Movieweb

Movieweb is an IMDB-like website utilizing microservices architecture.

Architecture

There are four types of backend services:

• movies: handles movie information (FastAPI)
• users: handles user information and authentication (FastAPI)
• reviews: handles reviews (FastAPI)
• relations: handles followers (FastAPI)

Other machines serve front-facing traffic:

• public-api: API gateway (Node.js, express)
• redis: caching storage for public-api
• webapp: serves precompiled React SPA
• load-balancer: nginx edge router, proxies traffic to webapp and the API endpoint

REST services

Endpoints communicate using REST API. All endpoints provide OpenAPI 3 schemes. API endpoints and the webapp use clients generated from the spec. Authentication uses JWT tokens signed by users service. public-api saves httpOnly cookies to store token with the user.

Scaling and load balancing

Chosen machines are scaled manually by adding containers in docker-compose.yml. There are 3 copies of public API (public-api-a, -b and -c) and two copies of web app (webaapp-a and -b). Containers are registered as nginx upstreams. Public API uses IP has for load balancing to utilize cached data from previous user actions. Traffic to web application is distributed by least active connections.

Redis cache

Multiple API responses inject extra information into returned objects. Usually is it movie or user details. To relieve backends, movies and users are cached in Redis storage. Redis stores stringified JSON objects. Dictionary keys are of form prefix:uuid, where prefixes are:

• mov for movies
• usr for users

DB sharding

TODO

Development

This project uses docker-compose with image files in different folders. Note: main is the home branch.

Endpoints

• https://movieweb.local/: website
• https://api.movieweb.local/: API entry
• https://api.movieweb.local/docs: Swagger docs
• https://api.movieweb.local/openapi.json: API schema

For development, use

• http://localhost:5000: movies
• http://localhost:5004: users
• http://localhost:5008: reviews
• http://localhost:5012: relations
• http://localhost:8081: public-api-a
• http://localhost:8080: webapp-a
• http://localhost:6379: redis

First time setup

1. Redirect local domains to localhost.

   echo -e "127.0.0.1\tmovieweb.local\n" >> /etc/hosts
   echo -e "127.0.0.1\tapi.movieweb.local\n" >> /etc/hosts
   

2. Generate self-signed SSL keys.

   ./scripts/regenerate-dev-keys.sh
   

3. Build services.

   ./scripts/restart-all.sh
   

Browser will display a security warning later, because it doesn't know root CA you just created. You can safely add an exception. Still seeing errors? Visit https://api.movieweb.local/docs and api subdomain to allowlist.

Hot reloading

When running in development mode (default docker-compose overrides), services will restart when code changes.

Updating schemas

Some services use API endpoints of other services. To enforce development boundaries, each service stores copies of used schemas.

Backends

API schemas are exposed through web server under URL http://localhost:<service-port>/openapi.json.

Public API

Backend schemas are stored in /services/public-api/apis. After updating schema file run

docker-compose run public-api npm run generate-api-client-<service-name>

to generate API client library.

To export API schema, run

docker-compose run public-api npm run generate-api-schema-public

Exported files are in /services/public-api/generated/openapi.json.

Web app

Public API is stored in /services/webapp/apis/public.json. After updating schema file run

docker-compose run public-api npm run generate-api-client-public

to generate client library.