Monitoring-Backend

Python software package that processes, filters and calibrate times series environmental monitoring data. Serves the data in a dynamic Django API.

Important Information

WARNING: project/settings.py LINE 30 DEBUG setting should be False for security reasons before production deployment. Leaving this setting at True is only ok during testing and development.

Application Configuration and Operation

For details on how to operate the GC-Net application, please see the README documentation at gcnet/README.rst

Installation

This software requires Python 3.8 and Django, it was developed using PyCharm IDE.

To install gcnet-backend follow these steps:

1. Clone the gcnet-backend repo from Github:

   https://github.com/EnviDat/monitoring-backend.git
   

2. Ensure PDM is installed on your system and pep528 support is enabled.

   https://pdm.fming.dev/latest/usage/pep582/

3. Install the dependencies using PDM

   For example:

   pdm install
   
   As per PEP582, dependencies are located under __pypackages__
   

Database Setup and .env Configuration

WARNING: Never commit the .env file to GitHub!

Create a .env file at project/.env and enter your secret key, port, and database settings ("db" means database). A .env file must be added to the "project" directory so that that database and NGINX server operate securely and correctly. project/settings.py reads the values from this .env file. This project was developed using a Postgres database. If using a local Postgres database the port number will probably be 5432.

Official documentation on why it is critical to set and protect SECRET_KEY: https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.1/howto/deployment/checklist/#secret-key

ALLOWED_HOSTS contains the IP or domain of the server. This is set to '*' during development automatically.

PORT is the port number used by the NGINX server in runserver.py

By default Django writes to the public schema of a Postgres database. These settings should be entered in the DATABASE_xxx settings.

This application uses the MonitoringRouter in project/routers.py to direct database operations to the correct schema. In your database make sure to have a "lwf" schema in the database used in the LWF_DB_xxx settings and a "gcnet" schema in the database used in the GCNET_DB_xxx settings.

.env Configuration Template:

SECRET_KEY=<secret key>

ALLOWED_HOSTS='["<IP or Domain>", "<IP or Domain>"]'
PROXY_PREFIX=<Optional URL prefix if required / served behind a proxy>
LOG_LEVEL=<Log level for app printing to STDOUT>

DATABASE_NAME=<db_name>
DATABASE_USER=<db_user>
DATABASE_PASSWORD=<db_password>
DATABASE_HOST=<localhost or IP address of server where DB is hosted>
DATABASE_PORT=<5432 or whichever port is assigned to DB>

LWF_DB_SCHEMA="-c search_path=lwf"
LWF_DB_NAME=<db_name>
LWF_DB_USER=<db_user>
LWF_DB_PASSWORD=<db_password>
LWF_DB_HOST=<localhost or IP address of server where DB is hosted>
LWF_DB_PORT=<5432 or whichever port is assigned to DB>

GCNET_DB_SCHEMA="-c search_path=gcnet"
GCNET_DB_NAME=<db_name>
GCNET_DB_USER=<db_user>
GCNET_DB_PASSWORD=password
GCNET_DB_HOST=<localhost or IP address of server where DB is hosted>
GCNET_DB_PORT=<5432 or whichever port is assigned to DB>