/para

The backend for busy developers.

Primary LanguageJavaApache License 2.0Apache-2.0

Logo

A general-purpose backend framework for the cloud.

Build Status Maven Central Join the chat at https://gitter.im/Erudika/para

Para is a simple and modular backend framework for object persistence and retrieval. It helps you build and prototype applications faster by taking care of backend operations. It can be a part of your JVM-based application or it can be deployed a standalone, multitenant API server with multiple applications and clients connecting to it.

The name "pára" means "steam" in Bulgarian. And just like steam is used to power stuff, you can use Para to power your mobile or web application backend.

See how Para compares to other open source backend frameworks.

This project is fully funded and supported by Erudika - an independent, bootstrapped company.

Features

  • RESTful JSON API secured with Amazon's Signature V4 algorithm
  • Database-agnostic, designed for scalable data stores (DynamoDB, Cassandra, MongoDB, etc.)
  • Full-text search (Lucene, Elasticsearch)
  • Distributed and local object cache (Hazelcast, Caffeine)
  • Multitenancy - each app has its own table, index and cache
  • IoT support and integration with AWS and Azure
  • Flexible security based on Spring Security (LDAP, social login, CSRF protection, etc.)
  • Stateless client authentication with JSON Web Tokens (JWT)
  • Simple but effective resource permissions for client access control
  • Robust constraint validation mechanism based on JSR-303 and Hibernate Validator
  • Per-object control of persistence, index and cache operations
  • Modular design powered by Google Guice and support for plugins
  • I18n utilities for translating language packs and working with currencies
  • Standalone executable WAR with embedded Jetty
  • Para Web Console - admin user interface

Architecture

+----------------------------------------------------------+
|                  ____  ___ _ ____ ___ _                  |
|                 / __ \/ __` / ___/ __` /                 |
|                / /_/ / /_/ / /  / /_/ /                  |
|               / .___/\__,_/_/   \__,_/     +-------------+
|              /_/                           | Persistence |
+-------------------+  +-----------------+   +-------------+
|      REST API     |  |     Search      |---|    Cache    |
+---------+---------+--+--------+--------+---+------+------+
          |                     |                   |
+---------+---------+  +--------+--------+   +------+------+
|  Signed Requests  |  |  Search Index   |   |  Data Store |
|  and JWT Tokens   |  | (ElasticSearch) |   |    (Any)    |
+----+---------^----+  +-----------------+   +-------------+
     |         |
+----v---------+-------------------------------------------+
|  Clients : JavaScript, PHP, Java, C#, Android, iOS, etc. |
+----------------------------------------------------------+

Documentation

Read the Docs

Hosting

We offer hosting and premium support at paraio.com where you can try Para online with a free developer account. Browse and manage your users and objects, do backups and edit permissions with a few clicks in the web console. By upgrading to a premium account you will be able to scale you projects up and down in seconds and manage multiple apps.

Quick Start

Create a configuration file application.conf file in the same directory as the Para package. Here's an example default configuration:

# the name of your app
para.app_name = "Para"
# or set it to 'production'
para.env = "embedded"
# if true, users can be created without verifying their emails
para.security.allow_unverified_emails = false
# if hosting multiple apps on Para, set this to false
para.clients_can_access_root_app = true
# if false caching is disabled
para.cache_enabled = true
# change this to a random string
para.app_secret_key = "b8db69a24a43f2ce134909f164a45263"
# enable API request signature checking
para.security.api_security = true
  1. Download the latest executable WAR
  2. Execute it with java -jar -Dconfig.file=./application.conf para-*.war
  3. Call curl localhost:8080/v1/_setup to get the access and secret keys for the root app (required)
  4. Install para-cli tool for easy access npm install -g para-cli (optional)
  5. Create a new "child" app for regular use (optional):
# run setup and set endpoint to either 'http://localhost:8080' or 'https://paraio.com'
$ para-cli setup
$ para-cli new-app "scoold" --name "My App"
  1. Open Para Web Console or integrate with one of the API clients below.

The quickest way to interact with Para is through the command-line tool (CLI):

$ npm install -g para-cli
$ para-cli setup
$ para-cli ping
$ echo "{\"type\":\"todo\", \"name\": \"buy milk\"}" > todo.json
$ para-cli create todo.json --id todo1 --encodeId false
$ para-cli read --id todo1
$ para-cli search "type:todo"

Building Para

Para can be compiled with JDK 8:

To compile it you'll need Maven. Once you have it, just clone and build:

$ git clone https://github.com/erudika/para.git && cd para
$ mvn install -DskipTests=true

To generate the executable "uber-war" run $ mvn package and it will be in ./para-war/target/para-x.y.z-SNAPSHOT.war. Two WAR files will be generated in total - the fat one is a bit bigger in size.

To run a local instance of Para for development, use:

$ mvn -Dconfig.file=./application.conf spring-boot:run

Standalone server

You can run Para as a standalone server by downloading the executable WAR and then:

$ java -jar para-X.Y.Z.war

The you can browse your objects through the Para Web Console console.paraio.org. Simply change the API endpoint to be your local server and connect your access keys. The admin interface is client-side only and your secret key is never sent over the the network. Instead, a JWT access token is generated locally and sent to the server on each request.

Alternatively, you can grab the WAR file and deploy it to your favorite servlet container.

Download WAR

Maven dependency

You can also integrate Para with your project by adding it as a dependency. Para is hosted on Maven Central. Here's the Maven snippet to include in your pom.xml:

<dependency>
  <groupId>com.erudika</groupId>
  <artifactId>para-server</artifactId>
  <version>{see_green_version_badge_above}</version>
</dependency>

For building lightweight client-only applications connecting to Para, include only the client module:

<dependency>
  <groupId>com.erudika</groupId>
  <artifactId>para-client</artifactId>
  <version>{see_green_version_badge_above}</version>
</dependency>

Command-line tool

$ npm install -g para-cli

API clients

Use these client libraries to quickly integrate Para into your project:

Database integrations

Use these DAO implementations to connect to different databases:

Search engine integrations

The Search interface is implemented by:

Cache integrations

The Cache interface is implemented by:

Projects using Para

Wishlist / Roadmap

  • Elasticsearch v6 compatibility and support for AWS ES
  • DAO implementation for PostgreSQL.
  • Search implementation for MongoDB
  • Make the API server more efficient with fibers (Quasar?)
  • OpenAPI 3+ compatible API at /v2 (not soon)

Contributing

  1. Fork this repository and clone the fork to your machine
  2. Create a branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature)
  3. Implement a new feature or fix a bug and add some tests
  4. Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Added a new feature')
  5. Push the branch to your fork on GitHub (git push origin my-new-feature)
  6. Create new Pull Request from your fork

Please try to respect the code style of this project. To check your code, run it through the style checker:

mvn validate

For more information see CONTRIBUTING.md

License

Apache 2.0