Baby Buddy¶

Baby Buddy is an open source activity management system for your infant child. It is designed to keep track of sleep, feedings, diaper changes and tummy time “[…] to learn about and predict baby’s needs without (as much) guess work”. It is written in Python and based on the popular Django-Framework.

Error

This guide seems to be broken as it requires a newer version of Python. We would be happy if you want to work on a solution and create a Pull Request. See also the related issue: https://github.com/Uberspace/lab/issues/1184

Note

For this guide you should be familiar with the basic concepts of

Python and its package manager pip
Django-Framework
MySQL
domains

License¶

All relevant legal information can be found here

https://github.com/cdubz/babybuddy/blob/master/LICENSE

Prerequisites¶

You’ll need your MySQL credentials. Get them with my_print_defaults:

[isabell@stardust ~]$ my_print_defaults client
--default-character-set=utf8mb4
--user=isabell
--password=MySuperSecretPassword
[isabell@stardust ~]$

Your URL needs to be setup:

[isabell@stardust ~]$ uberspace web domain list
isabell.uber.space
[isabell@stardust ~]$

You need pipenv, a package manager/virtual environment tool for Python, so install that:

[isabell@stardust ~]$ pip3 install pipenv --user
Collecting pipenv
  Downloading https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/13/b4/3ffa55f77161cff9a5220f162670f7c5eb00df52e00939e203f601b0f579/pipenv-2018.11.26-py3-none-any.whl (5.2MB)
    100% |████████████████████████████████| 5.2MB 242kB/s
Requirement already satisfied: setuptools>=36.2.1 in /usr/lib/python3.6/site-packages (from pipenv)
Collecting virtualenv (from pipenv)
  Downloading https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/33/5d/314c760d4204f64e4a968275182b7751bd5c3249094757b39ba987dcfb5a/virtualenv-16.4.3-py2.py3-none-any.whl (2.0MB)
    100% |████████████████████████████████| 2.0MB 614kB/s
 […]

Note

You have to install uwsgi with the same python version as the app. Babybuddy now requires at least python 3.7. E.g. if you use 3.9, install uwsgi with pip3.9 install uwsgi --user

Install the required uwsgi package with pip.

[isabell@stardust ~]$ pip3.6 install uwsgi --user
[isabell@stardust ~]$

After that, continue with setting it up as a service.

Create ~/etc/services.d/uwsgi.ini with the following content:

[program:uwsgi]
command=uwsgi --master --emperor %(ENV_HOME)s/uwsgi/apps-enabled
autostart=true
autorestart=true
stderr_logfile = ~/uwsgi/err.log
stdout_logfile = ~/uwsgi/out.log
stopsignal=INT

Create needed folders and files for uwsgi:

[isabell@stardust ~]$ mkdir -p ~/uwsgi/apps-enabled
[isabell@stardust ~]$ touch ~/uwsgi/err.log
[isabell@stardust ~]$ touch ~/uwsgi/out.log
[isabell@stardust ~]$

After creating the configuration, tell supervisord to refresh its configuration and start the service:

[isabell@stardust ~]$ supervisorctl reread
SERVICE: available
[isabell@stardust ~]$ supervisorctl update
SERVICE: added process group
[isabell@stardust ~]$ supervisorctl status
SERVICE                            RUNNING   pid 26020, uptime 0:03:14
[isabell@stardust ~]$

If it’s not in state RUNNING, check the logs.

Installation¶

Python¶

During the installation process, you want to use Python in version 3.7+. Set an alias for that:

[isabell@stardust ~]$ alias python=python3.9
[isabell@stardust ~]$ python --version
Python 3.9.13
[isabell@stardust ~]$

Database¶

Baby Buddy can store its data in a MySQL database. Create one with the name <username>_babybuddy.

[isabell@stardust ~]$ mysql -e "CREATE DATABASE ${USER}_babybuddy DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8 DEFAULT COLLATE utf8_general_ci;"
[isabell@stardust ~]$

Download¶

Create two folders, one for the source code and one for the application’s data.

[isabell@stardust ~]$ mkdir -p ~/babybuddy/public ~/babybuddy/data/media
[isabell@stardust ~]$

Clone the Baby Buddy source code from Github into the first folder.

[isabell@stardust ~]$ git clone https://github.com/cdubz/babybuddy.git ~/babybuddy/public
[...]
remote: Total 4593 (delta 27), reused 80 (delta 19), pack-reused 4477
Receiving objects: 100% (4593/4593), 8.15 MiB | 3.33 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (2734/2734), done.
[isabell@stardust ~]$

Dependencies¶

Install all the requirements.

