Open-source Feedback Management Tool.
Alternative to Canny and UserVoice.

Contents

• Managed hosting
• Self hosting
  • Quick start
  • Deploy dependencies
    • Via Docker
    • Via AWS
  • Deploy ClearFlask
    • Setup
    • Run
  • Maintenance
    • Migration between Elasticsearch/MySQL
• Contributing
  • Code quality
  • Building
  • Architecture
  • Release
• Security Policy

Managed Hosting

Support our open-source development by choosing cloud hosting with scalable pricing, check us out on our website.

Self Hosting

Quick start

For a quick start using Docker, download the Docker Compose service file as docker-compose.yml, and run the following:

docker-compose --profile with-deps up

Point your browser at http://localhost and create an account using email admin@localhost.

You also want to setup outgoing mail, read the Email section.

If you wish to host it on your domain other than localhost, read the DNS section and then setup SSL/TLS certificates.

Replace dependencies

There are several dependencies that you can swap out for ClearFlask:

• AWS DynamoDB or Localstack or API-compatible alternative (ScyllaDB is not fully compatible)
• MinIO or AWS S3 or API-compatible alternative
• One of:
  • MySQL or Aurora
  • ElasticSearch or OpenSearch
• Email service via SMTP or AWS SES

And a few optional:

• Google ReCaptcha
• Let's Encrypt automagic certificate management
• CloudFront as a CDN (Use in front of clearflask-connect)

Via Docker

You can spin up all dependencies via Docker.

Simply add the --profile with-deps to your docker-compose command when starting ClearFlask.

All database content will be persisted to local filesystem under data folder.

Via AWS

For production workload, you will want to spin up these dependencies yourself and point ClearFlask to their endpoints.

IAM access

For AWS services, clearflask-server auto-detects Access Keys using either a configuration property or the default locations. If you are running in EC2 or ECS, keys detection is automated, you just need to create the appropriate IAM role.

AWS DynamoDB

Provide IAM access including create table permission as table is created automatically by ClearFlask on startup.

IAM actions:

• CreateTable
• BatchGetItem
• GetItem
• Query
• BatchWriteItem
• DeleteItem
• PutItem
• UpdateItem

AWS S3

Create a private bucket with IAM access to ClearFlask.

IAM actions:

• ListBucket
• GetObject
• DeleteObject
• PutObject

You can also use an API-compatible alternative service such as Wasabi, MinIO...

ElasticSearch or MySQL

Recommended is AWS ES, give the proper IAM access

IAM actions, all in these categories:

• List
• Read
• Write
• Tagging

Alternatively you can deploy it yourself (cheaper) or host it on Elastic. Or you can choose to use MySQL/Aurora as a cheaper alternative.

AWS SES

In order to setup SES, you need to seek limit increase via AWS support.

Change the config property ...EmailServiceImpl$Config.useService to ses and give the proper IAM access.

IAM actions:

• SendEmail
• SendRawEmail

Alternatively use any other email provider and fill out the SMTP settings

Deploy ClearFlask

ClearFlask consists of two components:

• Tomcat application for serving API requests
• NodeJS for SSR, dynamic cert management and serving static files

Setup

1. Download the Docker Compose service file
2. Run it with docker-compose --profile with-deps up which creates few configuration files in your local directory
3. Carefully read and modify server/config-selfhost.cfg.
4. Carefully read and modify connect/connect.config.json.
5. Adjust the Docker Compose service file to add/remove dependencies if you are hosting them outside of Docker

Email

By default, email is configured for AWS SES pointing to your Localstack (which doesn't do anything).

You can choose to setup your own SMTP server or use AWS SES.

