What is this project?
This is a Microservice created using the Minimal API Structure.
It is a CRUD application for a 'travel social media company' to create posts/statuses publicly with a location attached.
It Creates posts and attatches a location on creation based on IP. It also provides the other standard functionality which is expected of CRUD APIs.
Things it does include:
- Service should maintain a cache ✅
- Service should maintain a persistent store of the looked-up values ✅
- Unit tests ✅
- Integration tests ✅
Extra things I have added:
- Documentation/Comments via Swagger ✅ (Wanted to learn how to do this on a minimal API)
- Basic Rate Limiting ✅ (Core feature of most APIs)
- Output Caching ✅ (New feature in .Net 7)
Does not include:
- Authentication ❌ - Avoid overcomplication
- Authorization ❌ - Avoid overcomplication
- IP from HTTP Context ❌ - More difficult to demonstrate and debug.
Project Structure 🧱
I have avoided using the traditional MVC setup in favour of minimal architecture, this is more fitting for a 'Microservice'.
Given that the project showcases some advanced API features, it is arguably at the limit of what a minimal structure can take before becoming messy (e.g. Parsing 5 parameters into a function whereas MVC could have dependency injected to a controller, perhaps neater).
Caching 💾
Chose to use Redis in an external store (Distributed Caching). This allows the service to be fully scalable in the future, and means the cache is resilient to service downtime. It also means all services use same cache, adding consistency.
Database / Persistent Store 📦
MongoDB is used as a Database. This was chosen because:
- Small singular table - would never use relational features of an RDBMS
- Ease of use and setup - Emphasis is on the code not the use case
Git clone this repo
Unit testing 🧑🔬
Should run out of the box (cd into PostingService.UnitTests and run 'dotnet test'). It should take <1m, but in memory mongodb can cause slow downs.
Live / Integration Testing ⚡
Create an free API Key here: https://www.abstractapi.com/api/ip-geolocation-api
Add the api key as the following secret:
dotnet user-secrets set "Location:ApiKey" "{Your API Key}"
Either host Redis/MongoDB Externally or if using docker desktop:
//Create redis cache
docker run -d -p 6379:6379 --name posting-redis redis:latest
//Create mongodb database
docker run -d -p 27017:27017 --name posting-mongo mongo:latest
Note: If using different ports or hosting externally, change appsettings.json to reflect this
Project is formatted so you can use new dotnet publish rather than dockerfiles to create a microservice. Disable Development Swagger check in program cs if you want it visible.
dotnet publish --os linux --arch x64 -c Release -p:PublishProfile=DefaultContainer
docker run -it --rm -p 5010:80 postingservice:1.0.0 nslookup host.docker.internal