student-management-system-spring-boot-backend

Production-ready Spring Boot 3 backend for Student Management — Java 17, Docker, MySQL 8, JPA/Hibernate, JWT (access + rotating refresh), and configuration via AWS Secrets Manager on EC2.

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Docs live on the development branch

I keep detailed, evolving documentation on the development branch while keeping main clean and stable.

• 👉 Full README: backend README (development)

• Browse branch: development branch

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Highlights

• Secure JWT: short-lived access + rotating refresh tokens
• 12-factor config: secrets in AWS Secrets Manager (no secrets in VCS)
• Dockerized: API and MySQL as separate containers on a private Docker network
• Clean JPA/Hibernate layering (controllers → services → repositories)

Quick start (local)

1. Make sure MySQL 8 is running locally.
2. Run the app from your IDE with these environment variables:

# Local laptop/dev
db_sms_url=jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/<DB_NAME>?useSSL=false&allowPublicKeyRetrieval=true&serverTimezone=UTC
db_sms_username=<DB_USERNAME>
db_sms_password=<DB_PASSWORD>
sms_app_secret=<JWT_SECRET>

3. In program arguments, disable AWS import:

--spring.config.import=

Opening http://localhost:8080/ should return 401 (expected: app is up & secured).

Production snapshot

• EC2 (Ubuntu) with Docker network smsnet

  • sms_backend (Java 17 JRE image)
  • zeka_tm_qebele_mysql_db (MySQL 8, named volume)

• Secrets in prod/sms/backend (AWS Secrets Manager), read via EC2 IAM role

• JDBC points to DB by container name (inside Docker network): jdbc:mysql://<DB_CONTAINER_NAME>:3306/<DB_NAME>?useSSL=false&allowPublicKeyRetrieval=true&serverTimezone=UTC

Full step-by-step: see the development README (link above).

Branching

I develop on development and merge to main for stable releases.

git switch development
git switch -c feature/some-change
git push -u origin feature/some-change  # PR: feature → development → main

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License — see the LICENSE file for details.