platformctl

README

platformctl

A command line tool for managing online coding platform. The online coding platform is based around vscode in a browser aka code server from coder.com

the online coding platfrom currently provides the following to each user

• individual PostgreSQL schema per user
• online git repo through gitea
• python 3
• golang 1.16
• terminal access in a browser

Privacy law compliancy

There are about 4 major privacy laws that govern which information is stored. I decided to be fully compliant by storing no PII. User's information is hashed and anonymized. Users will get funny aliases like hungry-owl-5231 Just imagine calling your user by such alias on a conference call.

User provisioning

Users are added to the platform using the following command.

platformctl add user user1@example.com

Why CLI?

The coding platform management could have been built as an web application. Perhaps one day I can get there. My vision is to teach young children how to code. I might have a sign up sheet at community centers, barber shops, etc. I just want to pull up my phone and tell my chatops bot to execute platformctl command to set up a new user right and then.

Hardware

I think I have spent about $900. Some of the hardware parts were bought before the pandemic so it might cost a bit more now.

• AMD Ryzen5 2600
• 64 gigs of ram
• 512 gigs SSD

PFSense and VLAN switch are optional.

Internet speed

I used to have fairly slow internet connection but a user in east coast couldn't tell if the vscode was being served over internet. Gigabit internet is becoming more common these days. My guestmate is that the homelab environment such as mine can handle 10 concurrent users.

User provisioning flow

Homelab network topology

All of the servers are virtualized. They are all running in a single workstation.

Seeking help from developer community

Small success would be me teaching handful of children how to code in my community. Bigger success would be having the online teaching platform replicated by other developers all over the world. One problem with that is some amount of familiarity with linux operating system, virtualization and automation is required.

I will be documenting how this platform was put together. Pretty much everything is automated.