Email using SMTP

Change the configuration to SMTP:

• com.smotana.clearflask.core.push.provider.EmailServiceImpl$Config.useService: smtp

Then you need to gather your SMTP settings and fill out the following:

• com.smotana.clearflask.core.push.provider.EmailServiceImpl$Config.smtpStrategy: SMTP_TLS (SMTP_TLS, SMTPS, SMTP)
• com.smotana.clearflask.core.push.provider.EmailServiceImpl$Config.smtpHost: smtp.gmail.com (e.g. smtp.gmail.com)
• com.smotana.clearflask.core.push.provider.EmailServiceImpl$Config.smtpPort: 587 (587 for SMTP_TLS, 465 for SMTPS, 25 for SMTP)
• com.smotana.clearflask.core.push.provider.EmailServiceImpl$Config.smtpUser: my.name@gmail.com (e.g. my.name@gmail.com)
• com.smotana.clearflask.core.push.provider.EmailServiceImpl$Config.smtpPassword: asdfqwerzxcvasdf (To get this working, you need to enable IMAP if not enabled. If you use 2FA, you need to generate an app password and use it here)
• com.smotana.clearflask.core.push.provider.EmailServiceImpl$Config.emailDisplayName: ClearFlask (e.g. 'ClearFlask for MyCompany')
• com.smotana.clearflask.core.push.provider.EmailServiceImpl$Config.fromEmailLocalPart: my.name (first part of your email, for my.name@gmail.com, it would be 'my.name')
• com.smotana.clearflask.core.push.provider.EmailServiceImpl$Config.fromEmailDomainOverride: gmail.com (domain part of your email, for my.name@gmail.com, it would be 'gmail.com')

Email using AWS SES

Change the configuration to SMTP:

• com.smotana.clearflask.core.push.provider.EmailServiceImpl$Config.useService: ses

Then fill out the SES settings:

• com.smotana.clearflask.core.email.AmazonSimpleEmailServiceProvider$Config.region: us-east-1
• com.smotana.clearflask.core.email.AmazonSimpleEmailServiceProvider$Config.serviceEndpoint: (Leave blank, unless you need to override)

DNS

By default, everything is assumed to be on localhost. If you wish to host your portal on yoursite.com or 192.168.1.123, set the following properties:

• connect.config.json:parentDomain: yoursite.com
• config-selfhost.cfg:com.smotana.clearflask.web.Application$Config.domain: yoursite.com

Certificate management

Automagic using Let's Encrypt

If you wish to have certificates fetched and renewed for you automagically using Let's Encrypt, ensure your DNS is correctly pointing to your server, it is publicly accessible, and set the following config parameters:

• connect.config.json:disableAutoFetchCertificate: false
• connect.config.json:forceRedirectHttpToHttps: true
• config-selfhost.cfg:com.smotana.clearflask.web.security.AuthCookieImpl$Config.authCookieSecure: true

Once you load your site for the first time, a Certificate is auto-magically fetched for you.

Static certificate

If you wish to use your own certificate, set the following properties:

• connect.config.json:disableAutoFetchCertificate: false
• connect.config.json:forceRedirectHttpToHttps: true
• config-selfhost.cfg:com.smotana.clearflask.web.security.AuthCookieImpl$Config.authCookieSecure: true
• config-selfhost.cfg:com.smotana.clearflask.security.CertFetcherImpl$Config.staticCert: <SEE BELOW>

For the staticCert property value, this has to be a JSON object with the following structure, but you need to put it in a single line:

{
    "cert": {
        "cert": "-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----\nMIIFFjCC...",
        "chain": "-----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----\nMIIE/jCC",
        "subject": "feedback.example.com",
        "altnames": [
            "feedback.example.com"
        ],
        "issuedAt": 1709572939000,
        "expiresAt": 1741108939000
    },
    "keypair": {
        "privateKeyPem": "-----BEGIN PRIVATE KEY-----\nMIIEvwIB..."
    }
}

Note that you have to put this into a single line. The cert, chain and keypair will replace any literal \n into a newline.

This approach is not recommended as you will have to update this certificate manually.

