Installation and Deployment Guide

Before Starting the Installation

The quickest way to use LCDA is to directly visit the official website of LCDA.

However, if you want to deploy your own LCDA, it is essential to ensure that you can create and configure the following instances: Google Cloud Run, Google Cloud Storage, and a publicly accessible database such as Amazon RDS.

Please note that deploying LCDA in the cloud requires a certain level of technical expertise, and it is recommended that you have experience with cloud services before attempting to deploy LCDA on your own.

Prerequisites

• Miniconda v23.1.0+ or Anaconda v23.1.0+ if you use Conda virtual environment

• Python v3.7+ if you use venv virtual environment

• Git v2.30+

• Google Cloud Run

• Google Cloud Storage

• Amazon RDS

Installation and Deployment Steps

This section will help you step by step from scratch to deploying the LCDA platform.

1. Create and change into a new directory

   mkdir COMP208-202223-Team16
   cd COMP208-202223-Team16
   

2. Pull source code

   git clone https://github.com/COMP208-Team-16-2022-23/Group-Project-Code.git
   

3. Change into project directory

   cd Group-Project-Code
   

4. Create and activate a Python virtual environment

   You can choose either venv or conda to create a virtual environment.

TIP

• venv environment is suitable for short-term testing and can be deleted along with the project folder without affecting the system environment.
• conda environment is suitable for long-term development as it offers more comprehensive package management and environment management functions.

venv virtual environment

This command will create a virtual environment in the current directory.

python -m venv .

Activate the virtual environment

source ./bin/activate

.\Scripts\activate.bat

Install the required packages

pip install -r requirements.txt

Conda virtual environment

Create a Conda virtual environment named COMP208 with Python version 3.10.

conda env create -f ./misc/environment.yml

Activate Conda virtual environment

conda activate COMP208

5. Configure cloud services

   LCDA was originally designed to be deployed in the cloud. Therefore, configuring cloud services is an essential part of running LCDA smoothly. For each cloud service configuration tutorial, please refer to its official documentation, which will not be repeated in this article.

   • Amazon RDS: LCDA uses Amazon RDS to host the website database. Detailed database configuration tutorials can be found in the official documentation. However, users can also choose other cloud hosting service providers for their database needs.

   • Google Cloud Storage: LCDA uses Google Cloud Storage as the storage server for the website. Detailed tutorials on using Google Cloud Storage can be found in the official documentation.

   • Google Cloud Run: LCDA uses Google Cloud Run to host and deploy the website. A detailed tutorial on using Google Cloud Run can be found in the official documentation.

   Do not worry, many cloud service providers offer users a certain amount of free trial quota. If LCDA is only used for testing, there will be no additional expenses.

6. Configure /secret.py

   Before you can deploy and run LCDA, you need to configure the /secret.py file with relevant information. This file contains sensitive information such as API keys, database passwords, and other secrets that are required for the proper functioning of the application. In this case, it also includes relevant Google Cloud information.

   The following is an example of configuring /secret.py:

   from datetime import timedelta
   
   # DOMAIN
   DOMAIN = 'Your google cloud run domain'
   
   SECRET_KEY = 'Your secret key (i.e. a random string)'
   PERMANENT_SESSION_LIFETIME = timedelta(minutes=45)
   
   # Configuration for the database
   HOSTNAME = 'Your database hostname'
   PORT = 'Your database port'
   DATABASE = 'Your database name'
   USERNAME = 'Your database account username'
   PASSWORD = 'Your database account password'
   LOCAL_TEST = False  # set to True will ignore the above configuration and use local sqlite database called project.db
   
   # Configuration variables for email
   # configure the mail settings
   MAIL_SERVER = 'Your email server'
   MAIL_PORT = 465 # Your email server port
   MAIL_USE_SSL = True # Whether your email server uses SSL
   MAIL_USERNAME = 'Your email address'
   MAIL_PASSWORD = 'Your email account password' 
   MAIL_DEFAULT_SENDER = 'LCDA Team'
   MAIL_MAX_EMAILS = None
   
   # Configuration variables for Google Cloud Storage
   GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS = {
    # Your service account key, in json format.
   }
   BUCKET_NAME = 'Your Google Cloud Storage bucket name'
   

7. Deploy LCDA locally

   export FLASK_APP=app.py
   export FLASK_ENV=development
   flask run
   

   set FLASK_APP=app.py
   set FLASK_ENV=development
   flask run
   

   $env:FLASK_APP = "app.py"
   $env:FLASK_ENV = "development"
   flask run
   

You're done! Now you can visit http://127.0.0.1:5000 in your browser to access LCDA.