GitHub Search ·

This project is made of two components:

1. A Spring Boot powered back-end, responsible for:
   1. Continuously crawling GitHub API endpoints for repository information, and storing it in a central database;
   2. Acting as an API for providing access to the stored data.
2. A Bootstrap-styled and jQuery-powered web user interface, serving as an accessible front for the API, available here.

Running Locally

Prerequisites

Database

Before choosing whether to start with a clean slate or pre-populated database, make sure the following requirements are met:

1. The database timezone is set to +00:00. You can verify this via:

   SELECT @@global.time_zone, @@session.time_zone;
   

2. The event scheduler is turned ON. You can verify this via:

   SELECT @@global.event_scheduler;
   

3. The binary logging during the creation of stored functions is set to 1. You can verify this via:

   SELECT @@global.log_bin_trust_function_creators;
   

4. The gse database exists. To create it:

   CREATE DATABASE gse CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_bin;
   

5. The gseadmin user exists. To create one, run:

   CREATE USER IF NOT EXISTS 'gseadmin'@'%' IDENTIFIED BY 'Lugano2020';
   GRANT ALL ON gse.* TO 'gseadmin'@'%';
   

If you prefer to begin with an empty database, there's nothing more for you to do. The required tables will be generated through Flyway migrations during the initial startup of the server. However, if you'd like your local database to be pre-populated with the data we've collected, you can utilize the compressed SQL dump we offer. We host this dump, along with the four previous iterations, on Dropbox. After choosing and downloading a database dump, you can import the data by executing:

gzcat < gse.sql.gz | mysql -u gseadmin -pLugano2020 gse

Server

Before attempting to run the server, you must generate your own GitHub personal access token (PAT). GHS relies on the GraphQL API, which is inaccessible without authentication. To access the information provided by the GitHub API, the token must include the repo scope.

Once that is done, you can run the server locally using Maven:

mvn spring-boot:run

If you want to make use of the token when crawling, specify it in the run arguments:

mvn spring-boot:run -Dspring-boot.run.arguments=--ghs.github.tokens=<your_access_token>

Alternatively, you can compile and run the JAR directly:

mvn clean package
ln target/ghs-application-*.jar target/ghs-application.jar
java -Dghs.github.tokens=<your_access_token> -jar target/ghs-application.jar

Here's a list of project-specific arguments supported by the application that you can find in the application.properties:

Web UI

The easiest way to launch the front-end is through the provided NPM script:

npm run dev

You can also use the built-in web server of your IDE, or any other web server of your choice. Regardless of which method you choose for hosting, the back-end CORS restricts you to using ports 3030 and 7030.

Dockerisation :whale:

The deployment stack consists of the following containers:

The service dependency chain can be represented as follows:

graph RL
    gse-migration --> |service_healthy| gse-database
    gse-backup --> |service_completed_successfully| gse-migration
    gse-server --> |service_completed_successfully| gse-migration
    gse-website --> |service_healthy| gse-server
    gse-watchtower --> |service_healthy| gse-website

Deploying is as simple as, in the docker-compose directory, run:

docker-compose -f docker-compose.yml up -d

It's important to note that the database setup steps explained in the preceding section are unnecessary when running with Docker. This is because the environment properties passed to the service will automatically establish the MySQL user and database during the initial startup. However, this convenience does not extend to the database data, as the default deployment generates an empty database. If you wish to utilize existing data from the dumps, you'll need to override the compose deployment to employ a custom database image that includes the dump. To do this, create your docker-compose.override.yml file with the following contents:

version: '3.9'
name: 'gse'

services:

  gse-database:
     image: seart/ghs-database:latest

The above image will include the freshest database dump, at most 15 days behind the actual platform data. For a more specific database version, refer to the Docker Hub page. Just remember to specify the override file during deployment:

docker-compose -f docker-compose.yml -f docker-compose.override.yml up -d

The database data itself is kept in the gse-data volume, while detailed back-end logs are kept in a local mount called logs. You can also use this override file to change the configurations of other services, for instance specifying your own PAT for the crawler:

version: '3.9'
name: 'gse'

services:

  # other services omitted...

  gse-server:
    environment:
      GHS_GITHUB_TOKENS: 'A single or comma-separated list of token(s)'
      GHS_CRAWLER_ENABLED: 'true'

Any of the Spring Boot properties or aforementioned application-specific properties can be overridden. Just keep in mind, that the ghs.x.y property corresponds to the GHS_X_Y service environment setting.

Another example is the automated database backup service, which is disabled by default. Should you choose to re-enable it, you would have to add the following to the override file:

version: '3.9'
name: 'gse'

services:

  # other services omitted...

  gse-backup:
    restart: always
    entrypoint: "/init"

Finally, configurations for some programs are stored within files that are added to services through bind mounts. For instance, the Git configuration file is stored in the git directory. If you want to further customize it in deployment (i.e. specify an alternative user agent), you can create your own .override.gitconfig, and add the following to the override file:

version: '3.9'
name: 'gse'

services:

  # other services omitted...

  gse-server:
    volumes:
      - ./git/.override.gitconfig:/root/.gitconfig

FAQ

How can I request a feature or ask a question?

If you have ideas for a feature you would like to see implemented or if you have any questions, we encourage you to create a new discussion. By initiating a discussion, you can engage with the community and our team, and we'll respond promptly to address your queries or consider your feature requests.

How can I report a bug?

To report any issues or bugs you encounter, please create a new issue. Providing detailed information about the problem you're facing will help us understand and address it more effectively. Rest assured, we are committed to promptly reviewing and responding to the issues you raise, working collaboratively to resolve any bugs and improve the overall user experience.

How do I contribute to the project?

Please refer to CONTRIBUTING.md for more information.

How do I extend/modify the existing database schema?

To do that you should be familiar with database migration tools and practices. This project in particular uses Flyway by Redgate. However, the general rule for schema manipulation is: create new migrations, and do not edit existing ones.