🐴📦 packtrain

packtrain: a line or succession of pack animals, as mules or burros, used to transport food and supplies over terrain unsuitable for wagons or other vehicles.

packtrain is software for grading and student extension management. It has a simple interface for instructors to create classes, manage student extension requests, and migrate grades from external websites to Canvas. Additionally, it provides full-feature functionality for students requesting extensions on work.

Development Environment

Install Docker and Docker Compose and then copy .env.sample to .env and generate the following tokens as follows:

echo "PG_PASS=$(openssl rand -base64 36 | tr -d '\n')" >> .env
echo "AUTHENTIK_SECRET_KEY=$(openssl rand -base64 60 | tr -d '\n')" >> .env
echo "AUTHENTIK_BOOTSTRAP_PASSWORD=$(openssl rand -base64 36 | tr -d '\n')" >> .env
echo "AUTHENTIK_BOOTSTRAP_TOKEN=$(openssl rand -base64 36 | tr -d '\n')" >> .env
echo "MINIO_ROOT_PASSWORD=$(openssl rand -base64 36 | tr -d '\n')" >> .env
touch certificates/certs/passwords
echo "CA_PASS=$(openssl rand -base64 36 | tr -d '\n')" >> certificates/certs/passwords
echo "KEY_PASS=$(openssl rand -base64 36 | tr -d '\n')" >> certificates/certs/passwords

Generate certificates (only needs to be done once per setup): docker compose up certificates

Build all services: docker compose build

Run the compose: docker compose up -d

To run without backend and frontend containers running, run: docker compose up localhost.dev-local -d

Backend

Install JDK 23.

To run the backend on Linux/Mac, enter the packtrain-service directory and run: ./mvnw spring-boot:run

To run the backend tests, run: ./mvnw test "-Dspring.profiles.active=test"

If you run into an issue building on Windows, make sure that your user has permission to create symlinks. StackOverflow thread about this issue.

Frontend

Install Node.js and navigate to the packtrain-frontend directory.

Run npm i to install all the dependencies.

Run npm run dev to launch the development server.

Additionally, copy .env.sample to .env in all of the packtrain-frontend/apps directories.

Authentik

If authentik doesn't start correctly, follow this guide.

You can sign in at https://localhost.dev/auth/ with the username akadmin and the password that you set in the .env file.

If everything is working, https://localhost.dev/auth/ should be the authentik login URL.

Create a new application, it can be any name, but it must have the slug grading-admin.

Create a new provider called grading-admin with the following settings.

Client type: public

Redirect URIs: regex, https://localhost.dev/.* strict, https://oauth.pstmn.io/v1/callback

Finally, assign that provider to the application that you just created.

Creating users

To create a user, copy the user.json.template in authentik-sidecar/src/users to user.json and fill in values.

Recreate authentik and you can now login with the information you provided in that user file.

Certificates

Make sure that you trust the localhost.dev certificates when running the backend and frontend.

macOS:

keytool -import -alias grading-admin-ca -keystore $(/usr/libexec/java_home)/lib/security/cacerts -file certificates/certs/localhost-root/localhost-root.CA.pem

Windows:

keytool -import -alias grading-admin-ca -keystore "C:\Program Files\Java\jdk-23/lib/security/cacerts" -file certificates/certs/localhost-root/localhost-root.CA.pem

(If you get an "access denied" error, run this in an admin PowerShell instance. You also may need to adjust the path to your cacerts file)

And then saying 'yes' to the prompt asking to trust that certificate.

Then make sure to define the PG_PASS env variable in your IDE's run config. (in Intellij it is under Modify Options -> Environmental Varibles. Then set PG_PASS=<whatever the .env file says>)

Finally, start all the dependencies with

docker compose up localhost.dev-local -d

This starts all the local services and proxies them behind https://localhost.dev.

Additionally, add localhost.dev 127.0.0.1 to your hosts file (google for your specific setup).

Then you can start (and restart) the frontend and backend independently of the docker environment.

Regenerating Authentik

If you run into issues with Authentik (or we change a config param that requires you to regenerate), you can regenerate the Authentik config by running:

docker compose build authentik-sidecar
docker compose run --rm authentik-sidecar --recreate

Postman

1. Create a new collection called API.
2. Click the Auth tab and change Auth Type to OAuth 2.0.
3. Name the Token Name as anything.
4. Toggle "Authorize using browser" under Callback URL.
5. Set Auth URL to https://localhost.dev/auth/application/o/authorize/.
6. Set Access Token URL to https://localhost.dev/auth/application/o/token/
7. Set Client ID to grading_admin_provider.
8. Leave everything else blank and hit Get New Access Token at the bottom of the page.

Issues

If you run into issues relating to your DB password not working, ensure that there are no other postgres instances running on your computer.

You can check this on macOS by running

sudo lsof -i tcp:5432

Then you can kill those processes by running

sudo kill -9 <pid of process to kill>