clone repo
create subfolder "instance" to store database file
for an initial instance: run python3 initialze_data.py, with the python from the virtual-env
add the below config to your apache2 enabled site

Secrets and configuration

LAPP does not store runtime secrets in the source code. Configure them with environment variables in production:

export LAPP_SECRET_KEY="replace-with-a-long-random-secret"
export LAPP_APPLICATION_KEY="replace-with-another-long-random-secret"
export LAPP_DATABASE_URI="sqlite:///app.db"

LAPP_SECRET_KEY signs Flask sessions and auto-login cookies. Keep it stable: changing it logs users out and invalidates existing auto-login cookies.

LAPP_APPLICATION_KEY is used by /api/validate_key.

LAPP_DATABASE_URI is optional. If it is not set, LAPP uses sqlite:///app.db.

For local development, if LAPP_SECRET_KEY or LAPP_APPLICATION_KEY is not set, the app creates stable random secrets in:

instance/secret_key
instance/application_key

The instance/ directory is ignored by git, so these generated secrets should not be committed.

Initial data secrets

initialize_data.py creates initial users and groups only when the database has no users yet. You can provide the initial passwords and group secrets with:

export LAPP_INITIAL_ADMIN_PASSWORD="replace-me"
export LAPP_INITIAL_ADMIN_GROUP="replace-me"
export LAPP_INITIAL_USER_PASSWORD="replace-me"
export LAPP_INITIAL_USER_GROUP="replace-me"
./venv/bin/python initialize_data.py

If these variables are not set, initialize_data.py generates random values and prints them once when it creates the initial data.