Group Management System

Form groups and submit project proposals for your software engineering group project, all in one platform.

Features

📕 Students

• 🚩 Create groups
• ⚙ Manage group members
• ✉ Apply to join groups
• 📝 Edit & submit project proposals

📚 Administrators

• ⏰ Set deadlines
• ✏ Import students
• 🚧 Set group size limits
• 🔍 View reports (grouping/proposal status of students and groups)
• 🎟 Allocate groups for ungrouped students
• ⭕ Approve/Reject proposals
• 📦 Archive the current semester & start a new one

💡 Everyone

• 💬 Comment on the proposal
• ⭐ Add groups to favorite
• 👤 Edit bio
• 🔑 Change password

📋 TODO

• 🖼 Showcase project results
• 🗺 Explore projects of archived semesters
• 🔔 Receive & view notifications

Important time frames

• 🚀 At the start of the semester

  This is the time for the administrators to set the deadlines and group size limits of the semester in the Semester Tools. Students can be imported by clicking the Import Students button and uploading a file in the same format as the sample student list. The initial passwords of the students can be downloaded by clicking the Download Student Credentials button. Students can change their passwords once they've logged in using the initial passwords.

• 📢 Before the grouping deadline

  This is the time for the students to form groups. A student can either choose to create a group or apply to a group. The grouping status of each student can be viewed by the administrators by downloading the student report on the Reports page.

• 💭 Before the proposal deadline (After the grouping deadline)

  This is the time for the students to work on and refine their project proposals. Once a group is satisfied with its proposal, the group owner can submit it. Administrators can allocate groups for the ungrouped students. They can also visit different groups and comment on their current proposals.

• 🎯 After the proposal deadline

  This is the time for the administrators to review the submitted proposals. For each submitted proposal, they can either accept it or reject it. If the proposal is rejected, the group will be given the chance to edit and resubmit the proposal without penalties. However, if a group did not submit their proposal, or they made a late submission, their late status will be shown on their group's page and also on the group report available to the administrators.

• 🏁 After the semester

  This is the time for the administrators to archive the semester in the Semester Tools and perhaps plan for the new semester.

Deployment instructions

The project is docker ready, using docker-compose for deployment by default.

Dockerfiles are located at src/docker/.

The project deployment is tested under Ubuntu 20.04, and the use of a Linux server is recommended.

Install docker on the server

Install docker on the production server by following the official guide Get Docker.

Method 1: Deploy with continuous integration (Recommended)

The project uses GitHub Actions for continuous integration

Add secrets

On the GitHub repository page, navigate to Settings > Secrets

Add the following secrets:

name	content	example
ADMIN_USERNAME	admin user name, must be in email format	superuser@gms.com
ADMIN_PASSWORD	admin initial password	foo
MYSQL_DATABASE	database name	gms
MYSQL_USER	mysql username	gms
MYSQL_PASSWORD	mysql user password	buz
MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD	mysql root password	bar
JWT_PUBKEY	public key for JWT	-----BEGIN PUBLIC KEY----- ... -----END PUBLIC KEY-----
JWT_KEY	private key for JWT	-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY----- ... -----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
DOMAIN_CERT_FULLCHAIN	TLS certificate for the site	-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE----- ... -----END CERTIFICATE-----
DOMAIN_CERT_KEY	TLS key file	-----BEGIN EC PARAMETERS----- ... -----END EC PARAMETERS----- -----BEGIN EC PRIVATE KEY----- ... -----END EC PRIVATE KEY-----
SSH_KEY	private key of the remote host	-----BEGIN RSA PRIVATE KEY----- ... -----END RSA PRIVATE KEY-----
SSH_USER_HOST	username and hostname for ssh connection	alice@gms.example.com

Run CI job

Navigate to Actions > Workflows > CI, click run workflow.

Method 2: Deploy manually

Generate JWT keypair

Place the JWT keypair at src/backend/config/jwt/ and overwrite the example file.

The default algorithm for the key is RS256, and can be generated by the following commands:

ssh-keygen -t rsa -b 4096 -m PEM -f jwt.key
# Don't add passphrase
openssl rsa -in jwt.key -pubout -outform PEM -out jwt.key.pub

For security reason, do NOT use the example keypair in the production environment.

Modify backend configuration

Backend configuration file: src/backend/config/app_config.yml

Please refer to the inline comment for explanations

Setup MySQL

In src/docker/config/docker-compose.yml:

• Set the value of MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD MYSQL_USER MYSQL_PASSWORD MYSQL_DATABASE

In src/backend/config/app_config.yml:

• Set the value of mysql_host to "mysql", which is the container name set in docker-compose.yml
• Set the value of mysql_database, mysql_user, mysql_password to the same value as the ones in docker-compose.yml

Prepare TLS certification for HTTPS

Place the following files:

• Public cert(NGINX fullchain): src/docker/config/cert/fullchain.cer
• Private key: src/docker/config/cert/key.pem

Modify nginx configuration (optional)

Configuration file: src/docker/config/nginx.conf

Compile the webpage

Install NodeJS

Follow the official guide Download node

Install yarn

Follow the official guide Yarn installation

Install node modules and build

With src/web as working directory:

yarn install
yarn build

The static web file should be outputted to src/web/dist

Deploy with docker-compose

Install docker(optional) and docker-compose

Install docker on the local machine by following the official guide Get Docker. Install docker-compose on the local machine by following the official guide Install Compose

Setup remote context for docker-compose

docker context create remote ‐‐docker "host=ssh://production_server"

Confirm settings by using docker ‐‐context remote ps

Run container on remote

Run in foreground

docker-compose --context remote up

Run with daemon

docker-compose --context remote up -d

To shut down the service

docker-compose --context remote down

Update containers

Rebuild all image

docker-compose --context remote build

Rebuild image of specific service

docker-compose --context remote build <service>

Rebuild and run

docker-compose --context remote up --force-recreate --build -d

Remove unused images

docker --context remote image prune -a

Notes on possible docker-compose problems

docker-compose not respect ~/.ssh/config

Use ssh-agent login as a workaround

# In case you get the error 'Could not open a connection to your authentication agent.'
eval "$(ssh-agent)"

ssh-add -k /path/to/server/keyfile
docker context create remote --docker "host=ssh://user@hostname:port"

ERROR: Context 'remote' not found

switch context back and forth:

docker use context remote
docker use context default

docker-compose over SSH raises ChannelException(2, 'Connect failed')

In /etc/ssh/sshd_config of the docker host, set MaxSessions to 30

docker insanely resource usage when publishing the port range

In /etc/docker/daemon.json of the docker host, add "userland-proxy": false

docker-compose raises ssh: /tmp/_MEImZgOCk/libcrypto.so.1.1: version `OPENSSL_1_1_1' not found

export COMPOSE_PARAMIKO_SSH=1

Deploy with docker-compose on a host without docker-cli

export COMPOSE_DOCKER_CLI_BUILD=0