Ecobasa Redesign 2020

Ecobasa is a gift-economy network for sustainable communities

This is a work-in-progress attempt of a redesign.

What people and communities do on ecobasa:

• Give and wish for things: materials, tools, anything else, matched nearby.
• Share skills: teach, learn by doing, lend a hand; volunteer at communities and help with their projects.
• Swap seeds & plants: seeds and plants are their own kind, with variety, harvest year and whether they are open-pollinated, matched by crop; a community can keep a seed library.
• Share food: a harvest too big to eat, preserves and food saved from the bin, with an optional best-before date.
• Run a tool library: lend tools instead of giving them away. People ask for the days or hours they need something, and a lending calendar shows who has what when.
• Share cars in a community: the community's cargo bike, car, trailer or van (their own kind, "Vehicle"), booked by the day or the hour, like the tools.

Setup with Docker

The simplest way to develop: Docker brings PostGIS, GDAL and Mailpit along.

cp django.env.example django.env
cp postgres.env.example postgres.env
docker compose up

In postgres.env, set the user, password and database that DATABASE_URL in django.env uses (ecobasa/ecobasa/ecobasa in the example).

• django: compiles translations, migrates and runs the dev server on http://localhost:8000
• database: PostGIS
• mailpit: catches all emails, at http://localhost:8025
• watch: rebuilds the CSS on changes
• scheduler: the scheduled jobs, only with docker compose --profile scheduler up

Commands and tests run in the django container:

docker compose exec django python manage.py createsuperuser
docker compose exec django python manage.py seed_demo_data
docker compose exec django pytest

After changing Pipfile, rebuild the image: docker compose build django.

Setup without Docker

Postgis

Because we are using postgis for location fields, you need a postgres db with postgis extensions for this to work, even for development, sorry.

Install postgresql database server and postgis dependencies:

apt install libgdal-dev postgis postgresql-12

Create normal database in postgres:

su postgres
createuser ecobasa
createdb ecobasa -O ecobasa

Then add postgis extensions to this database:

su postgres
psql -d ecobasa
CREATE EXTENSION postgis;

normal dev setup

pipenv install --dev
pipenv shell
python manage.py migrate
npm install
npm run build

Run Tests

The database user must have permission to create a new test database and add postgis extensions:

su postgres
psql
ALTER_ROLE ecobasa SUPERUSER;

pytest

Continous Deployment

https://ecobasa.herokuapp.com/

(auto deploys master branch)

Management commands

add docker compose exec django before the following commands for a docker setup

• python manage.py load_vocabularies: loads the thing vocabularies (gift_economy/gifts/vocabularies/) after editing them and recognizes existing listings again.
• python manage.py match_everything: matches all existing offers and wishes, e.g. after changing the matching.
• python manage.py send_test_reply "text" [--key KEY] [--photo path]: in development, answers the latest (or a given) reference request in Mailpit like a mail app would; then run fetch_reference_replies.

Settings (env)

• STADIA_MAPS_KEY: for the map tiles
• DJANGO_SITE_URL: base for links in emails, e.g. https://ecobasa.org
• REFERENCE_REPLY_ADDRESS: e.g. [email protected]. Replies go to references+<key>@ecobasa.org; the key is also in the subject, in case the mail server doesn't deliver plus addresses. Leave empty to only offer the link.
• REFERENCE_IMAP_HOST (e.g. mail.ecobytes.net), REFERENCE_IMAP_USER, REFERENCE_IMAP_PASSWORD, REFERENCE_IMAP_FOLDER (default INBOX): the mailbox for replies
• REFERENCE_REQUEST_DELAY_DAYS (1), REFERENCE_REQUEST_UNDATED_DELAY_DAYS (7), REFERENCE_REQUEST_MAX_AGE_DAYS (30): when to ask for a reference, and how far back
• PROJECT_STALE_DAYS (60), PROJECT_ARCHIVE_GRACE_DAYS (14): when a project nobody updated gets an "Is this still current?" email, and when it is archived without an answer

In development, replies are read from Mailpit instead of IMAP.

Scheduled jobs

The jobs that run on their own are in crontab, run by supercronic in the scheduler container (same image and settings as django, times in TZ, Europe/Berlin). It logs to the container output, and skips a job while its previous run is still going.

When	Command
every 5 minutes	fetch_reference_replies
daily, 9:00	archive_stale_projects
daily, 10:00	send_reference_requests
Thursdays, 17:00	send_suggestion_emails

To change a time or add a job, edit crontab and restart the container (docker compose restart scheduler). Any job can still be run by hand with python manage.py <command>.

In development the scheduler is off, so emails only go out when you run a command. To try it (emails land in Mailpit):

docker compose --profile scheduler up