Self-managed behind reverse proxy

If you are managing TLS certificates behind a reverse proxy, redirect all http requests to https, set the following config:

• connect.config.json:disableAutoFetchCertificate: true
• connect.config.json:forceRedirectHttpToHttps: true
• config-selfhost.cfg:com.smotana.clearflask.web.security.AuthCookieImpl$Config.authCookieSecure: true

No certificates

Although discouraged, you can run ClearFlask over HTTP only. Ensure these settings are set:

• connect.config.json:disableAutoFetchCertificate: true
• connect.config.json:forceRedirectHttpToHttps: false
• config-selfhost.cfg:com.smotana.clearflask.web.security.AuthCookieImpl$Config.authCookieSecure: false

Dashboard account

For you to manage the dashboard, you need to whitelist an email to be able to create a super-admin account:

config-selfhost.cfg:com.smotana.clearflask.web.security.SuperAdminPredicate$Config.superAdminEmailRegex: ^admin@yoursite.com$

After you sign-up, disable further signups using:

config-selfhost.cfg:com.smotana.clearflask.web.resource.AccountResource$Config.signupEnabled: false

Run

1. Run docker-compose up or docker-compose --profile with-deps up to also start dependencies.
2. Point your browser at http://localhost or if you configured your DNS https://yoursite.com.
3. Create an account using admin@localhost email or based on your configuration of superAdminEmailRegex.

Maintenance

Migration between ElasticSearch/MySQL

Source of truth data is stored in a NoSQL DynamoDB compatible database. For searching/filtering, you have a choice of using a separate database:

ElasticSearch:

• Intended for large projects
• Searching is great (example: searching for 'Johnny' will find 'Jonathan')

MySQL:

• Intended for small projects
• Lightweight
• Cheap to host
• Searching is idential match only (example: searching for 'Jon' will find 'Jonathan')

Migration prerequisites

To check what you are using now, open your configuration file config-selfhost.cfg for the property com.smotana.clearflask.web.Application$Config.defaultSearchEngine. If you can't find it, the default value uses ElasticSearch.

You will need a JMX client such as jconsole probably already bundled with your JRE/JDK on your system or VisualVM. To connect to your running instance, you need to enable port forwarding in your docker-compose.yml file by uncommenting the JMX ports and restarting. Then you can connect to service:jmx:rmi:///jndi/rmi://localhost:9950/jmxrmi without credentials and without SSL.

During the migration, you should be checking the logs for any warnings or errors. Especially when starting up or invoking a JMX method. If you run in to issues, document it, open an issue on GitHub and optionally rolback by undoing all the steps in reverse order.

Migrate from Mysql to ElasticSearch

1. Double check you are using MySQL, you should have this property set: config-selfhost.cfg:com.smotana.clearflask.web.Application$Config.defaultSearchEngine: READWRITE_MYSQL
2. Edit docker-compose.yml:
   1. Uncomment clearflask-server container's JMX ports 9950:9950 and 9951:9951
   2. Uncomment elasticsearch container
   3. Restart the server
3. Using JMX, invoke com.smotana.clearflask.web.resource.ProjectResource.createIndexes(true, false); On failure, check the logs
4. Edit docker-compose.yml
   1. Change com.smotana.clearflask.web.Application$Config.defaultSearchEngine to READ_MYSQL_WRITE_BOTH
   2. Restart the server
5. Using JMX, invoke com.smotana.clearflask.web.resource.ProjectResource.reindexProjects(true, true, false)
6. At this point you are using both ElasticSearch and MySQL but reading only from MySQL. To test a single project with ElasticSearch, as super admin open https://<your_domain>/dashboard/settings/project/advanced and at the bottom of the page force override the search engine to ElasticSearch. Remember to unset this property before continuing.
7. Edit docker-compose.yml
   1. Change com.smotana.clearflask.web.Application$Config.defaultSearchEngine to READ_ELASTICSEARCH_WRITE_BOTH
   2. Restart the server and ensure every project is working well.
8. Edit docker-compose.yml and change com.smotana.clearflask.web.Application$Config.defaultSearchEngine to READWRITE_ELASTICSEARCH
9. Edit docker-compose.yml:
   1. Comment out mysql-db container to prevent it from starting up.
   2. Comment out clearflask-server container's JMX ports 9950:9950 and 9951:9951
   3. Restart the server
10. Remove the leftover data stored by the now non-functional MySQL container.

