Access 2.0

Access 2.0 🚀

Welcome to a new update release for Access! The entire system has been revamped from the ground up in favour of modernisation, standardisation, a better UX, security, and consistency!

This version has re-done majority of all the logic in the previous versions and features an entirely new system architecture. Unfortunately, this also means that this version is not backwards compatible. Find out more here.

What's new:

• Freshly re-designed Vite-built React frontend designed with Chakra UI!
• Ability to use Firebase Realtime Database for cloud-based database syncing in a highly scalable manner
• Robust system architecture with decorator-based processing, a custom database management software setup and configuration parameters
• Re-written business logic APIs that feature more security and consistency
• New features like sorting, bulk file uploads, user audit logs for usage activity, file sharing with public links and much more!
• Re-designed emails and concurrency capabilities for a more efficient Access experience than ever before

Updating from 1.x is recommended through the new updater script as it supports the new source code architecture.

Check all this out live at https://access.prakhar.app!

Find out more in the README! Setup documentation available here.

Full Changelog: v1.0.3...v2.0

Thank you for using Access, and I hope you enjoy this new update! 🤯🎉🚀

© 2022-2024 Prakhar Trivedi. All rights reserved.

Codebase Cleanup (Ditched update, use 1.0.3 instead)

It is not recommended to update to this release. Update to a release with a higher version number or use the next best release before this one, which is v1.0.3. Thank you for your understanding and using Access.

Commits in this release were supposed to lead up to a v1.0.4 update, but the update was abandoned in favour of a complete system revamp. Please note that the codebase in this release was not fine-tuned and prepped for production use cases, and may not be favourable. Backwards compatibility is still in place. Only use this update if the security fixes are a real must.

Features in this update include:

• Improved management of different system configurations through a new settings sub-menu in startup
• Security updates and fixes, especially vulnerable dependencies
• Improved and optimised processes throughout the system, including analytics report collation, logging out, signing in and more
• Ability to configure allowed file size

Stay tuned for a big update coming soon packed with a completely revamped version of Access!

Full Changelog: v1.0.3...v1.0.4-na

© 2021-2024 Prakhar Trivedi

Version 1.0.3

Welcome to Version 1.0.3!

This new release of Access contains a handful of features and several security and bug fixes!

In this new release of Access, activation scripts and more code has made Access be one of many products that conform to the Activator Digital Rights Management process. More information about Activator and what the activation script does is in the README.md file.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed #8
• Fixed some spelling and grammar mistakes
• Fixed a security loophole where new emails were not checked against taken identity emails
• Added a few more allowed file extensions to the default list

New Features

• Copy activation with Activator (Learn more by reading the README.md file)
• New Password Reset workflow: Allows users to get a reset key to reset their password in case they forget their identity's password or they get hacked.
• New ability to customise the file uploads limit; You can now set FileUploadsLimit to any integer in the .env file to customise the maximum number of files any identity can upload. The default is 3.

And that's Version 1.0.3, just a small security and feature update! Enjoy!

© 2021-2023 Prakhar Trivedi

What's Changed

• Bump certifi from 2021.10.8 to 2022.12.7 by @dependabot in #12

Full Changelog: v1.0.2...v1.0.3

Version 1.0.2

Welcome to Version 1.0.2

This update is packed with features; and when I say packed, I mean PACKED!!!! There are 41 files changed, 2114 addtions and 96 deletions.

This version includes multiple new features, hundreds of bug fixes and improvements that essentially complete the Access experience. Read on below to find out what's new!

Bug Fixes

There were quite a lot of bug fixes, so let me break it down:

• Spelling Mistakes in documentation and some parts of code
• Back-tracking links on error and unauthorised pages
• Support for venv and virt named virtual environments in Access Updater so that they remain kept when updating
• Updater now also updates itself when updating from v1.0.2 to higher versions
• More secure password checks in create identity process
• Fixed bug where dots (.) in a filename before the one preceding the file extension would be considered the file extension itself; for e.g Jeff.Bezos.pdf would show as Name: Jeff and File Extension: Bezos.pdf
• Made Access CheckUp report more obvious
• New status label in some webpages that notify the user that the site is processing
• Hitting enter key in login page now automatically clicks button (this feature is also available in some other webpages)
• Backwards Compatibility (BC) code that ensures that all older versions of Access are supported

New Things

There are a LOT of new things in this version package as well! The Settings dropdown in the Access Portal are now all hooked up to completely functional Settings pages! This allows the user to customise their own Access Identity their own way!

• New certificate renewal endpoint for admins only (Read below)
• Displaying of upload timestamps of files in Access Portal's Folder page
• Settings: New Email Preferences page where users can update their email preferences in real-time spontaneously!
• Settings: New Certificate Status page where users can view more information about their Access Certificate
• Settings: New Identity Information & Management (IIM) page where users can view details about their Access Identity, change their email or password and delete their identity all together
• Access CheckUp service's file detection algorithm now takes into account all the new files included in this version package
• 4 new email types added that are also hooked up to Access Analytics so you can see how many times each type were sent in the Analytics report
• New "OTHER METRICS" section in Access Analytics Report which includes "Number of identity deletions" metric

New Certificate Renewal Endpoint

Provided that you are the system admin and have set a Boot Authorisation Code in the system, you can renew the certificate of an identity that got its certificate expired by going to the endpoint ${origin}/certManagement/renewal?certID=<certificate ID>&bootAuthCode=<boot authorisation code>, where ${origin} is the origin host URL of the system, <certificate ID> is the ID of the certificate that you are trying to renew (you can get this by visiting the Certificate Status page in the Settings dropdown) and <boot authorisation code> is the boot authorisation code that you have set in the system. You should get a webpage that say that the certificate was successfully renewed.

*NOTE: You need to have had set a boot authorisation code before attempting to use this endpoint, otherwise it will give you an error!

And that's Version 1.0.2! Packed with features and bug fixes! Enjoy!

Full Changelog: v1.0.1...v1.0.2

Version 1.0.1

Version 1.0.1

This version of Access includes several bug fixes and improvements in cohesion of the system.

Bug fixes:

• GitpodEnvironment environment variable, when set to True, did not disable email OTP service
• System update guide was not very easy to use and follow
• Security patches in API service
• Main now displays version during booting
• Startup and Main sometimes could not work together, which is now fixed
• Further enhanced checking of environment libraries for Startup

New things:

• Access Updater Service (aka updater.py file) that makes it very easy to update
• New /version endpoint that displays the version of the access system
• Dynamic file extension support allows the editing of the ALLOWED_FILE_EXTENSIONS variable in main.py to be reflected and used on all webpages and processes of the system

These improvements will surely make your experience with Access more cohesive and better! Enjoy!

Version 1.0

This is the very first published version of The Access System. This system contains all identity security features, system login and logout services, Portal operations including Access Folder and files management as well as Home folder (The Settings menu operations are not complete).

New Components in this Version Package:

• Access Boot (main.py and associated files)
• Access Startup
• Access Analytics Service
• Access Folder Manager Service
• OTP Email Service
• Emailer Service
• Assets Service
• Access CheckUp Service
• Certificate Authority
• API Service
• Model Functions Supplemental File
• README.md Instructions on Setting up and in general managing the system

This version of Access is alas not complete and lacks the processes that are to be coded for the Settings Menu of the Access Portal which includes Email Preferences, Certificate Status Viewing and Identity Info And Management. Yet, I am publishing this version as I would like to share my efforts thus far in the development of this system with the world.