iDevGames.com

This is the code which runs iDevGames.com, a games programming community. We share links to articles which interest us and periodically run games development jams to encourage positivity and productivity.

Hacking

This site is open-source software, and we welcome pull-requests. If you'd like to start working on this site, either to improve it or learn from it for your own projects, these instructions should get you going with a local copy you can work with.

By the way of toolchain dependencies, to work on this site you need Rust, NodeJS, and a Github OAuth application.

First, clone the site down to your own machine.

git clone git@github.com:idevgames/idevgames.com && cd idevgames.com

NodeJS

Install NodeJS using a method appropriate to your operating system and preferences. Then install Brunch, a JS tool that compiles JS/SASS to things that are static and can be used by the browser.

sudo dnf install g++
pushd react-project
npm i
popd

That's the NodeJS part done.

Rust

Make sure you have a working Rust compiler.

rustc --version

Ensure that your system is configured for the openssl-sys crate: https://docs.rs/openssl/0.10.29/openssl/.

To manage the database migrations install the Diesel CLI.

# or equivalent on your os
sudo apt-get install -y libssl-dev libsqlite3-dev pkg-config build-essential
cargo install diesel_cli --no-default-features --features sqlite
diesel setup

With that done you are ready to compile the website, both client-side assets and the server-side daemon. There's an easy shorthand script for this, called watch.sh. It starts Brunch and the server daemon at the same time, so you can iterate on server-side assets without having to manage multiple terminal windows or anything. If you're running one-off Rust processes without the need to modify client-side assets such as JavaScript or CSS it is unnecessary.

./watch.sh serve

Github

Managing the OAuth lifecycle with Github was done from these reference docs: https://docs.github.com/en/rest/guides/basics-of-authentication.

To log into iDevGames.com locally, first configure an application with Github: https://github.com/settings/applications/new

name: iDevGames-your-github-alias
homepage url: https://www.idevgames.com/
description: A games development community.
callback: http://localhost:4000/gh_callback

Note that if you use WSL2 you will have to update that callback to your VM's current IP address. You can get that address with hostname -I. There is a script called wsl.sh which makes this easier, setting the bind address. Call it with the program arguments you desire, such as ./wsl.sh serve or ./wsl.sh migrate.

Finally, you'll need to configure the application. See dotenv, copying that locally to a .env file and filling it in per the instruction in the file.

Permissions

Now that you have all that set up you can give yourself permission to change the resources on your local site! You can grant yourself admin permissions with the following:

cargo run permission grant -u your_github_user_name -p admin

To undo that and see what the site looks like to everyone else again, use the revoke command.

cargo run permission revoke -u your_github_user_name -p admin

Happy hacking!

Deploying

Put the built program on a machine and run it. If you're patching it for iDevGames use, then the process of deploying is very complicated: poke mysteriouspants until he does it (he hasn't set up automation because things seldom change).

If you're, for some reason, doing this yourself, these are mysteriouspants' notes on the matter. They may be of some help for you!

Prepare the server

ssh mysteriouspants.com:
    # create user
    sudo adduser --disabled-password idevgames
    # enable ssh for this user - this is how we rsync new releases up
    sudo mkdir -p ~idevgames/.ssh
    sudo cp ~/.ssh/authorized_keys  ~idevgames/.ssh/authorized_keys
    sudo chown idevgames:idevgames ~idevgames/.ssh/authorized_keys
    sudo vim /etc/systemd/system/idevgames.service

The service file ought to look like this:

[Unit]
Description=iDevGames Web Server
After=network.target

[Service]
type=simple
User=idevgames
WorkingDirectory=/home/idevgames
ExecStart=/home/idevgames/idevgames serve
Restart=on-failure

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Add necessary environment variables.

ssh idevgames@mysteriouspants.com:
  vim .env

The necessary environment variables are this:

DATABASE_URL=db/app.sqlite
IDG_WORKERS=2
IDG_PORT=4000
IDG_MAXDBCONS=4
IDG_ADDRESS=12.0.0.1
IDG_COOKIE_SECRET=$(openssl rand -base64 32)
GH_CLIENT_ID=
GH_CLIENT_SERET=

Finally, run deploy.sh locally to build a release build and rsync the results up, and kick the service on. You should mark the service to start on boot as well. Because wild reboots happen.

local:
    ./deploy.sh
ssh mysteriouspants.com:
    sudo systemctl enable idevgames

From here, the service can be served behind a reverse proxy. I use nginx.

# /etc/nginx/sites-available/www.idevgames.com
server {
  server_name         www.idevgames.com;
  access_log          off;
  add_header          Permissions-Policy interest-cohort=() always;
  root                /home/idevgames/static;
  try_files           $uri $uri/ /index.html?$args;
  location /api {
    proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:4000;
  }
}

Modification/Licensing

We want you to be able to use this software regardless of who you may be, what you are working on, or the environment in which you are working on it - we hope you'll use it for good and not evil! To this end, the iDevGames website source code is licensed under the 2-clause BSD license, with other licenses available by request. Happy coding!