SocialNet Web Application

SocialNet is a secure, minimalist, and responsive web application built with PHP, MySQL, and Nginx. It operates within a fully containerized Docker environment, ensuring consistency and ease of deployment.

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Features

• Authentication System: Secure session-based login and logout mechanism using password_hash with bcrypt.
• Role-Based Access Control (RBAC): Distinct privileges for Administrators and regular Users.
  • Admin: Can create new users via a protected admin dashboard (/admin/newuser.php). Admins can see all users in the system.
  • User: Can update their own profile description and view other users' profiles. Users cannot see Administrator accounts on the main dashboard.
• Minimalist UI/UX: A highly refined, monochrome design language focusing on content clarity, structural borders, and excellent typography (Inter font).
• Containerized Infrastructure: Seamless deployment using Docker Compose, combining Nginx (Web Server), PHP-FPM (App Logic), and MySQL (Database).

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Prerequisites

To build and run this project, ensure you have Docker on your machine:

• Docker Install (available for Windows, MacOS, Linux)

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Build & Run Instructions

1. Open terminal, clone this repository to your local machine.

   git clone https://github.com/a-tt-om/CS451-SocialNet-Project.git

2. Navigate to the project directory:

   cd ./CS451-SocialNet-Project

3. Update .env file for production:

   cp .env.example .env

4. Build and start the Docker containers:

   docker compose up -d --build

5. To stop the application later and remove volumes, run:

   docker compose down -v

You can interact with the shell of each container to test and debug by running:

docker compose exec <container_name> sh

Or via Docker Desktop

For more information on Docker operations and usage, please refer to the Docker Documentation

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Accessing the Application

Once the containers are successfully running, you can access the application via your web browser: http://localhost:8888/

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Default Credentials

The database is automatically seeded upon initialization with the following accounts for testing and grading purposes:

1. Administrator Account

Use this account to test administrative capabilities (like creating new users and viewing all accounts on the home page).

• Username: admin
• Password: admin
• Fullname: Toàn Thắng

2. Regular User Accounts

Use these accounts to test normal user visibility rules (e.g., cannot see the Admin on the Home page, cannot access the Create User page). There are 5 test accounts with identical username/password pairs:

• Username: test1 | Password: test1
• Username: test2 | Password: test2
• Username: test3 | Password: test3
• Username: test4 | Password: test4
• Username: test5 | Password: test5

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Project Structure

├── .env                 # Environment variables for Docker configuration
├── docker-compose.yml   # Docker multi-container orchestration file
├── README.md            # This documentation file
├── mysql/
│   ├── Dockerfile       # Database container setup
│   └── init.sql         # Database schema and seed data (runs on startup)
├── nginx/
│   ├── Dockerfile       # Web server container setup
│   └── default.conf     # Nginx routing configuration
├── php/
│   └── Dockerfile       # PHP-FPM container with PDO MySQL extensions
└── src/
    ├── admin/           # Admin-protected endpoints (newuser.php)
    ├── assets/          # Static assets (style.css, fonts, etc.)
    ├── includes/        # Shared backend logic (auth.php, db.php, menubar.php)
    └── socialnet/       # Core application pages (index, signin, profile, etc.)