dsabsay / webcomics

webcomics

Requirements

• Python 3.7 (because this uses sqlite3.Connection.backup())
• On Ubuntu, the python3.7-dev package is required by psutil

Deploying

To deploy the app, follow these steps:

1. Create a Python 3 virtual environment: python3 -m venv env
2. Activate the virtual environment: source env/bin/activate
3. Run pip install --upgrade 'git+https://github.com/dsabsay/webcomics.git#egg=webcomics&subdirectory=app'
4. Configure the app by editing env/var/webcomics-instance/config.py. See Configuration below for what to include.
5. Run gunicorn --bind=127.0.0.1:4020 --workers=2 --daemon --pidfile=gunicorn.pid 'webcomics:create_app()'
6. Set up NGINX to proxy requests to gunicorn.
7. Initialize the database if you will be using a new one: export FLASK_APP=webcomics; flask init-db
8. Ensure you have configured a deploy key on the DB_BACKUP_REMOTE_REPO and that the private key is available at DB_BACKUP_DEPLOY_KEY.
9. Start the webcomicsd background worker process: flask webcomicsd start

All logs are stored in the application instance folder. This is var/webcomics-instance/ inside the virtual environment directory. The PID file for webcomicsd is also stored here.

Configuration

The app has the following configuration parameters.

Name	Required	Description	Example
DATABASE	Yes	Absolute path to databse file.	"/home/myuser/webcomics/db.sqlite"
DB_BACKUP_LOCAL_REPO	Yes	Absolute path to local repo to hold database backup.	"/home/myuser/webcomics/db"
DB_BACKUP_REMOTE_REPO	Yes	URI to remote repo where backups will be pushed.	"[e-mail]:dsabsay/test-db-backup.git"
DB_BACKUP_DEPLOY_KEY	Yes	Absolute path to SSH deploy key for DB_BACKUP_REMOTE_REPO.	"/home/myuser/.ssh/test_deploy_key_rsa"
SECRET_KEY	Yes	Secret used to encrypt session data. See here for what to set this to.	"209rj*$&h41o2i4sakfjas1238asdfj"
DB_BACKUP_INTERVAL	Yes	An integer that together with DB_BACKUP_TIME_UNIT specifies the frequency of database backups. These periodic backups are run by webcomicsd.	10
DB_BACKUP_TIME_UNIT	Yes	A string that specifies the unit of time for database backups. One of: seconds, minutes, hours, days, or weeks.	"days"

Development Plan

• Bookmarks for narrative-style comics. Can be implemented as a bookmarklet.
• DB backup job
• Why are requests getting logged in jobs.log?
• Add CLI command to add a comic.
• Deploy
• Improve layout on mobile.
• Display bookmarklet on page. Or better yet, provide a button that will automatically add the bookmark.
• Add interval/unit to webcomicsd status output.
• Fix webpage titles. They're getting populated with raw HTML somehow.
• Add "last db backup on ..." somewhere on front page or hidden page.
• Bookmark enhancement: Smartly handle when the user is not logged in by saving URL temporarily, requesting login, and then saving the bookmark when the user logs in.
• Implement reads/ feature to mark strips as read when clicked.
• Viewer (for webcomic name)
• RSS feed updater
• Ability to add new comics. Will require mappings from feed fields -> DB columns.