kcal

Web Server for tracking daily calorie intake.

With the kcal web server, daily nutrition can be tracked. Additionally, today's calorie intake is summarized on the homepage. Furthermore, the current weight and waist can be entered and tracked over time in a graph. The simple user management is file-based.

This project runs exclusively on a Debian-based Linux system. The project has been tested on a Raspberry Pi 3 with the operating system Raspbian GNU/Linux 12. Node version 21 is required

frontend

When the browser visits the website for the first time, the user is prompted to sign in.

The current calorie intake can be viewed on the home page.

Additional calories can be entered.

All entered calories can be viewed, in descending order. Only today's date shows a detailed view of the entered data.

A dialog opens, when clicked on a row, which allows to update or delete the selected entry.

Weight can be entered.

Weight can also be recorded and viewed in a graph or in a list.

A dialog opens, when clicked on a row, which allows to update or delete the selected entry.

User preferences can be configured

• daily calories target, seen on the home screen
• weight target, takes effect on the weight chart view
• user color, changes the accent color of the application
• kcal history count, daily calories target history, seen on the home screen

User configuration

• can be reached when clicking on update user on the configuration page
• update, the current user name
• change, the user to another one, if the user exists
• new, create a new user

install

An installation is onlay neccessary if you wish to run this project on your local machine. If you would like to run a docker container, see deployment.

setup environment

Before running the install.sh script, you should copy the file example.env as follows and adjust the environment variables to match your environment. If you don't want to back up your data, you can leave the BACKUP_DIRECTORY environment variable empty.

# in project dir
cp example.env .env
# update .env

With the install.sh script, the project can be installed. If the project has been updated, the same command can be used to update the project.

./install.sh

logs

After all services have been started, e.g., by using the install.sh script, the logs can be viewed with the following command.

journalctl -u kcal -u backup-kcal -f

uninstall

All services can be stopped/disabled as follows.

# deactivate web server service
sudo systemctl stop kcal.service

# deactivate backup service
sudo systemctl disable backup-kcal.timer
sudo systemctl stop backup-kcal.timer

deployment

A current version of the project is built with each commit, provided there were no linting errors and all tests passed. This artifact can be downloaded, and then a Docker container can be started in the unpacked directory:

# in downloaded and unpacked artifact directory
# build image
docker build -t kcal-website .
# run container
docker run --name kcal-website -p 80:8080 -d kcal-website

I decided to let the GitHub Action handle the build instead of the Docker container to save time during deployment. This way, I save at least 60 seconds per deployment, as no dependencies need to be installed and the code doesn't need to be transpiled. Additionally, the pipeline ensures that only functional artifacts can be released, thanks to the previously executed linters and tests.

about

I developed this project to track my daily calorie intake. Additionally, I used a lightweight technology stack since the Raspberry Pi has limited memory available. Therefore, I only use an Express server without a frontend framework for this project. Previously, I used Astro, but due to the limited available memory, I couldn't build on the Raspberry Pi. The project uses systemd services to run the server or perform backups. I wanted to see if I could get the project up and running quickly on other Debian-based operating systems using scripts, and I believe I have succeeded, as described in the installation chapter. Since I use this project daily, it will continue to evolve. I also tried to migrate the project to the deno runtime. But it currently doesn't support arm32 architecture.

What I Learned

1. Working with systemd units (services and timers).
2. Refreshed knowledge of Bash scripting.
3. Refreshed knowledge of Express.
4. Using Tabulator and Chart.js.
5. Unit testing with the Node Test Runner.
6. Caching using service workers.
7. Using the local storage to persist data from the form, when page is offline, to prevent data loss.
8. Web app manifest.
9. Refreshed knowledge on eslint.
10. Refreshed knowledge on github workflows.
11. Simple, file-based, user mangement.
12. Working with the browsers local storage.
13. Working with the browsers session storage.
14. Different use of Basic Authentication.