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Literary Lions Forum

A full-stack discussion forum built with Go and SQLite

NOTE: The repository for this is private and it can only be shared with potential employers.

Overview

This project is a web-based forum application that allows users to create posts, comment on discussions, and react to content. It was developed as part of the kood/Sisu Go-module to demonstrate backend web development, database design, and authentication concepts.

Quick start

git clone https://gitea.kood.tech/marttikoivisto/forum.git
cd forum
# Local
go run .

# Docker
docker compose up --build

Visit http://localhost:8080/ for access to the forum. You can register a new user or use the test user:

• login email: test@test.fi
• password: test

NOTE: If you want to run the project in a Docker container, you need to install Docker Desktop on your device: https://docs.docker.com/get-started/get-docker/

Learning objectives

The key learning objectives were:

• The basics of web development: HTML, HTTP, sessions, and cookies.
• Using and setting up Docker.
• SQL language and database manipulation.
• The basics of encryption.
• Docker essentials: Installation, configuration, image creation, container management, and best practices.

Features

• User registration and login
• Create posts
• Like/dislike reactions
• Access control for authenticated users
• Advanced encryption using bcrypt
• Search functionality
• Profile pages for account actions and seeing users own interactions
• Configured to run in a Docker container
• SQLite database for data preservation

Extra features

• User account deletion and delete confirmation
• User page for comments and posts by user
• Nested comments
• Post category creation

Tech stack

• Backend: Go (net/http)
• Database: SQLite
• Frontend: HTML, CSS, Go templates
• Build & Deployment: Docker

Project structure

/assets         ->  Static files (CSS, images, templates)
/data           ->  Database
/forumdb        ->  Database queries
/model          ->  Defined Go-structs to reflect the database
/model/sqlite   ->  Database queries directly related to the structs mentioned above
. (root)        ->  Main files relevant for running, building and deploying the server.

Installing

The project can be installed by cloning the repo. The database is established first time that the project is executed.

git clone https://gitea.kood.tech/marttikoivisto/forum.git
cd forum
go run .

Database setup

The server will establish the database first time its ran but it can also be setup separately.

To establish the database outside of the main.go, you’ll need to use goose.

goose -dir=assets/migrations sqlite3 ./data/app.db up

Running the project in a Docker container

docker compose up --build

If you have Docker Desktop installed, you can find the container in the “Containers” tab. There you can stop and restart the container without building it again.

Database structure

Database troubleshooting

If there has been edits to the database migration files, you may need to use one of these commnands (first one undoes latest update, second one wipes all the previous migrations)

goose -dir=assets/migrations sqlite3 ./data/app.db down
goose -dir=assets/migrations sqlite3 ./data/app.db down-to 0

Future development ideas

Here are some ideas for further improving the project

• Admin/moderator capabilities and interface