Quizzes app

An example Django app that serves quizzes and lets people know how they scored. Quizzes and their questions are stored in a PostgreSQL database. There is no user authentication or per-user data stored.

The project is designed for deployment on Azure App Service with a PostgreSQL flexible server. See deployment instructions below.

The code is tested with django.test, linted with ruff, and formatted with black. Code quality issues are all checked with both pre-commit and Github actions.

Opening the project

This project has Dev Container support, so it will be be setup automatically if you open it in Github Codespaces or in local VS Code with the Dev Containers extension.

If you're not using one of those options for opening the project, then you'll need to:

Create a Python virtual environment and activate it.

Install the requirements:

python3 -m pip install -r requirements-dev.txt

Install the pre-commit hooks:
```
pre-commit install
```

Local development

Create an .env file using .env.sample as a guide. Set the value of DBNAME to the name of an existing database in your local PostgreSQL instance. Set the values of DBHOST, DBUSER, and DBPASS as appropriate for your local PostgreSQL instance. If you're in the devcontainer, copy the values exactly from .env.sample.
Fill in a secret value for SECRET_KEY. You can use this command to generate an appropriate value.
```
python -c 'import secrets; print(secrets.token_hex())'
```
Run the migrations:
```
python3 manage.py migrate
```
Run the local server:
```
python3 manage.py runserver
```
Navigate to the displayed URL to verify the website is working.

Admin

This app comes with the built-in Django admin interface.

Create a superuser:

python3 manage.py createsuperuser

Restart the server and navigate to "/admin"
Login with the superuser credentials.

Testing

Run tests:

python3 manage.py collectstatic
coverage run --source='.' manage.py test quizzes
coverage report

The same tests are also run as a Github action.

Deployment

This repository is set up for deployment on Azure App Service (w/PostGreSQL flexible server) using the configuration files in the infra folder.

Sign up for a free Azure account
Install the Azure Dev CLI. (If you open this repository in Codespaces or with the VS Code Dev Containers extension, that part will be done for you.)
Provision and deploy all the resources:

azd up

To be able to access /admin, you'll need a Django superuser. Navigate to the Azure Portal for the App Service, select SSH, and run this command:

python manage.py createsuperuser

CI/CD pipeline

This project includes a Github workflow for deploying the resources to Azure on every push to main. That workflow requires several Azure-related authentication secrets to be stored as Github action secrets. To set that up, run:

azd pipeline config

Security

It is important to secure the databases in web applications to prevent unwanted data access. This infrastructure uses the following mechanisms to secure the PostgreSQL database:

Azure Firewall: The database is accessible only from other Azure IPs, not from public IPs. (Note that includes other customers using Azure).
Admin Username: Unique string generated based on subscription ID and stored in Key Vault.
Admin Password: Randomly generated and stored in Key Vault.
PostgreSQL Version: Latest available on Azure, version 14, which includes security improvements.

⚠️ For even more security, consider using an Azure Virtual Network to connect the Web App to the Database. See the Django-on-Azure project for example infrastructure files.

Costs

Pricing varies per region and usage, so it isn't possible to predict exact costs for your usage.

You can try the Azure pricing calculator for the resources:

Azure App Service: Basic Tier with 1 CPU core, 1.75GB RAM. Pricing is hourly. Pricing
PostgreSQL Flexible Server: Burstable Tier with 1 CPU core, 32GB storage. Pricing is hourly. Pricing
Key Vault: Standard tier. Costs are per transaction, a few transactions are used on each deploy. Pricing
Log analytics: Pay-as-you-go tier. Costs based on data ingested. Pricing

⚠️ To avoid unnecessary costs, remember to take down your app if it's no longer in use, either by deleting the resource group in the Portal or running azd down.

Getting help

If you're working with this project and running into issues, please post in Discussions.