ft_transcendence

Quick guide to running Transcendence

🚀 Running Modes

This project supports three development modes:

1. Production Mode (Docker Compose) - All services together

42 PCs (ports 8443/8080):

make

Privileged ports for VMs/Private Machines (ports 443/80):

make ports=privileged up

This will automatically:

• Generate SSL certificates
• Build all containers
• Start all services (NGINX, frontend, backend_database, backend_gamelogic, live-chat)

Access:

• 42 PCs: https://localhost:8443
• Production: https://localhost (port 443)

2. Dev Container Mode - Single service in VS Code

1. Open a service folder in VS Code (e.g., backend_database/ or live-chat/)
2. Click "Reopen in Container" when prompted
3. Run npm run dev inside the container

Environment: Automatically loads .env.development with localhost defaults

3. Local Dev Mode - Single service on your machine

cd backend_database  # or live-chat, backend_gamelogic
npm install
npm run dev

Environment:

• Uses .env.development defaults (localhost URLs, local DB paths)
• Override with .env.local if needed (gitignored)

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📊 ELK Stack - Log Management (Optional)

Want centralized log management with powerful search and visualization?

# Start application with ELK stack (any of these work)
make elk=true       # Full setup with ELK
make elk=true up    # Start with ELK
make elk-up         # Shortcut

# Configure Elasticsearch (first time only)
make elk-setup

# Access Kibana for log visualization
open http://localhost:5601

Features:

• Real-time log aggregation from all services
• Full-text search and filtering
• Pre-configured dashboards
• 90-day log retention
• Distributed tracing with request IDs

💡 Pro Tip: Add elk=true to any make command to include ELK stack:

• make elk=true dev - Development mode with ELK
• make elk=true restart - Restart with ELK

See the complete guide: elk/README.md

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📋 Environment Files

• .env - Created from .env.example, used by Docker Compose (production mode)
• .env.development - Tracked in git, defaults for local/devcontainer modes
• .env.local - Optional, gitignored, for personal overrides

Other useful commands:

make help