KnerLab Website

Official website for the Advanced Imaging Lab (AIL), led by Dr. Peter Kner at the University of Georgia.

Built with Flask (Python 3) + HTML/CSS/JS. Hosted on AWS Lightsail behind Cloudflare.

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Tech Stack

Layer	Technology	Role
DNS & CDN	Cloudflare	HTTPS termination, DDoS protection, IP geolocation headers
Domain	Namecheap (knerlab.com)	Domain registrar (nameservers pointed to Cloudflare)
Server	AWS Lightsail (Ubuntu)	VPS hosting
Reverse Proxy	Caddy	Routes traffic from port 80 to Gunicorn
App Server	Gunicorn	Runs the Flask app on localhost:8000
Framework	Flask (Python 3)	Web application

Request flow

User → Cloudflare (HTTPS) → Caddy (port 80) → Gunicorn (port 8000) → Flask

Cloudflare handles HTTPS and injects CF-IPCountry / CF-IPCity headers used by the analytics system.

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Project Structure

lab_webpage/
├── app.py                  # Flask app — routes, analytics, pub parsing
├── runMe4Update.sh         # Server update script (restart Gunicorn)
├── Caddyfile               # Caddy reverse proxy config
├── requirements.txt        # Python dependencies
├── drawing_updated.py      # Standalone pygame journal club draw tool
├── templateFiles/          # Jinja2 HTML templates
│   ├── index.html
│   ├── research.html
│   ├── publications.html
│   ├── labMembers.html
│   ├── journalclub.html
│   ├── teaching_lectures.html
│   ├── analytics.html
│   └── privacy.html
├── staticFiles/
│   ├── css/                # Per-page stylesheets + common.css
│   ├── js/                 # Per-page scripts + common.js
│   ├── assets/             # Logos, icons
│   ├── news/               # News section images
│   ├── member_files/       # Member profile photos
│   ├── files/              # Publications DOCX and wordcloud
│   └── journalclub_draw/   # Journal club draw records (CSV)
└── analytics_data/         # Visitor logs — gitignored, server-only
    ├── visits_YYYYMM.csv
    └── GeoLite2-City.mmdb  # GeoIP database — must be placed manually

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Initial Server Setup

1. Install system dependencies

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y debian-keyring debian-archive-keyring apt-transport-https \
    python3-pip python3-dev python3-venv build-essential libssl-dev libffi-dev

2. Install Caddy

curl -1sLf 'https://dl.cloudsmith.io/public/caddy/stable/gpg.key' \
    | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/caddy-stable-archive-keyring.gpg

curl -1sLf 'https://dl.cloudsmith.io/public/caddy/stable/debian.deb.txt' \
    | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/caddy-stable.list

sudo apt update && sudo apt install caddy

3. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/Knerlab/lab_webpage.git
cd lab_webpage

4. Set up Python virtual environment

The venv must be created one level above lab_webpage/ so runMe4Update.sh can find it:

cd ~
python3 -m venv labwebpage
source labwebpage/bin/activate
pip install -r lab_webpage/requirements.txt

5. Configure Caddy

Copy Caddyfile to the Caddy config location and start it:

sudo cp lab_webpage/Caddyfile /etc/caddy/Caddyfile
sudo systemctl enable caddy
sudo systemctl start caddy

6. Place GeoIP database (for city-level analytics)

Register for a free account at maxmind.com, download GeoLite2-City.mmdb, and place it at:

~/lab_webpage/analytics_data/GeoLite2-City.mmdb

This file is gitignored and must be placed manually on the server.

7. Start the app

cd ~/lab_webpage
bash runMe4Update.sh

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Day-to-Day Development Workflow

All edits are made locally. Never edit files directly on the server.

1. Edit files locally
      ↓
2. Commit and push (from local machine)
      git add <files>
      git commit -m "Description"
      git push
      ↓
3. Pull and restart on the server
      git pull
      bash runMe4Update.sh

runMe4Update.sh activates the venv, kills any running Gunicorn process, and restarts it.

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Analytics

The site has a built-in privacy-friendly analytics dashboard at /admin/analytics.

• Visits are logged to monthly CSV files in analytics_data/visits_YYYYMM.csv
• IPs are masked and visitor fingerprints are anonymized (SHA-256)
• Country data comes from Cloudflare's CF-IPCountry header
• City data comes from the local GeoLite2-City database
• Bot and scanner traffic is automatically filtered out
• The analytics_data/ directory is gitignored — it lives on the server only

To protect the dashboard with a token, set the environment variable:

export ANALYTICS_ADMIN_TOKEN=your_secret_token

Then access the dashboard at /admin/analytics?token=your_secret_token.

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Cloudflare Configuration

• DNS nameservers for knerlab.com are pointed to Cloudflare (configured in Namecheap)
• The A record for knerlab.com points to the Lightsail server IP with Proxy status: Proxied (orange cloud)
• Cloudflare handles HTTPS; Caddy only needs to handle HTTP on port 80
• www.knerlab.com is redirected to knerlab.com via the Caddyfile