Message Board Application (Client–Hub–Channel)

Overview

This project was developed as part of a university course assignment.
It implements a distributed message board system with three main components:

• Hub: The central registry that manages channel registration and coordinates communication.
• Channel: Individual message boards where users can post and read messages.
• Client: A Flask-based web interface for users to interact with the hub and channels.

⚠️ Note: The original hub server was provided temporarily by the professor and is no longer active.
This repository now serves as a portfolio project, demonstrating the architecture and implementation.

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Features

• Channel registration: Channels can be registered with the hub using a name, endpoint, and authentication key.
• Message posting: Clients can send messages to a channel.
• Message retrieval: Clients can view messages from channels in a web interface.
• Authentication: Channels are protected with an authkey to prevent unauthorized access.
• Flask UI: Simple, user-friendly interface for interacting with the system.

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Architecture

• The Client connects to the Hub to discover available channels.
• The Hub keeps track of registered channels and their endpoints.
• The Channel hosts the actual message board content and responds to client requests.

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Getting Started

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/MikeNsiah10/message_channel.git
cd message-channel

Install Dependendies

pip install -r requirements.txt

Code Organization

• Run with
> python hub.py
• Runs on localhost, port 5555
• channel.py – The starter code for a channel
• Run with
> python channel.py
• After that, register your channel (in a separate terminal) with
> flask –app channel.py register
• client.py – The client application
• Run with
> python client.py
• Open displayed URL in browser

git clone https://github.com/<your-username>/message_board_app.git
cd message_board_app