prompt-a-thon

Install

Wiki home · prompt-a-thon.bitilia.com

Production install is for Ubuntu or Debian with systemd. The installer is setup.py. It is not a setuptools package.

What the installer does

When run as root, setup.py:

  1. Installs apt packages: Python, build tools, WeasyPrint libraries, qpdf, and LibreOffice Writer
  2. Creates system users promptathon and promptathon-convert
  3. Copies the app to /opt/prompt-a-thon (change with --install-dir)
  4. Writes /opt/prompt-a-thon/.env with a new SECRET_KEY and mode 0600
  5. Creates a virtualenv and installs requirements.txt
  6. Initialises SQLite and promotes the admin email
  7. Installs and enables these units:
    • prompt-a-thon.service — Gunicorn on 127.0.0.1:8100
    • prompt-a-thon-convert.service — DOCX to PDF daemon
    • prompt-a-thon-jobs.timer — maintenance every 15 minutes

It does not obtain a TLS certificate. Put Caddy or nginx in front of port 8100. Examples are in deploy/.

Interactive

sudo python3 setup.py

Non-interactive

sudo python3 setup.py --yes \
  --domain competition.example.edu \
  --admin-email [email protected] \
  --app-name "prompt-a-thon" \
  --college-name "Example College" \
  --mail-provider smtp \
  --smtp-host smtp.example.edu \
  --smtp-user [email protected] \
  --smtp-password 'replace-me'

--mail-provider accepts smtp, brevo_api, ses_api, or postfix.

Local development

python3 setup.py --dev creates a virtualenv in the checkout, writes .env if missing, and initialises the database. It does not need root and does not install systemd units. On Windows the virtualenv executables are under venv\Scripts\.

LibreOffice must be installed separately if you want DOCX conversion. PDF uploads do not need it. The conversion daemon listens on a Unix socket, which is the production path on Linux.

After install

  1. Point DNS at the server.
  2. Reverse-proxy 127.0.0.1:8100 and terminate TLS there.
  3. Open the site and sign in as the admin email. A code is sent by the mail provider you configured.
  4. In Admin, set the timeline, tasks, allowlist, and branding.

Do not publish port 8100. The app trusts the number of proxy hops in PROXY_FIX_X_FOR, PROXY_FIX_X_PROTO, and PROXY_FIX_X_HOST (default 1).

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