Migrate from ElasticSearch to Mysql

1. Double check you are using ElasticSearch, you may have this property set: config-selfhost.cfg:com.smotana.clearflask.web.Application$Config.defaultSearchEngine: READWRITE_ELASTICSEARCH . If it is missing, the default is ElasticSearch
2. Edit docker-compose.yml:
   1. Uncomment clearflask-server container's JMX ports 9950:9950 and 9951:9951
   2. Uncomment mysql-db container
   3. Restart the server
3. Using JMX, invoke com.smotana.clearflask.web.resource.ProjectResource.createIndexes(false, true); On failure, check the logs
4. Edit docker-compose.yml
   1. Change com.smotana.clearflask.web.Application$Config.defaultSearchEngine to READ_ELASTICSEARCH_WRITE_BOTH
   2. Restart the server
5. Using JMX, invoke com.smotana.clearflask.web.resource.ProjectResource.reindexProjects(true, false, true)
6. At this point you are using both ElasticSearch and MySQL but reading only from ElasticSearch. To test a single project with MySQL, as super admin open https://<your_domain>/dashboard/settings/project/advanced and at the bottom of the page force override the search engine to MySQL. Remember to unset this property before continuing.
7. Edit docker-compose.yml
   1. Change com.smotana.clearflask.web.Application$Config.defaultSearchEngine to READ_MYSQL_WRITE_BOTH
   2. Restart the server and ensure every project is working well.
8. Edit docker-compose.yml and change com.smotana.clearflask.web.Application$Config.defaultSearchEngine to READWRITE_MYSQL
9. Edit docker-compose.yml:
   1. Comment out elasticsearch container to prevent it from starting up.
   2. Comment out clearflask-server container's JMX ports 9950:9950 and 9951:9951
   3. Restart the server
10. Remove the leftover data stored by the now non-functional ElasticSearch container.

Telemetry

To disable any telemetry, set the following configuration property:

config-selfhost.cfg:com.smotana.clearflask.Application$Config.enableTelemetry: false

Contributing

Your contributions are very much appreciated. Please see here on how to contribute to our codebase.

Code quality

Java

• Generally following the Google Java Style Guide
• IntelliJ Recommended: Code style formatting is in .idea folder
• It is expected to write a test for each functionality.

JS/TS

• VisualCode recommended: code formatting and properties are defined in .vscode folder
• We are yet to establish a proper test framework. A proposal would be welcome.

Building

Environment setup

Development has been done under Mac, Linux, and Windows (with WSL)

The following requirements are a minimum:

• Java 11
• Maven
• Makefile (for local and production deployment)
• Docker
• FFmpeg and ffprobe (For babel-plugin-transform-media-imports)
• OpenSSL (For local deployment's self-signed certs)

brew install maven ffmpeg make openssl

Please let us know if we missed anything.

Compile and build

Building is straightforward and can be done by running:

mvn clean install

Add -DskipTests or -DskipITs to skip all tests or just Integration tests respectively.

For developing integration tests, you may want to start a local instance of ClearFlask and run integrations directly from your IDE. Otherwise you will have to alwasy spin up all dependencies.

Run locally

There are several ways to run locally depending on what you want to test.

Frontend + Mock backend

Ideal for fast-iteration on frontend changes. Changes to code take effect immediately.

make frontend-start

Open browser at http://localhost:3000.

Connect + Frontend + Mock backend

Intended for testing Connect and SSR. For code changes to take effect, you must rebuild clearflask-frontend.

make connect-start

Open browser at http://localhost:9080.

HTTPS + Connect + Frontend + Backend

Intended for testing the whole deal before deployment. For code changes to take effect, you must completely rebuild clearflask.

make local-up
make local-down

Open browser at https://localhost.

Connect + Frontend + Backend (Self-host)

Intended for testing self-host deployment, uses locally built Docker images rather than officially released images. For code changes to take effect, you must completely rebuild clearflask.

make selfhost-up
make selfhost-down

Open browser at https://localhost.

Debugging

When running a local deploy, you can debug various components:

Attach debugger

For debugging clearflask-server running on Tomcat, point IntelliJ IDEA or your favourite IDE to remote JVM debug on localhost:9999.

