Demonstration Site Setup

The Talawa API and Admin apps are expected to be installed in a web hosting environment.

Introduction

We now have two hosted demonstration sites that showcases the features of the applications. They are:

1. demo.talawa.io : Used to showcase the develop branch
2. test.talawa.io : Used to showcase the develop-postgres branch

These sites are also used to validate the work of our volunteer software development contributors in these types of environments.

demo.talawa.io

The site that can be accessed at this URL:

https://demo.talawa.io/

Login credentials can be found in the INSTALLATION.md guide in the develop branch.

This is a summary of how the system is configured.

App Configuration

The apps are configured to operate like this:

1. The API and Admin apps run on the server in Docker containers.
2. The API:
   1. runs as the talawa-api user.
   2. was originally configured using the setup script using default values in the .env file.
3. The Admin web app:
   1. runs as the talawa-admin user.
   2. was originally configured using the setup script using default values in the .env file except for these parameters:

      REACT_APP_TALAWA_URL=https://demo.talawa.io/graphql/
      REACT_APP_BACKEND_WEBSOCKET_URL=ws://demo.talawa.io/graphql/

Web Server Configuration

The server is configured to operate like this:

1. There is an SSL certificate for demo.talawa.io

2. The server uses Apache as a frontend reverse proxy. The configuration:

   1. Redirects demo.talawa.io port 80 traffic to port 443
   2. Proxies port 443 to the Talawa-Admin port 4321
   3. Proxies port 8443 to the Talawa-API port 4000
   4. There are no default port 80 or 443 configurations
   5. The configurations can be found in /etc/apache2/sites-enabled
   6. Logs can be viewed in the /var/log/apache2/ directory.

3. Apache Configuration

   <VirtualHost 208.109.38.72:443 [2603:3:6106:d440::]:443>
      ####################################################################
      # demo.talawa.io (Talawa-Admin HTTPS on port 443)
      ####################################################################
   
      ServerName  demo.talawa.io
   
      ####################################################################
      # Proxy (Requires these commands to activate)
      # "a2enmod proxy_wstunnel" "a2enmod proxy_http" "a2enmod proxy"
      ####################################################################
   
      # Setup the proxy configuration
      ProxyPreserveHost On
   
      # Web proxy (API endpoint)
      ProxyPass /graphql/ http://localhost:4000/graphql/
      ProxyPassReverse /graphql/ http://localhost:4000/graphql/
   
      # Web and websocket proxy (Talawa-Admin - Requires "a2enmod proxy_wstunnel")
      ProxyPass / http://localhost:4321/ upgrade=websocket
      ProxyPassReverse / http://localhost:4321/
   
      ####################################################################
      # SSL (Requires command "a2enmod ssl" to activate)
      ####################################################################
   
      SSLEngine on
   
      # This file changes each year
      SSLCertificateFile /path/to/certificate
   
      # These files don't change year to year
      SSLCertificateChainFile /path/to/certificate_chain
      SSLCertificateKeyFile /path/to/certificate_key
   
      ####################################################################
      # Logging
      ####################################################################
   
      LogLevel warn
      ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/demo.talawa.io_error.log
      CustomLog /var/log/apache2/demo.talawa.io_access.log combined
   
      ####################################################################
      # Locations (Talawa-API)
      ####################################################################
   
      <Location "/graphql">
   
         #################################################################
         # CORS Headers (Requires command "a2enmod headers" to activate)
         #################################################################
   
         # Enable Cross Origin Resource Sharing (CORS)
         # Set Access-Control-Allow-Origin (CORS) Header
   
         Header set Access-Control-Allow-Origin "*"
   
      </Location>
   
   </VirtualHost>
   

Server Cron Jobs

Daily cron jobs run to do the following:

1. Deploy the latest versions of the API and Admin develop code branches.
2. Reset the API database with the latest develop sample data.
3. Talawa-API CRON file located at /etc/cron.d/talawa-api

