A "message board" service built with Spring Boot

An implementation of a small message board service.

At the time of writing this is just a toy project used to try out Spring Boot.

• A "message board" service built with Spring Boot
  • Description
  • API
    • Create a message
    • Fetch all messages
    • Fetch one message
    • Modify a message
    • Delete a message
  • Backlog
  • Build and deploy with Docker
    • Alternative 1 - Docker without a custom Docker image
    • Alternative 2 - Custom image with Docker and Buildkit
  • Build and deploy with local JDK
  • Convenience scripts to test the api

Description

A RESTful API to serve as the backend for a public message board.

Features:

• A client can create a message in the service.
• A client can modify their own messages.
• A client can delete their own messages.
• A client can view all messages in the service.

For now an in-memory solution for storing data is used.

API

Create a message

• Http verb: POST
• Endpoint: <host>/api/v1/message
• Example:

  curl  --request POST \
    --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
    --data "{"userId":"Doris", "messageId":"Martha", "message":"A message about a book." }" \
    --url  http://localhost:8080/api/v1/message

Also see convenience scripts below.

Fetch all messages

• Http verb: GET
• Endpoint: <host>/api/v1/message/all
• Example: $ curl --silent http://localhost:8080/api/v1/message/all

Fetch one message

• Http verb: GET
• Endpoint: <host>/api/v1/message/<user>/<message-id>
• Example: curl --silent http://localhost:8080/api/v1/message/Doris/Martha

Also see convenience scripts below.

Modify a message

• Http verb: PUT
• Endpoint: <host>/api/v1/message
• Example:

  curl  --request PUT \
        --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
        --data "{"userId":"Doris", "messageId":"Martha", "message":"A MODIFIED message about a book." }" \
        --url  http://localhost:8080/api/v1/message

Also see convenience scripts below.

Delete a message

• Http verb: DELETE
• Endpoint: <host>/api/v1/message
• Example:

  curl  --request DELETE \
        --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
        --data "{"userId":"Doris", "messageId":"Martha", "message":"" }" \
        --url  http://localhost:8080/api/v1/message

Also see convenience scripts below.

Backlog

This is work in progress and a lot of things can be improved, but keep in mind that this is just a toy project.

• Use swagger to define and document the api.
• Logging.
• More tests.
  • Integration tests
• Authentication
• Implement an in memory database
• Implement a permanent storage service.
• More javadoc.
• Extend (and refactor) the REST api.
• Implement available but not implemented endpoints.
• Build a small web client.
• Websockets to push messages to message boards.
• I'm sure there're more things... :-)

Build and deploy with Docker

Alternative 1 - Docker without a custom Docker image

Tools needed:

• Git
• Docker
• Curl
• Jq (used in the convenience scripts to prettify the response output)

In this scenario we use Docker to:

• build an executable jar that ends up on your local drive in directory <project>/build/libs
• fire up the built executable jar (with the servlet container) in a docker container to make the message board endpoints available.

$ git clone https://github.com/larzza/messageboard.git
$ cd messageboard

# Build an executable standalone jar of the project 
$ docker run --rm -u gradle -v "$PWD":/home/gradle/project -w /home/gradle/project gradle:jdk11 gradle build

# Start
$ docker run --rm -d -v "$PWD":/project -w /project -p 8080:8080 adoptopenjdk/openjdk11:alpine-slim java -jar build/libs/msgboardpoc-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar

Alternative 2 - Custom image with Docker and Buildkit

Tools needed:

• Docker
• Curl and jq for testing.

# Dockerfile is all that's needed - clone the git repo or just copy the Dockerfile
$ git clone https://github.com/larzza/messageboard.git
$ cd messageboard

# Build custom image
$ DOCKER_BUILDKIT=1 docker build -t messageboard .

# Run container with messageboard service from the custom built image
$ docker run -d --name mymessageboard -p 8080:8080 messageboard

# Start another message board
$ docker run -d --name mymessageboard2 -p 7080:8080 messageboard

# List image and contaienr
$ docker image ls
$ docker container ls

Build and deploy with local JDK

Tools needed:

• Java 11 (JDK)
• Curl
• jq

$ git clone https://github.com/larzza/messageboard.git

$ cd messageboard

# Set JAVA_HOME if needed, here's an example path on a Mac.
$ export JAVA_HOME="/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk-11.0.5.jdk/Contents/Home/"

$ ./gradlew build

$ ./gradlew test

$ java -jar build/libs/msgboardpoc-0.0.1-SNAPSHOT.jar

Convenience scripts to test the api

Test the API with Postman or Curl or with the provided convenience scripts (which use curl and jq).

Note: The scripts are hardcoded to use localhost:8080

$ cd <project>/scripts

# Fill with data
$ ./createMessages

# Get all messages
$ ./getAll

# Create a message
$ ./create Simone Mandarinerna "A very good book."

# Get the created message
$ ./get Simone Mandarinerna

# Modify the message
$ ./modify Simone Mandarinerna "One of the best novels ever written."

# Inspect the modification
$ ./get Simone Mandarinerna

# Delete the message
$ ./delete Simone Mandarinerna

# Get the message and verify that an error message is returned
$ ./get Simone Mandarinerna