README

This repository is referenced heavily in the Linux Web Operations LiveLessons video series.

Simple Flask application that does the following:

1. Provides a UI and an API for searching flickr for photos
2. Sends the query term and its source (api or web) to an AWS SQS queue
3. q_worker.py reads the messages from the queue and inserts them in a mysql database
4. The /showqueries endpoint shows a list of the queries, the source, and the time it was inserted to the database
5. Provides a sentiment endpoint that uses the free 3scale API to set and retrieve the use of various search terms. This is only used to demonstrate the use of Lua embedded in Nginx configuration.

Install

First you'll need Flickr API credentials, full access to an AWS SQS queue, and a database.

0. If you're going to use apache + mod_wsgi, the .wsgi file in the repository root expects it to be in /opt/venv/bin/
1. sudo pip install -r requirements.txt Do this in a virtualenv or for system python, but make sure the app server knows about it
2. Set the env variables (see list below)
3. db-migrate --config=simple_db_migrate/simple_db_migrate.conf
4. python q_worker.py >/dev/null & Run the queue reader in the background. The output is the number of message fetched.
5. python runserver.py Start the flask app
6. Visit http://localhost:5000

The following endpoints exist:

1. / The landing page
2. /search/[term] Search Flickr for photos matching certain term
3. /search/[term]/[maximum] Same as 2. but return [maximum] photos
4. /api/search/[term] Same as 2. but return JSON
5. /sentiment/[term] Show the sentiment of searches for this term

Additional features & info

The etc/ directory contains configurations for apache httpd, nginx, haproxy, uwsgi, and other components of a web app stack to demonstrate features of each. The intent is to show how to operate a more complex web application using a simple app as an example.

Environment Variables