Installation Guide

Open your terminal and run the following commands one by one.

git clone <repo-url>
cd cybersecurity_platform
python -m venv venv

Activate the virtual environment:

On Linux or macOS:

source venv/bin/activate

On Windows:

venv\Scripts\activate

Install all required Python packages:

pip install -r requirements.txt

Copy the example environment file and open it in any text editor to fill in your configuration values.

cp .env.example .env

Edit the .env file and set the following values:

Variable	Description	Example Value
SECRET_KEY	A long random secret key for Django	your-secret-key-here
DEBUG	Set True for development, False for production	True
DATABASE_URL	Leave empty for SQLite or set PostgreSQL URL	postgres://user:pass@localhost/dbname
EMAIL_HOST	Your SMTP mail server host	smtp.gmail.com
EMAIL_HOST_USER	Your email address	you@gmail.com
EMAIL_HOST_PASSWORD	Your email password or app password	your-app-password
REDIS_URL	Redis connection URL	redis://127.0.0.1:6379/0

Apply all database migrations to create the required tables:

python manage.py migrate

Load demo data including sample users, courses, quizzes, badges, and phishing templates:

python manage.py seed_data

This command creates the following demo accounts:

Role	Email	Password
Admin	admin@cybersec.demo	Admin1234!
Manager	manager@cybersec.demo	Manager1234!
Employee	alice@cybersec.demo	Employee1234!

You need to open three separate terminal windows and run one command in each. All three must be running at the same time.

Terminal 1 — Django Development Server:

python manage.py runserver

Terminal 2 — Celery Worker (handles phishing email dispatch and notifications):

celery -A config worker -l info

Terminal 3 — Celery Beat Scheduler (handles timed tasks and deadline reminders):

celery -A config beat -l info

Open your browser and navigate to the following URLs:

Page	URL
Main Platform	http://localhost:8000
Django Admin Panel	http://localhost:8000/admin/

Log in using the Admin demo account to access all modules including phishing campaign management, user management, compliance reports, and gamification settings.