[isabell@stardust ~]$ cd ~/babybuddy/public/
[isabell@stardust public]$ pipenv install --python python3.9
[...]
  🐍   ▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉ 39/39 — 00:00:54
To activate this project's virtualenv, run pipenv shell.
Alternatively, run a command inside the virtualenv with pipenv run.
[isabell@stardust ~/babybuddy/public]$

Configuration¶

Copy the template configuration file and adapt it based on the following example.

[isabell@stardust ~]$ cp ~/babybuddy/public/babybuddy/settings/production.example.py ~/babybuddy/public/babybuddy/settings/production.py
[isabell@stardust ~]$

Warning

Replace <secretkey> with a random sequence of characters!

Use this snippet to generate a random string to use as secret key:

[isabell@stardust ~] pwgen 32 1
extremerandom
[isabell@stardust ~]$

Warning

Replace <host> with your host!

Warning

Replace <username> with your username!

Warning

Replace <databasepassword> with your database password!

 from .base import *

 # Production settings
 # See babybuddy.settings.base for additional settings information.

 SECRET_KEY = '<secretkey>'

 ALLOWED_HOSTS = ['<host>']

 # Database
 # https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.11/ref/settings/#databases

 DATABASES = {
    'default': {
      'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.mysql',
      'NAME': '<username>_babybuddy',
      'USER': '<username>',
      'PASSWORD': '<databasepassword>',
      'HOST': '127.0.0.1',
      'PORT': '3306',
    }
 }

 # Static files

 MEDIA_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, '../data/media')

To work correctly with the Uberspace Proxy, you need to add this option to the end of the file:

USE_X_FORWARDED_HOST = True

In our example, the file ~/babybuddy/public/babybuddy/settings/production.py should look like this:

from .base import *

# Production settings
# See babybuddy.settings.base for additional settings information.

SECRET_KEY = 'MyRandomSecretKey'

ALLOWED_HOSTS = ['isabell.uber.space']

# Database
# https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/1.11/ref/settings/#databases

DATABASES = {
   'default': {
     'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.mysql',
     'NAME': 'isabell_babybuddy',
     'USER': 'isabell',
     'PASSWORD': 'MySuperSecretPassword',
     'HOST': '127.0.0.1',
     'PORT': '3306',
   }
}

# Static files

MEDIA_ROOT = os.path.join(BASE_DIR, '../data/media')

USE_X_FORWARDED_HOST = True

Database Schema¶

Enter the virtual environment, initialize the database tables and exit the virtual environment again:

[isabell@stardust ~]$ cd ~/babybuddy/public/
[isabell@stardust ~/babybuddy/public]$ pipenv shell
Launching subshell in virtual environment…
 . /home/isabell/.local/share/virtualenvs/public-xxxxxx/bin/activate
[isabell@stardust ~/babybuddy/public]$ export DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE=babybuddy.settings.production
[isabell@stardust ~/babybuddy/public]$ python manage.py migrate
[isabell@stardust ~/babybuddy/public]$ python manage.py createcachetable
[...]
[isabell@stardust ~/babybuddy/public]$ exit && cd
[isabell@stardust ~]$

Configuration¶

Configure web server¶

Note

babybuddy is running on port 8000.

To make the application accessible from the outside, configure a web backend:

[isabell@stardust ~]$ uberspace web backend set / --http --port <port>
Set backend for / to port <port>; please make sure something is listening!
You can always check the status of your backend using "uberspace web backend list".
[isabell@stardust ~]$

Setup service¶

To deploy your application with uwsgi, create a file at ~/uwsgi/apps-enabled/babybuddy.ini with the following content:

Warning

Replace <username> with your username! (4 times)

Note

Find the location of the pipenv virtual environment for the virtualenv parameter with the following command:

[isabell@stardust ~]$ cd ~/babybuddy/public/ && pipenv --venv
/home/isabell/.local/share/virtualenvs/public-xxxxxx

[uwsgi]
project = babybuddy
base_dir = $(HOME)/babybuddy

virtualenv = $(HOME)/.local/share/virtualenvs/public-xxxxxx
chdir = %(base_dir)/public
module =  %(project).wsgi:application
env = DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE=%(project).settings.production
master = True
vacuum = True

http = 0.0.0.0:8000

wsgi-file = %(base_dir)/public/babybuddy/wsgi.py
touch-reload = %(wsgi-file)

app = wsgi

plugin = python

uid = $(USER)
gid = $(USER)

Finishing installation¶

Point your browser to https://isabell.uber.space and log in with the default credentials admin/admin.

Warning

Change the default credentials as soon as possible! Otherwise anyone knowing the URL of your instance can login to download, edit or delete your data.

Written by: Christian <christian@kuntzsch.me>