DjangoTweet

Twitter clone, implemented with Django and Django REST Framework.

Table of contents

• Technologies
• Setup
• Authentication
• Features
• Background tasks
• Structure
• Try it out

---

Technologies Used

Framework: Django

API: Django Rest Framework

Authentication: Google Authentication

Database: SQLite

Background Tasks Queue: Celery

Tasks Scheduler: Celery Beat

Message Broker: RabbitMQ

---

Installation and setup

1. Install the project dependencies

pip install -r requirements.txt

2. Run Migrations to create the database

python manage.py makemigrations

python manage.py migrate

3. Open a new terminal, make sure your .venv (if using one) is active and run the below command to start the server

python manage.py runserver

5. Swagger docs available at: Link

---

Features

• Public endpoints - accessible without authentication

  • Register user
  • Login

• Authentication Endpoints - require login with email and password

  • Features, related to users:

    • Edit profile information (names and description only)
    • Upload or change profile picture
    • Retrieve user's posts and accumulated likes of all user's posts
    • Logout

  • Features, related to posts:

    • Submit a post
    • Retrieve all posts (shows last 20 posts by default)
    • Like/unlike a post
    • Delete a post (owner required)

---

Google Authentication

To test the authentication flow, run the server and directly access http://127.0.0.1:8000/google-oauth2/login/redirect/ in your browser. This is the link to the endpoint which will redirect the user to the Google login screen. It cannot be accessed directly through Swagger due to CORS.

On the Google login page, you may be asked to enter your Google credentials (email and password). Once logged in, you might see a consent screen asking you to allow DjangoTweet to access your profile information. Click Continue to proceed.

After successful authorization, Google will redirect you back to DjangoTweet. This redirect includes an authorization code and a state parameter that helps ensure the security of the process.

Copy the token from the JSON body of the response and proceed to Try it out section for further instructions.

---

Background Tasks

To activate background tasks, follow these steps:

1. Install RabbitMQ

Follow the official instructions for installation (Windows): Link

2. Start RabbitMQ Server:

Ensure RabbitMQ is running. You can start RabbitMQ with:

.\rabbitmq-service.bat start

3. Start Celery Worker:

In one terminal window, start the Celery worker:

celery -A django_project worker -l info --pool=solo

4. Start Celery Beat:

In another terminal window, start Celery Beat:

celery -A django_project beat --loglevel=info

With these steps, the background tasks will be activated and your Celery worker along with Celery Beat will handle the scheduling and execution of tasks such as hard deleting posts that were marked as is_deleted over a specified amount of time (can be changed in the posts/tasks.py module).

The tasks are currently set to run every 30 seconds. You can change this in celery.py.

---

Project Structure

authentication/                             - google authentication logic
django_project/                             - core project folder
├─ celery.py                                  - celery settings
├─ serializers.py                             - model serializers
├─ settings.py                                - project settings
├─ urls.py                                    - url patterns
media/                                      - media uploads
posts/                                      - posts app
├─ migrations/                                - db migrations
├─ api.py                                     - api logic
├─ admin.py                                   - admin features
├─ core.py                                    - core app module
├─ models.py                                  - posts models
├─ services.py                                - crud logic
├─ tasks.py                                   - background tasks
users/                                      - users app (structure similar to posts)
README.md                                   - project decription
exceptions.py                               - custom exceptions
manage.py                                   - main module
requirements.txt                            - project requirements

---

Try it out

1. Create a superuser:

python manage.py createsuperuser

2. Access the admin page:

• Link

From the admin page, you can:

• see recently registered and sandboxed users
• mark users as active
• see deleted posts
• restore delete posts

3. Access Swagger documentation to test the API:

• Link

4. Register an user using the dedicated public endpoint.

5. For Swagger to remember your authentication Token:

• Click on Authorize button
• Example for Value field: Token 18ef4d413eb691df11c6f60719e3617fce1adb4a

6. Refer to the API documentation for each endpoint for more information.