Advisories

A simple service providing Markdown document sharing with contacts.

Features

• New URL generation per contact for each shared document to prevent leaking.
• Access tracking per document (contact URL, IP and browser)

Deployment

Dependencies

Project dependencies are set in requirements.txt. Using pip, execute the following to install dependencies:

pip install -r requirements.txt 

Configuration

For advisories deployment, a config.ini configuration file with the following structure is required:

[config]
; Database URI for Flask SQLAlchemy.
DB_URL=db_url
; Secret key to cryptographically sign session cookies.
SECRET_KEY=secret_key

Setup

As this is a Flask application, there are many popular deployment options for serving advisories. At the moment, the proposed WSGI container is Gunicorn. Use as follows:

gunicorn -b 127.0.0.1:8000 wsgi

By default, 3 processes and 1 thread are used for Gunicorn. Those values can be altered by setting the environment variables below:

• GUNICORN_PROCESSES
• GUNICORN_THREADS

For alternative WSGI containers, please consult the official Flask documentation.

Usage

There are only two operations:

Creating / editing an advisory

This is done on the /admin/ page via the Upload new post area, simply by entering a plain-text title and a Markdown-formatted text blob. Once the text is submitted, the advisory will be listed in the Current posts part on the same page.

For each advisory, content can be managed by clicking on the advisory title or number, from the /admin/ page. This allows to:

• Edit the plain-text title and a Markdown-formatted text of the advisory
• Delete the advisory

Sharing unique links for an advisory

Creating unique links (one per recipient) is done on the /admin/ page, by entering a label for the recipients name in the Link for field, and clicking add.

The unique link to be shared with the newly created recipient is available by clicking on the advisory title or number, from the /admin/ page.

For each advisory, possible sharing rules violations can also be managed by clicking on the advisory title or number, from the /admin/ page. This allows to:

• View the URL to be shared for each recipient
• Delete unique sharing links
• Monitor the unique URL browsing patterns (Datetime, IP, Referrer)

License

This software is distributed under the terms of the MIT Licence, copied verbatim in the file 'LICENSE'. In applying this licence, CERN does not waive the privileges and immunities granted to it by virtue of its status as an Intergovernmental Organization or submit itself to any jurisdiction.