RCOS IO

RCOS IO is the latest iteration of an admin and member portal for the Rensselaer Center for Open Source. It was created by Coordinators in 2022 and will be maintained by alumnus Frank Matranga until at least 2028, solving the issue of loss of experience as student leadership comes and goes.

Motivation

RCOS has to handle the data of typically 350+ students each semester. Data includes enrolled students, external organizations and their users, projects, semester enrollments, meetings, mentors, small groups, etc. Most of the operations are straightforward CRUD operations (Create Read Update Destroy) and the data does not often change. As a result, a traditional web application using a relational database is a good choice. Django was chosen because it is batteries-included and opinionated, and Python is a very well-known and accessible language to develop and deploy. Currently the site, database, and cache are hosted at the cost of a few dollars a month on Railway.

Stack

• Python Django backend
• Plain old HTML frontend using
  • Bulma CSS library
• PostgreSQL database
• Redis cache

Local Development

Requirements

• Python 3.11+
• Poetry

Setup

1. Clone repository
2. Install dependencies poetry install
3. Create a .env file (not the placement of the .) and add environment values
   • see .env.example for the expected variables
4. Activate Poetry shell poetry shell
5. Setup database ./manage.py migrate OR ask maintainers for test data DB file
6. Setup cache table in database ./manage.py createcachetable
7. Create a superuser for testing ./manage.py createsuperuser

Running

1. poetry shell
2. ./manage.py runserver
3. Navigate to http://127.0.0.1:8000/auth/login/ and enter the email of your superuser and choose "Login (admin)"

Deploying to Production

1. git push origin main:production

Updating Dependencies

We use MEND Renovate to automatically open dependency update PRs.

To manually update dependencies, run poetry update.

Architecture Diagrams

(Best viewed on GitHub)

C4Context
      title System Context diagram for RCOS IO

      Person(userA, "RCOS Student", "RPI students participating in RCOS.")
      Person(userB, "RCOS Coordinator/Faculty Advisor", "Administrators of RCOS.")
      Person(userEx, "External User/Organization", "Non-RPI affiliated persons/organizations who pitch and lead projects externally.")

      System(RCOSIOSystem, "RCOS IO System", "Allows users and administrators to manage their RCOS data.")

      System_Ext(DiscordSystem, "Discord", "Provides communication platform for RCOS users and provides an API for account linking and automation.")
      System_Ext(GitHubSystem, "GitHub", "Stores git repositories of RCOS users' projects and provides an API for account linking and data fetching.")

      BiRel(userA, RCOSIOSystem, "Uses")
      BiRel(userB, RCOSIOSystem, "Uses")
      BiRel(userEx, RCOSIOSystem, "Uses")
      BiRel(RCOSIOSystem, DiscordSystem, "Interacts with")
      BiRel(RCOSIOSystem, GitHubSystem, "Interacts with")

C4Container
    title Container diagram for RCOS IO System

    Person(userA, "RCOS Student", "RPI students participating in RCOS.")
    Person(userB, "RCOS Coordinator/Faculty Advisor", "Administrators of RCOS.")
    Person(userEx, "External User/Organization", "Non-RPI affiliated persons/organizations who pitch and lead projects externally.")

    System_Ext(DiscordSystem, "Discord", "Provides communication platform for RCOS users and provides an API for account linking and automation.")
    System_Ext(GitHubSystem, "GitHub", "Stores git repositories of RCOS users' projects and provides an API for account linking and data fetching.")

    Container_Boundary(c1, "RCOS IO") {
        Container(web_app, "Web Application", "Python, Django", "Delivers the static content and the Internet banking SPA")
        ContainerDb(database, "Postgres", "SQL Database", "Stores RCOS-related data including users, projects, meetings, small groups, etc..")
        ContainerDb(cache, "Redis", "Cache", "Caches data to speedup expensive queries.")
        Container_Ext(email, "Mailjet", "Email API", "Delivers the static content and the Internet banking SPA")
        Container_Ext(sentry, "Sentry", "Error Tracking", "Logs and tracks errors.")
    }

    Rel(userA, web_app, "Uses", "HTTPS")
    Rel(userB, web_app, "Uses", "HTTPS")
    Rel(userEx, web_app, "Uses", "HTTPS")
    BiRel(web_app, database, "Reads from/writes to")
    BiRel(web_app, cache, "Reads from/writes to")
    Rel(web_app, sentry, "Logs errors to")
    BiRel(web_app, email, "Sends emails to users via")
    Rel(web_app, DiscordSystem, "Sends messages/links accounts/adds users to server")
    Rel(web_app, GitHubSystem, "Fetches project repository data/links accounts")