CatAsk

a simple & easy to use Q&A software that makes answering questions easier

Prerequisites

• PostgreSQL
• Python 3.10+ (3.12+ recommended)

Install

Clone this repository: git clone https://git.gay/mst/catask.git

VPS-specific

Go into the cloned repository, create a virtual environment and activate it:

Linux

python -m venv venv && . venv/bin/activate

Windows (PowerShell)

python -m venv venv; .\venv\Scripts\activate

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After that, install required packages:
pip install -r requirements.txt

Then, create the database and the user for CatAsk:

CREATE USER '<DB_USER>' WITH PASSWORD "<DB_PASS>";

CREATE DATABASE "<DB_NAME>" OWNER '<DB_USER>';

Shared hosting-specific

If your shared hosting provider supports WSGI, FastCGI, or something similar, use it (technically any CGI protocol could work)

Post-install

Configuration

First, rename .env.example to .env and config.example.json to config.json, then configure all the values below:

.env

DB_HOST - database host (usually 127.0.0.1)
DB_NAME - database name
DB_USER - database user
DB_PASS - database password
DB_PORT - database port (usually 5432)
ADMIN_PASSWORD - password to access admin panel
APP_SECRET - application secret, generate one with this command: python3 -c 'import secrets; print(secrets.token_hex())'

config.json

Configure in Admin panel after installing

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After you're done configuring CatAsk, init the database: flask init-db
If that doesn't work (e.g. tables are missing), try importing schema.sql into the created database manually

Usage

Start CatAsk with this command:

gunicorn -w 4 app:app

If you want CatAsk to be accessible on a specific host address, specify a --bind option to gunicorn -w 4 app:app (e.g. --bind 127.0.0.1:5000)
For debugging, run flask run --debug

Runs on 127.0.0.1:8000 by default

Caddy

This repository contains an example Caddyfile that runs CatAsk on catask.localhost by reverse proxying it to 127.0.0.1:5000, you can modify it as needed

Updating

For instructions with updating from one version to another, check UPDATE.md file
Check CHANGELOG.md file for release notes