   0 0 * * * talawa-api cd /home/talawa-api/talawa-api && docker compose -f docker-compose.dev.yaml down --rmi all --volumes && git checkout --force develop && git fetch upstream && git reset upstream/develop --hard && npm install && docker compose -f docker-compose.dev.yaml up --build -d --remove-orphans && docker exec talawa-api-dev /bin/bash -c "npm install -g pnpm && pnpm run import:sample-data && exit"
4. Talawa-Admin CRON file located at /etc/cron.d/talawa-admin

   0 0 * * * talawa-admin cd /home/talawa-admin/talawa-admin && docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.dev.yaml down --rmi all --volumes && git checkout --force develop && git fetch upstream && git reset upstream/develop --hard && rm -rf node_modules && npm install && docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.dev.yaml up --build -d --remove-orphans

test.talawa.io

We can run the test.talawa.io site either using devcontainers or the production docker container.

1. The site can be accessed at this URL:

   https://test.talawa.io/

2. Login credentials can be found in the INSTALLATION.md guide in the develop-postgres branch.

3. In either scenario the:

   1. Admin web app:
      1. runs as the talawa-admin user.
      2. was originally configured using the setup script using default values in the .env file except for these parameters:

         REACT_APP_TALAWA_URL=https://test.talawa.io/graphql
         REACT_APP_BACKEND_WEBSOCKET_URL=ws://test.talawa.io/graphql
   2. The API app:
      1. is configured to run caddy on port 8080 and 8443 instead of 80 and 443. This is because with caddy running on these ports, we couldn't set up an internet facing webserver on port 80 and 443 that would service both Admin and the API. In the current implementation (March 2025), both apps need to run on the same port to avoid CORS errors.

The following sections provide further clarifications.

Devcontainer Configuration

This section explains how the site is configured to use devcontainers. This is the current mode of operation.

App Configuration

The apps are configured to operate like this:

1. The API and Admin apps run on the server in Docker containers.
2. The API:
   1. runs as the talawa-api user.
   2. is configured the current development API installation procedure using the .env.deploy file instead of .env.devcontainer.

Web Server Configuration

The server is configured to operate like this:

1. There is an SSL certificate for test.talawa.io

2. The server uses Apache as a frontend reverse proxy. The configuration:

   1. Redirects test.talawa.io port 80 traffic to port 443
   2. Proxies port 443 to the Talawa-Admin port 4321
   3. Proxies port 8443 to the Talawa-API port 4000
   4. There are no default port 80 or 443 configurations
   5. The configurations can be found in /etc/apache2/sites-enabled
   6. Logs can be viewed in the /var/log/apache2/ directory.

3. Apache Configuration

      <VirtualHost 132.148.74.68:443 [2603:3:6102:f190::]:443>
         ####################################################################
         # test.talawa.io (Talawa-Admin HTTPS on port 443)
         ####################################################################
   
         ServerName  test.talawa.io
   
         ####################################################################
         # Proxy (Requires these commands to activate)
         # "a2enmod proxy_wstunnel" "a2enmod proxy_http" "a2enmod proxy"
         ####################################################################
   
         # Setup the proxy configuration
         ProxyPreserveHost On
   
         # Web proxy (API GraphQL endpoint)
         ProxyPass /graphql http://localhost:4000/graphql
         ProxyPassReverse /graphql http://localhost:4000/graphql
   
         # Web proxy (API GraphiQL endpoint)
         ProxyPass /graphql http://localhost:4000/graphiql
         ProxyPassReverse /graphql http://localhost:4000/graphiql
   
         # Web and websocket proxy
         ProxyPass / http://localhost:4321/ upgrade=websocket
         ProxyPassReverse / http://localhost:4321/
   
         ####################################################################
         # SSL (Requires command "a2enmod ssl" to activate)
         ####################################################################
   
         SSLEngine on
   
         # This file changes each year
         SSLCertificateFile /path/to/certificate
   
         # These files don't change year to year
         SSLCertificateChainFile /path/to/certificate_chain
         SSLCertificateKeyFile /path/to/certificate_key
   
         ####################################################################
         # Logging
         ####################################################################
   
         LogLevel warn
         ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/test.talawa.io_error.log
         CustomLog /var/log/apache2/test.talawa.io_access.log combined
   