JMX

For changing configuration parameters or running exposed operations, connect via JMX using your favourite tool ( JVisualVM, JConsole, ...) on localhost:9950 without credentials and without SSL.

ElasticSearch Kibana

To look at the ES cluster and run commands, point your browser at http://localhost:5601.

KillBill Kaui

To look at the billing sysstem, point your browser at http://localhost:8081.

Credentials are admin/password and API key and secret is bob/lazar.

If you are debugging an Integration Test, a log line will reveal the API key and secret: KillBill test randomized apiKey {} secretKey {}.

AWS services (DynamoDB, Route53, SES, S3)

You can use regular AWS command line tool and point it to our mocked up LocalStack services:

aws --endpoint-url=http://localhost:4566 ...

Architecture

Overall view

The following is a production deployment of ClearFlask. It was once scribbled down during a conversation and now it's an official architecture diagram until we have a better replacement.

Project Structure

clearflask-api

Contains OpenAPI definition for communication between frontend and backend. Also includes definition of project settings.

clearflask-frontend

Client side React application containing the Landing page, customer dashboard and portal. Entry point is index.ts.

Also contains a NodeJS server nicknamed Connect that serves static files, Server-Side Rendered page as well as handling dynamic TLS certificate issuing for customers. Entry point is connect.ts.

clearflask-legal

Resource module containing Privacy Policy and Terms of Service documents.

clearflask-logging

Server logging module used for formattinbg logs as well as sending criticial emails to SRE of any warnings or errors. It is a separate package since it's used by both clearflask-server as well as KillBill servers.

clearflask-resources

ClearFlask official vector logo and resources.

clearflask-server

Server implementation of the OpenAPI definition to serve requests from clients. Uses several dependencies:

• DynamoDB: Most data is stored in this NoSQL database for fast access and scalability
• ElasticSearch: For relevant results and searching, data is replicated to ES for fast searching.
• S3: User uploaded images are served directly from S3.
• KillBill: For payment processing and billing management, KillBill is used.

Release

Intended for ClearFlask developers, this guide is for making a release of ClearFlask to create Docker images and Maven artifacts.

Prerequisites

You need credentials for uploading to GitHub Packages repository for both Docker and Maven.

In GitHub personal settings create a PAT with read:packages, write:packages, and delete:packages scopes.

For Docker registry, run this command and input your PAT as password:

docker login ghcr.io -u USERNAME

Then fill out the following with your PAT and put it under ~/.m2/settings.xml:

<settings xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/SETTINGS/1.0.0"
          xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
          xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/SETTINGS/1.0.0
                          https://maven.apache.org/xsd/settings-1.0.0.xsd">

    <servers>
        <server>
            <id>github</id>
            <username>matusfaro</username>
            <password>~~INSERT PAT TOKEN~~</password>
        </server>
    </servers>

    <profiles>
        <profile>
            <id>github</id>
            <repositories>
                <repository>
                    <id>central</id>
                    <url>https://repo1.maven.org/maven2</url>
                </repository>
                <repository>
                    <id>github</id>
                    <url>https://maven.pkg.github.com/OWNER/*</url>
                    <snapshots>
                        <enabled>true</enabled>
                    </snapshots>
                </repository>
            </repositories>
        </profile>
    </profiles>

    <activeProfiles>
        <activeProfile>github</activeProfile>
    </activeProfiles>

</settings>

Perform release

To perform a release, decide which version to increment and run the following Makefile target:

make release-<patch|minor|major>

Continuing a failed release

If the perform:prepare Maven target failed, you can re-run the whole release again from beginning.

If the perform:release Maven target failed, you can resume it by:

cd target/checkout
mvn deploy -P docker-images-push -rf clearflask-<module-to-resume>

Security Policy

Reporting a Vulnerability

Please report to security@clearflask.com for all vulnerabilities or questions regarding security. We will issue a bounty for useful vulnerabilities to pay for your contribution, however we do not have a set standard on the amount and type of vulnerabilities at this time.