Snippetbox

Snippetbox is a simple web application written in Go that allows users to create, view, and manage text snippets, similar to Pastebin. This project was created in following Alex Edwards's Let's Go book. Follow the instructions below to set up and access the program locally.

Installation

1. Clone the repository

$ git clone https://github.com/yhavin/snippetbox.git
$ cd snippetbox

2. Update module path

The default module path is snippetbox.yhavin. To update this, open module.sh and change the NEW_MODULE_NAME variable. Make the script executable and run it.

$ chmod +x module.sh
$ ./module.sh

3. Install dependencies

$ go mod tidy

4. Set up the database

Use the setup.sql script, which will create the snippetbox database, a non-root user, and the snippets and users tables. See MySQL setup below for help installing and setting up MySQL.

$ mysql -u root -p < setup.sql

5. Generate TLS certificates

$ mkdir tls
$ cd tls
$ go env GOROOT  # To find where your Go source code installed
$ go run <YOUR_GOROOT_HERE>/src/crypto/tls/generate_cert.go --rsa-bits=2048 --host=localhost

# For many users, this will be
$ go run /usr/local/go/src/crypto/tls/generate_cert.go --rsa-bits=2048 --host=localhost
OR
$ go run /usr/local/Cellar/go/<version>/libexec/src/crypto/tls/generate_cert.go --rsa-bits=2048 --host=localhost

5. Run the application

# Build and then run
$ go build -o snippetbox ./cmd/web
$ ./snippetbox

# Run directly
$ go run ./cmd/web

Open your browser to https://localhost:4000. Your browser will complain that it is not secure, but proceed anyway: this warning is caused by the TLS certificate being self-signed. This is completely fine for development/local usage.

MySQL setup

1. Install MySQL

# Homebrew (macOS)
$ brew install mysql

# Ubuntu/Debian
$ sudo apt-get install mysql-server

Windows: Download from the official MySQL website.

2. Start MySQL server

# Homebrew (macOS)
$ brew services start mysql

# Ubuntu/Debian
$ sudo systemctl start mysql

# Windows
$ net start MySQL

3. Set root password

# Homebrew (macOS)
$ mysql -u root
OR
$ sudo mysql

# Ubuntu/Debian
$ sudo mysql

# Windows
Will be prompted during installation

Now you can continue setting up the database and running the application.