flask-blog
   code .

3. Create a new virtual environemnt folder venv

   python -m venv venv

4. Activate the virtual environment

   venv/bin/activate

5. Install Python packages

   pip install requirements.txt

6. Set the .flaskenv file to match your top level blog.py filename

   FLASK_APP=blog.py

7. Create a new .env file with vs code. IMPORTANT: Include .env in your .gitignore file! Don't share secrets.

   SECRET_KEY='yoursecretstring'
   MAIL_SERVER='your.smtp.mailserver.com'
   MAIL_PORT= 443
   MAIL_USERNAME = 'mailusername'
   MAIL_PASSWORD = 'mailpassword'
   MAIL_USE_TLS = 1
   ELASTICSEARCH_URL = 'http://localhost:9200'

8. Run the app locally to test it:

   flask --debug run

9. Note that when running with this method, search funtionality will only work if you have an activate Elasticsearch docker image. See docker method below for the command to launch a elasticsearch container.

The application is also set-up to be fully deployable via docker containers.

To use the docker method you must first build the application

docker build -t blog:latest .

Three containers are required: MySQL, Elasticsearch, and the blog applciation.

1. Each container can be launched sequentially
   • Mysql

     docker run --name mysql -d -e MYSQL_RANDOM_ROOT_PASSWORD=yes \
     -e MYSQL_DATABASE=flask-blog -e MYSQL_USER=flask-blog \
     -e MYSQL_PASSWORD=<database-password> \
     mysql/mysql-server:latest

   • Elasticsearch

     docker run --name elasticsearch -d \
     -p 9200:9200 -p 9300:9300 \
     --rm -e "discovery.type=single-node" \
     docker.elastic.co/elasticsearch/elasticsearch-oss:7.10.2

   • The app (-e sets the environment variables for the docker container)

     docker run --name flask-blog -d -p 8000:5000 --rm -e SECRET_KEY=my-secret-key \
     -e MAIL_SERVER=smtp.email.com -e MAIL_PORT=587 -e MAIL_USE_TLS=true \
     -e MAIL_USERNAME=<your-email-username> -e MAIL_PASSWORD=<your-email-password> \
     --link mysql:dbserver \
     -e DATABASE_URL=mysql+pymysql://flask-blog:<database-password>@dbserver/flask-blog \
     --link elasticsearch:elasticsearch \
     -e ELASTICSEARCH_URL=http://elasticsearch:9200 \
     flask-blog:latest

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Robert Darneal - python-dev@robertdarneal.com

Project Link: https://github.com/rdarneal/flask-blog

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• Miguel Grinberg's Microblog Tutorial
• Stackoverflow

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