         <Location "/graphql">
   
            #################################################################
            # CORS Headers (Requires command "a2enmod headers" to activate)
            #################################################################
   
            # Enable Cross Origin Resource Sharing (CORS)
            # Set Access-Control-Allow-Origin (CORS) Header
   
            Header set Access-Control-Allow-Origin "*"
   
         </Location>
   
         <Location "/graphiql">
   
            #################################################################
            # CORS Headers (Requires command "a2enmod headers" to activate)
            #################################################################
   
            # Enable Cross Origin Resource Sharing (CORS)
            # Set Access-Control-Allow-Origin (CORS) Header
   
            Header set Access-Control-Allow-Origin "*"
   
        </Location>
   
      </VirtualHost>

Server Cron Jobs

Daily cron jobs run to do the following:

1. Deploy the latest versions of the API and Admin develop-postgres code branches.

2. Reset the API database with the latest develop-postgres sample data.

3. Talawa-API: This is how Talawa-API operates on the server.

   1. The application is deployed using Docker devcontainers. The configuration files can be found here:

      1. compose.devcontainer.yaml
      2. envFiles/.env.devcontainer

   2. The CRON file is located at /etc/cron.d/talawa-api

      MAILTO=talawa-api
      SHELL=/usr/bin/bash
      PATH=/usr/bin:/home/talawa-api/.local/share/pnpm
      REPO=/home/talawa-api/talawa-api
      
      # Get the repo data and configure the application
      0 0 * * * talawa-api cd $REPO && git fetch upstream && git reset upstream/develop-postgres --hard && rm -rf node_modules && bash -c "curl -fsSL https://get.pnpm.io/install.sh | bash -" && pnpm install && bash -c "cp envFiles/.env.devcontainer .env" && bash -c 'sed -i "s|MAPPED_PORT=80|MAPPED_PORT=8080|g" .env' && bash -c 'sed -i "s|MAPPED_PORT=443|MAPPED_PORT=8443|g" .env'
      
      # Restart the application and load the sample data after a 20s delay
      1 0 * * * talawa-api cd $REPO && docker compose down --rmi all --volumes && bash -c "devcontainer build --workspace-folder ." && bash -c "devcontainer up --workspace-folder ." && bash -c "docker exec talawa-api-1 /bin/bash -c 'nohup pnpm run start_development_server > /dev/null 2>&1 &'" && sleep 20 && bash -c "docker exec talawa-api-1 /bin/bash -c 'pnpm run add:sample_data && exit'"

4. Talawa-Admin: This is how Talawa-Admin operates on the server.

   1. The application is deployed using Docker. The configuration files can be found here:

      1. docker/docker-compose.deploy.yaml
      2. docker/Dockerfile.deploy
      3. envFiles/.env.production

   2. The CRON file is located at /etc/cron.d/talawa-admin

      MAILTO=root
      SHELL=/usr/bin/bash
      
      # Get the latest develop-postgres branch
      5 0 * * * talawa-admin cd /home/talawa-admin/talawa-admin && docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.deploy.yaml down --rmi all --volumes && git checkout --force develop-postgres && git fetch upstream && git reset upstream/develop-postgres --hard && rm -rf node_modules && npm install && docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.deploy.yaml --env-file .env up -d

Prod Configuration

This section explains how the site runs using the production configuration.

App Configuration

The apps are configured to operate like this:

1. The API and Admin apps run on the server in Docker containers.
2. The API:
   1. runs as the talawa-api user.
   2. is configured the current production API installation procedure using the .env.deploy file instead of .env.devcontainer.

Web Server Configuration

The server is configured to operate like this:

1. There is an SSL certificate for test.talawa.io

2. The server uses Apache as a frontend reverse proxy. The configuration:

   1. Redirects test.talawa.io port 80 traffic to port 443
   2. Proxies port 443 to the Talawa-Admin port 4321
   3. Proxies port 8443 to the Talawa-API port 4000
   4. There are no default port 80 or 443 configurations
   5. The configurations can be found in /etc/apache2/sites-enabled
   6. Logs can be viewed in the /var/log/apache2/ directory.

