🌐 SiteIngest

Host. Monetize. Earn. SiteIngest is a fullstack SaaS application that lets users host their websites with subdomain support, injects ads to monetize traffic, and provides a built-in analytics dashboard with impressions tracking and an admin panel.

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🚀 Features

• 🖥️ Custom Site Hosting with subdomain support
• 💰 Ad Injection for Monetization
• 📊 Analytics (Impression tracking)
• 🛠️ Admin Panel to manage sites
• 🔐 Authentication & Authorization (via PocketBase)
• 🧹 Deploy/Delete Website via simple ZIP upload
• 🧾 Clean API Design using Flask microservice
• 📦 Built with React, Bootstrap, PocketBase, and Flask

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🛠 Tech Stack

Layer	Tech
Frontend	React + Bootstrap
Backend	Flask (Microservice)
Database + OAuth	PocketBase (v0.28.4)
Hosting	Not deployed yet (VPS coming soon)

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⚙️ Setup Instructions

1. Clone the Repository

git clone https://github.com/your-username/siteingest.git
cd siteingest

2. Install Dependencies

Python (Flask microservice)

pip install uv
uv sync

React Frontend

cd frontend
npm install

3. Install & Run PocketBase (v0.28.4)

Download PocketBase from https://pocketbase.io Extract and run the server:

pocketbase serve --automigrate

Configure collections for users, sites, impressions as per your app's needs.

4. Environment Variables

Create a .env file in the backend directory (root):

POCKETBASE_URL=http://127.0.0.1:8090

Create a .env file in the frontend directory (frontend/):

VITE_POCKETBASE_URL=http://127.0.0.1:8090
VITE_MICROSERVICE_URL=http://localhost:8000
VITE_MICROSERVICE_HOST=localhost:8000
VITE_REVENUE_EMAIL=revenue@siteingest.com

5. Run the Project

Use the startup.bat file (Windows) or run manually:

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🌍 Production Deployment

If you are planning to deploy SiteIngest in production on a VPS (like DigitalOcean, AWS EC2, or Hetzner), the architecture requires specific routing for subdomains to function properly.

Subdomain Routing Theory

The Flask backend uses request.host.split(".")[0] to dynamically resolve which site to serve. For this to work, you need two things:

1. Wildcard DNS: A * A record pointing to your server's IP address (e.g., *.siteingest.com -> 198.51.100.1).
2. Proper Reverse Proxy: Nginx must pass the original Host header to the Flask backend so it can extract the subdomain.

Nginx Configuration Example

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name siteingest.com www.siteingest.com *.siteingest.com;

    location / {
        # Forward the original host header to the Flask microservice
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;

        # Assuming Gunicorn/Waitress is running on port 8000
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8000;
    }
}

Additional Production Considerations

• WSGI Server: In production, do not use app.run(). Serve the Flask app via a production WSGI server like Waitress (Windows) or Gunicorn (Linux).
• Process Manager: Use systemd, pm2, or supervisor to keep your Flask backend and PocketBase running continuously.
• Reserved Subdomains: To prevent users from registering names like www, api, or admin, ensure you implement validation logic to block these specific strings during the subdomain selection step.

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📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.

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