JHipster Online

JHipster Online is a Web application that allows to generate JHipster applications without installing JHipster on your machine.

This is an Open Source project (Apache 2 license) that powers the https://start.jhipster.tech/ website.

You can use https://start.jhipster.tech/ for free, but if you find a bug or need a specific feature, you are welcome to contribute to the project. You can also choose to clone or fork the project, and have your own version that is hosted within your company.

Quick start guide

JHipster Online is a JHipster application, so you can follow the JHipster documentation to learn how to configure and set up JHipster Online.

This quick start guide uses the default configuration that comes with JHipster Online: please read the next section for details on configuring the application.

Install and run the front-end:

yarn install && yarn start

Run the database:

docker-compose -f src/main/docker/mysql.yml up -d

Run the back-end:

./mvnw

Specific configuration

This section covers what is specific to JHipster Online over a normal JHipster application.

For standard JHipster configuration, the JHipster common application properties will probably be very useful.

JHipster installation and execution

JHipster Online generates a JHipster application by running the jhipster command line. In order for that command line to work, you need to have JHipster installed on your machine.

We recommend you use the "Yarn installation" from the official JHipster installation documentation.

If you need more configuration options for running the JHipster command, you can modify:

the location of the jhipster command
the timeout value for that command (the default is 120 seconds - please note that on our production server a generation usually takes 5 to 6 seconds)
the temporary folder in which the application will be generated (/tmp by default)

Those are customized using the Spring Boot application-*.yml files as usual, for example:

application:
    jhipster-cmd:
        cmd: /usr/local/bin/jhipster
        timeout: 60
    tmp-folder: /tmp

Database configuration

JHipster Online works with a MySQL database, that is configured in the usual application-*.yml Spring Boot configuration files, using the standard spring.datasource keys.

Security

JHipster Online uses JWT to secure the application. For a production application, it is therefore mandatory that:

The jhipster.security.authentication.jwt.key is configured, and that key is stored securely (not commited in your application's Git repository). We recommend to configure it as an environnement variable on your server, or in a specific Spring Boot application.yml file that is stored in your application's folder on your production server (which is our configuration on the official JHipster Online website).
The application is only available through HTTPS. You can configure it using Spring Boot (please read the comments in the application-prod.yml file), or using an Apache 2 HTTP server with Let's Encrypt on front of your application (which is our configuration on the official JHipster Online website).

Mail

E-mails are used to validate users' e-mail addresses or to send "forgotten password" e-mails. They are disabled by default, but it might be a good idea to configure them once the application is in production.

To configure e-mail sending, you need to configure the jhipster.mail keys (see JHipster common application properties), and the Spring Boot standard spring.mail keys.

When running the app with the dev profile, make sure to start the development mail server with:

docker-compose -f src/main/docker/mailserver.yml up -d

You can view the mails sent by JHipster with the MailHog UI at http://localhost:8025.

GitHub configuration

GitHub is configured using the application.github keys in the application-*.yml configuration files.

JHipster Online can work on the public GitHub instance on https://github.com as well as any private instance of GitHub Enterprise that is configured inside your company.

JHipster Online has to be configured as an "OAuth App": create a jhipster organization, and go to that organization's "Settings > Developer Settings > OAuth Apps" to create a new "OAuth App" with the required credentials. This will allow JHipster Online to create applications and pull requests on your behalf. JHipster Online uses https://your-jhipster-online-url/api/github/callback as callback endpoint.

JHipster Online also needs to have a specific "JHipster Bot" user configured, like the
https://github.com/jhipster-bot used by the official JHipster Online website.

Here is the final configuration, that should be set up inside the application-dev.yml file for development, and inside the application-prod.yml file for production.

application:
    github:
        host: https://github.com # The GitHub to connect to (by default: the public GitHub instance)
        client-id: XXX # The OAuth Client ID of the application on GitHub
        client-secret: XXX # The OAuth Client secret of the application on GitHub

GitLab configuration

Similarly to GitHub, your GitLab configuration must be placed in your application-*.yml using the application.gitlab keys.

JHipster Online can work on the public GitLab instance on https://gitlab.com as well as any private instance of GitLab that is configured inside your company.

JHipster Online needs to have a specific "JHipster Bot" user configured: create that user (if you have your own private instance, you can call it jhipster-bot, otherwise choose the name you like), and log in using that user.

Once logged in, the required API credentials can be created by going to "Settings > Applications > Add new application". Create a new application:

Its name is jhipster
The redirect URI is https://your-jhipster-online-url/api/gitlab/callback
It has the api and read_user scopes

Save that new application and store safely the Application Id and Secret values, so you can use them to configure the application-*.yml files.

Here is the final configuration, that should be set up inside the application-dev.yml file for development, and inside the application-prod.yml file for production.

application:
    gitlab:
        host: https://gitlab.com # The GitLab to connect to. The main public GitLab instance is default here.
        client-id: XXX # Your GitLab application Id
        client-secret: XXX # Your GitLab application secret
        redirect-uri: XXX   # The URI where the user will be redirected after GitLab authentication. This URI
                            # must be registered in you GitLab application callback URLs

Building for production

To generate a production build, like any normal JHipster application, please run:

./mvnw -Pprod clean package

Using Docker

You can also fully dockerize your application and all the services that it depends on. To achieve this, first build a docker image of your app by running:

./mvnw package -Pprod dockerfile:build

Then run:

docker-compose -f src/main/docker/app.yml up -d

Deployment to Google App Engine (GAE) Flexible Environment

The project can be deployed to GAE flexible environment by simply creating a tagged release.
Creating a new release triggers the deploy.yml GitHub Actions workflow.
The above workflow includes a Docker build and pushes the image to Google Container Registry. Cloud Monitoring and Cloud Logging are used for obtaining application logs and monitoring.

Help and contribution to the project

Please note that this project is part of the JHipster organization and it follows the rules of the JHipster project.

If you have an issue, a bug or a feature request

Please follow our contribution guide.

If you have a question or need help

You should post it on Stack Overflow using the "jhipster" tag.

Code of conduct

We have the same code of conduct as the main JHipster project: JHipster code of conduct.

qmonmert/jhipster-online