📅 2024-02-16 — Session: Deploy and Secure Flask App on Google App Engine

🕒 18:50–20:00
🏷️ Labels: Flask, Google App Engine, Oauth, Deployment, Security
📂 Project: Dev
⭐ Priority: MEDIUM

Session Goal:

The session aimed to deploy a Flask application to Google App Engine, ensuring secure OAuth integration and efficient user management.

Key Activities:

  • Deployment: Followed a structured guide to deploy a Flask application on Google App Engine, which included project initialization and deployment commands.
  • Security: Integrated OAuth credentials, configured redirect URIs, and managed sessions to secure the application. Addressed common errors like redirect_uri_mismatch and InsecureTransportError.
  • Environment Management: Utilized .env files for managing environment variables securely, and troubleshooting issues such as the 502 Bad Gateway error.
  • User Management: Implemented a basic user model using a Python dictionary and discussed transitioning to a database for production use.
  • OAuth Methods Comparison: Compared manual OAuth handling using Flask-Session and oauthlib with automated flow using Flask-OAuthlib.

Achievements:

  • Successfully deployed the Flask application with OAuth integration on Google App Engine.
  • Resolved key security issues and improved the handling of environment variables.
  • Established a foundational user management system for further development.

Pending Tasks:

  • Transition user management from an in-memory Python dictionary to a robust database solution for production.
  • Further test the OAuth integration under different scenarios to ensure robustness.