Personal Flask server

This repository is provided as documentation and source control for my personal Flask server project. This project is not intended to be run by anybody but myself, and I cannot provide support for it.

Components (Blueprints)

spotify

Show a user's most played artists and tracks using the v1/me/top Spotify API.

slack

Functions for Slack workspaces that abuse the pin feature by pinning amusing messages.

Can be set up to provide real-time storage of new pinned messages in a Slack workspace to a database.

Slash commands:

• /pinhit - Selects a random pinned message from the database and prints it to a Slack channel
• /potd - "Pinhit of the day" prints pins from the current day in prior years and prints it to a Slack channel, similar to the "memories" feature of other social media sites

twitch

TwitchSurf: Twitch.tv stream randomizer. Displays a random Twitch stream every time the "Surf" button is pressed.

youtube

Usage format: http://example.com/youtube/<channel_id>

Setup

NOTE: These instructions were tested using bash in a Debian-based Linux distribution.

Create new venv in the project root and activate:

cd /path/to/flask_server
python3 -m venv venv
. venv/bin/activate

Install project and its dependencies:

pip3 install -e .

At this point the root project folder flask_server should have at least these components:

flask_server/
    billy_flask/
    instance/
        config.cfg.example
    setup.py

Copy instance/config.cfg.example to instance/config.cfg and set config options

Create media folders (symbolic links are fine with proper permissions):

• instance/slack_media (read/write)
• instance/twitter_media (read/write)
• instance/vines (read)

Create databases using schemas in the schemas folder. Pymysql doesn't have a good way of doing this, so do it manually for now:

cat billy_flask/schema/*.sql | mysql -u username -p

Deployment

Gunicorn3

Install gunicorn within the virtual environment:

. venv/bin/activate
pip3 install gunicorn
deactivate

Deploy:

./venv/bin/gunicorn -b127.0.0.1:5000 'billy_flask:create_app()'

systemd integration

As root:

touch /etc/systemd/system/flask_server.service

Edit the service file using this template:

[Unit]
Description=Flask server on port 5000 using gunicorn3
After=network.target mysql.service

[Service]
WorkingDirectory=/full/path/to/flask_server
ExecStart=/full/path/to/flask_server/venv/bin/gunicorn -b127.0.0.1:5000 'billy_flask:create_app()'
KillMode=process
User=user
Group=group

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

• User and Group should have read/write permissions on all project files and folders

Reload systemd after editing service (as root):

systemctl daemon-reload

Example nginx configuration

server {
    listen 443 ssl;
    server_name         flask.example.com;
    ssl_certificate     /full/path/to/fullchain.pem;
    ssl_certificate_key /full/path/to/privkey.pem;

    access_log  /var/log/nginx/access.log;
    error_log   /var/log/nginx/error.log;

    location / {
        proxy_pass         http://127.0.0.1:5000;
        proxy_set_header   Host                     $host;
        proxy_set_header   X-Real-IP                $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header   X-Forwarded-For          $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header   X-Forwarded-Host         $server_name;
        proxy_read_timeout 1200s;
    }
}