Password Manager

Launching the Application

The following steps should be taken in order to setup and start running the application.

Creating the Virtual Environment

1. Install the Python interpreter for your operating system.

   • This was developed using Python 3.12.3, the latest version of Python available on Ubuntu 24.04.

2. Create and activate a virtual environment.

   • A virtual environment can be created using python -m venv /path/to/venv.
   • The virtual environment is activated depending on the operating system:
     • Linux and MacOS: source path/to/venv/bin/activate
     • Windows Command Prompt: path\to\venv\Scripts\activate
     • Windows Powershell: path\to\venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1
   • The virtual environment can be stopped at any time using the deactivate command (operating system agnostic).

3. Install the dependencies for the project backend.

pip install -r requirements.txt

Setting Environment Variables

1. Create a new file in the root directory with the filename .env.

   • The directory tree should look like the following (excluding the virtual environment, which should be created as above):

       .
       ├── .env
       ├── .flaskenv
       ├── README.md
       ├── app
       │   ├── __init__.py
       │   ├── app.db
       │   ├── config.py
       │   ├── controllers.py
       │   ├── forms.py
       │   ├── models.py
       │   ├── routes.py
       │   ├── static
       │   │   ├── css
       │   │   │   ├── raw.css
       │   │   │   └── styles.css
       │   │   └── js
       │   │       ├── danger.js
       │   │       ├── details.js
       │   │       ├── get_passwords.js
       │   │       ├── image_preview.js
       │   │       └── password_manager.js
       │   └── templates
       │       ├── _errors.html
       │       ├── base.html
       │       ├── depricated
       │       │   ├── add.html
       │       │   └── signup.html
       │       ├── edit-password.html
       │       ├── home.html
       │       ├── index.html
       │       ├── login.html
       │       ├── register.html
       │       └── user.html
       ├── manager.py
       ├── migrations
       │   ├── README 
       │   ├── alembic.ini
       │   ├── env.py
       │   ├── script.py.mako
       │   └── versions
       │       ├── c32ef7995544_added_tables.py
       │       └── c6c5a2065beb_updated_passwords_last_login_to_last_.py
       ├── package-lock.json
       ├── package.json
       └── requirements.txt
       

2. Add the secret key to the file, e.g. SECRET_KEY="this-is-a-secret-key"

   • As this is just setting an environment variable, the following can also be done:
     • Linux and MacOS: export SECRET_KEY="this-is-a-secret-key"
     • Windows: set SECRET_KEY="this-is-a-secret-key"

3. (Optional) Add the SQLAlchemy database URL to the file, e.g. DATABASE_URL="sqlite:///app.db"

   • This is another environment variable, and can be set in the same way as above.

Starting the Application

1. Initialise the database using flask db upgrade

   • If the database isn't initialising properly, using flask db init and then applying the migrations may work

2. Start the flask application using flask run.

   • Note that the .flaskenv file sets the FLASK_APP environment variable. If this does not work, the following should be done:
     • Linux and MacOS: export FLASK_APP=manager.py
     • Windows: set FLASK_APP=manager.py