iamjessklein / teach-api

A basic API to store data for the Teach / Mozilla Learning website.

This is a backend data store with a REST API for use by the teach website.

Requirements

• Python 2.7
• pip and virtualenv

Quick Start

virtualenv venv

# On Windows, replace the following line with 'venv\Scripts\activate'.
source venv/bin/activate

pip install -r requirements.minimal.txt
python manage.py syncdb

You will be asked if you want to create an administrative user. Respond affirmatively, fill out the details, and then run:

python manage.py runserver

Environment Variables

Unlike traditional Django settings, we use environment variables for configuration to be compliant with twelve-factor apps.

Note: When an environment variable is described as representing a boolean value, if the variable exists with any value (even the empty string), the boolean is true; otherwise, it's false.

Note: When running manage.py, the following environment variables are given default values: SECRET_KEY, PORT, ORIGIN. CORS_API_PERSONA_ORIGINS. Also, DEBUG is enabled.

• SECRET_KEY is a large random value.
• DEBUG is a boolean value that indicates whether debugging is enabled (this should always be false in production).
• BROWSERID_AUTOLOGIN_EMAIL specifies an email address to auto-login as when Persona login buttons are clicked. It is useful for offline development and is only valid if DEBUG is true.
• PORT is the port that the server binds to.
• ORIGIN is the origin of the server, as it appears to users. If DEBUG is enabled, this defaults to http://localhost:PORT. Otherwise, it must be defined.
• DATABASE_URL is the URL for the database. Defaults to a sqlite:// URL pointing to db.sqlite3 at the root of the repository. If this value is the name of another (all-caps) environment variable, e.g. HEROKU_POSTGRESQL_AMBER_URL, that variable's value will be used as the database URL.
• SECURE_PROXY_SSL_HEADER is an optional HTTP request header field name and value indicating that the request is actually secure. For example, Heroku deployments should set this to X-Forwarded-Proto: https.
• DEFAULT_FROM_EMAIL is the default email address to use for various automated correspondence from the site manager(s), such as password resets. Defaults to webmaster@localhost.
• TEACH_STAFF_EMAILS is a comma-separated list of email addresses representing people who should be emailed whenever a Webmaker Club is created, or something else notable (but also non-technical) is done on the site.
• EMAIL_BACKEND_URL is a URL representing the email backend to use. Examples include console:, smtp://hostname:port, and smtp+tls://user:pass@hostname:port. Mandrill can also be used via 'mandrill://your-mandrill-api-key', though this requires the djrill package.
• LOGINAPI_URL is the URL of the Webmaker login API server. Defaults to https://login.webmaker.org.
• LOGINAPI_AUTH is the username:password pair that will be used to authenticate with the Webmaker login server, e.g. john:1234.
• CORS_API_PERSONA_ORIGINS is a comma-separated list of origins that can submit Persona assertions to the API server in exchange for API tokens. This list should not contain any whitespace. If DEBUG is enabled, any origin can submit Persona assertions.

Deployment

It's assumed that production deploys (i.e. where DEBUG is false) are hosted over https. The site will not work if it is hosted on production over http.