Blog Website with Authentication and Role-Based Access Control

Description

This project is a blog website built using Flask, featuring authentication and role-based access control (RBAC). The system supports three distinct roles: Admin, Author, and Reader, each with specific permissions.

Roles and Permissions

1. Admin

• Full control over all blog posts (view, edit, delete).
• Manage users (promote users to Author or Admin roles).
• Access to user management features.

2. Author

• Can create, view, edit, and delete their own blog posts.
• Has access to a customized interface to manage personal blog posts.

3. Reader

• Can view all published blog posts.
• Can like or dislike posts and see the number of likes/dislikes on each post.

Project Features

Authentication

• Users can register and login.
• Session-based or token-based authentication is used.
• Upon registration, users are automatically assigned the Reader role.
• Only Admins can promote users to Author or Admin roles.

Blog Management

• Admins can manage all posts (view, edit, delete any post).
• Authors can manage only their own posts.
• Readers can view all published posts and like/dislike them.

Database Layers

The project implements two database layers to demonstrate both SQL and NoSQL capabilities:

1. SQL Database (e.g., SQLite, PostgreSQL, MySQL) for structured data such as blog posts and user roles.
2. MongoDB (NoSQL) as an alternative layer to handle the same data.

Technologies Used

• Flask: Web framework for building the application.
• Flask-Login: For user session management.
• Flask-SQLAlchemy: For interacting with the SQL database.
• MongoEngine: For interacting with MongoDB.
• Bootstrap: For responsive UI design.

Setup Instructions

Prerequisites

Make sure you have the following installed:

• Python 3.x
• Virtualenv
• MongoDB
• SQLite Database

Installation Steps

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/nada-086/Blogger
   cd Blogger

2. Create a virtual environment:

   python3 -m venv venv
   source venv/bin/activate

3. Install the dependencies:

   pip install -r requirements.txt

4. Configure the database:

   • For the SQL database, update the SQLALCHEMY_DATABASE_URI in the config.py file.
   • For MongoDB, ensure that MongoDB is running and update the MONGO_URI in config.py.

5. Run the Application:

   flask run

6. Access the website: Open your browser and go to http://127.0.0.1:5000

Future Enhancements

• Add pagination for viewing blog posts.
• Implement search functionality for posts.
• Add comment section for readers to comment on blog posts.

Project Structure

File Structure

.
├── app/                          # Main application directory
│   ├── routes/                   # Flask route handlers
│   │   └── user.py    
│   │   └── blog.py
│   ├── models/                   # Database models
│   │   ├── sql/                  # SQL models (SQLAlchemy)
│   │   │   └── user.py           # SQL model for users
│   │   │   └── blog.py
│   │   │   └── blog_action.py
│   │   └── mongo/                # MongoDB models (PyMongo)
│   │       └── blog.py           # MongoDB model for blogs
│   │       └── user.py
│   │       └── blog_action.py
│   ├── services/                 # Service layer for business logic
│   │   ├── blog/                 # Blog-related services
│   │   │   └── factory.py
│   │   │   └── mongo.py
│   │   │   └── sql.py
│   │   └── user/                 # User-related services
│   │       └── factory.py
│   │       └── mongo.py
│   │       └── sql.py
│   ├── templates/                # HTML templates for rendering views
│   │   ├── user/                 # User-related templates
│   │   │   └── profile.html      # User profile template
│   │   │   └── login.html
│   │   │   └── signup.html
│   │   │   └── user-management.hmtl
│   │   │   └── blog-management.html
│   │   ├── navbar/               # Navbar templates
│   │   │   └── admin.html       
│   │   │   └── reader.html
│   │   └── blog/                 # Blog-related templates
│   │       └── view.html         # Single blog post view template
│   │       └── create.html
│   │       └── list.html
│   │       └── edit.html
│   ├── __init__.py               # App initialization and configurations
├── .gitignore                    # Files to ignore in Git version control
├── README.md                     # Readme file with project information (this file)
├── main.py                       # Main entry point to run the Flask application
├── .env                          # Environment variables (e.g., API keys, DB URIs)
├── config.py                     # Configuration settings (database URIs, secret keys)
├── requirements.txt              # List of Python dependencies