🖥️ py-webserver

A self-hosted personal web server running on a home machine, featuring a general-purpose website, a Minecraft server dashboard, and an integrated Discord bot - all secured behind nginx, HTTPS, and fail2ban.

Stack

• Backend: Python, Flask, Gunicorn (gevent workers)
• Reverse Proxy: nginx (HTTPS via Let's Encrypt)
• Auth & Security: Session-based login, fail2ban rate limiting, server-side signed sessions
• Discord Bot: discord.py with slash commands
• Dynamic DNS: DuckDNS
• Automation: cron jobs

Features

🌐 Web Server

• Session-based authentication with login-gated routes
• Role-based access (some routes restricted to specific users)
• Modular Flask routing across multiple route files
• Server-side sessions stored on disk with signed cookie IDs
• Auth event logging to logs/auth.log
• Secure cookies (HttpOnly, SameSite, HTTPS-only)
• nginx reverse proxy forwarding real client IPs via ProxyFix

🎮 Minecraft Dashboard

• Start/stop the server from the browser or Discord
• Live log streaming via Server-Sent Events (non-blocking via gevent)
• Player join/leave tracking in real time
• In-game command execution from the dashboard
• Server state persisted to minecraft_state.json across restarts
• Uptime alerts posted to Discord at 5h, 10h, 15h, 16h, 17h+ marks
• Achievement announcements posted to Discord
• Auto-backup every 15 minutes (rolling 5-backup window) with Discord webhook reporting

🤖 Discord Bot

• /start and /stop slash commands to control the Minecraft server
• Rich Presence (RPC) showing server status and live player count
• Communicates with the Flask app via a local WebSocket (port 8765)
• Bot API key authentication for internal bot→server requests

🔒 Security

• fail2ban monitors auth.log and bans IPs after repeated failed logins
• nginx enforces HTTPS and redirects all HTTP traffic
• Let's Encrypt SSL with auto-renewal support
• Old sessions purged every 10 minutes via cron
• Gunicorn runs locally only (127.0.0.1), never exposed directly

Repo Structure (built for readability not 1:1 accuracy)

├── webserver/
│   ├── app.py                  # Main Flask app
│   ├── minecraft.py            # Minecraft dashboard Flask app (separate Gunicorn instance)
│   ├── minecraft_bot.py        # Discord bot + WebSocket server
│   ├── users.json              # Allowed users
│   ├── routes/
│   │   ├── cli.py
│   │   ├── fileManager.py
│   │   ├── login.py
│   │   ├── performance.py
│   │   └── public.py
│   └── templates/
│       ├── global/             # Shared header/footer
│       └── *.html
├── mcServers/
│   ├── autoBPs/autoBP.py       # Rolling backup manager
│   ├── minecraft_state.json    # Persistent server state
│   └── mcserver/
├── duckdns/duck.sh             # DuckDNS IP updater
├── configs/                    # nginx, fail2ban, systemd service configs
└── webServerUpdaters/          # Auto-update scripts

Services

Two separate Gunicorn instances run as systemd services:

Service	App	Port
mike-server	app.py	5000
mike-minecraft	minecraft.py	5001

nginx routes /minecraft to port 5001 (with SSE support - buffering disabled) and everything else to port 5000.

Cron Jobs

Schedule	Task
Every 2 min	Pull latest server updates
Every 5 min	DuckDNS domain refresh
Every 10 min	Purge expired sessions
Every 15 min	Auto-backup Minecraft world

Setup

This is a personal self-hosted project. Configuration requires adjusting paths, credentials, and domain names throughout.

1. Clone the repo and set up a Python venv (server-venv/init.sh)
2. Copy configs from configs/ to their respective system locations (nginx, fail2ban, systemd)
3. Create a .env file with:

FLASK_SECRET_KEY=
FLASK_SESSION_TYPE=filesystem
FLASK_SESSION_DIR=./sessions
DISC_BOT_TOKEN=
BOT_API_KEY=
TESTING=False

4. (opt.) Set up DuckDNS and insert your domain/token into duck.sh
5. Obtain SSL certs via Certbot: sudo certbot --nginx -d yourdomain.duckdns.org
6. Enable and start the systemd services
7. Start the Discord bot: ./launch_bot.sh