3. Apache Configuration

      <VirtualHost 132.148.74.68:443 [2603:3:6102:f190::]:443>
         ####################################################################
         # test.talawa.io (Talawa-Admin HTTPS on port 443)
         ####################################################################
   
         ServerName  test.talawa.io
   
         ####################################################################
         # Proxy (Requires these commands to activate)
         # "a2enmod proxy_wstunnel" "a2enmod proxy_http" "a2enmod proxy"
         ####################################################################
   
         # Setup the proxy configuration
         ProxyPreserveHost On
   
         # Web proxy (API GraphQL endpoint)
         ProxyPass /graphql http://localhost:4000/graphql
         ProxyPassReverse /graphql http://localhost:4000/graphql
   
         # Web proxy (API GraphiQL endpoint)
         ProxyPass /graphql http://localhost:4000/graphiql
         ProxyPassReverse /graphql http://localhost:4000/graphiql
   
         # Web and websocket proxy
         ProxyPass / http://localhost:4321/ upgrade=websocket
         ProxyPassReverse / http://localhost:4321/
   
         ####################################################################
         # SSL (Requires command "a2enmod ssl" to activate)
         ####################################################################
   
         SSLEngine on
   
         # This file changes each year
         SSLCertificateFile /path/to/certificate
   
         # These files don't change year to year
         SSLCertificateChainFile /path/to/certificate_chain
         SSLCertificateKeyFile /path/to/certificate_key
   
         ####################################################################
         # Logging
         ####################################################################
   
         LogLevel warn
         ErrorLog /var/log/apache2/test.talawa.io_error.log
         CustomLog /var/log/apache2/test.talawa.io_access.log combined
   
      </VirtualHost>

Server Cron Jobs

Daily cron jobs run to do the following:

1. Deploy the latest versions of the API and Admin develop-postgres code branches.

2. Reset the API database with the latest develop-postgres sample data.

3. Talawa-API: This is how Talawa-API operates on the server.

   1. The application is deployed using Docker. The configuration files can be found here:

      1. docker/docker-compose.dev.yaml
      2. docker/Dockerfile.dev

   2. The CRON file is located at /etc/cron.d/talawa-api

      MAILTO=talawa-api
      SHELL=/usr/bin/bash
      PATH=/usr/bin:/home/talawa-api/.local/share/pnpm
      REPO=/home/talawa-api/talawa-api
      
      # Get the repo data and configure the application
      #0 0 * * * talawa-api cd $REPO && git fetch upstream && git reset upstream/develop-postgres --hard && rm -rf node_modules && bash -c "curl -fsSL https://get.pnpm.io/install.sh | bash -" && pnpm install && bash -c "cp -f envFiles/.env.deploy .env" && bash -c 'sed -i "s|REPLACE_WITH_RANDOM_PASSWORD|$(openssl rand -hex 32)|g" .env' && bash -c 'sed -i "s|REPLACE_WITH_RANDOM_JWT_SECRET|$(openssl rand -hex 64)|g" .env'
      
      # Restart the application
      #1 0 * * * talawa-api cd $REPO && cp -f docker/compose.deploy.yaml . && docker compose -f compose.deploy.yaml down --rmi all --volumes && docker compose -f compose.deploy.yaml --env-file .env up -d

4. Talawa-Admin: This is how Talawa-Admin operates on the server.

   1. The application is deployed using Docker. The configuration files can be found here:

      1. docker/docker-compose.deploy.yaml
      2. docker/Dockerfile.deploy

   2. The CRON file is located at /etc/cron.d/talawa-admin

      MAILTO=root
      SHELL=/usr/bin/bash
      
      # Get the latest develop-postgres branch
      5 0 * * * talawa-admin cd /home/talawa-admin/talawa-admin && docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.deploy.yaml down --rmi all --volumes && git checkout --force develop-postgres && git fetch upstream && git reset upstream/develop-postgres --hard && rm -rf node_modules && npm install && docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.deploy.yaml --env-file .env up -d