For running the virtual environment:

First create the environment:
python -m venv venv

Then activate the environment on Windows:
venv\Scripts\activate

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Installing fastapi and uvicorn in the environment in order to run the microservices
pip install fastapi uvicorn

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Installing other dependencies
pip install passlib[bcrypt] pyjwt requests pymongo

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Running the microservices aka. the servicesRunner.py file
This command will run all the microservices at once on the machine

uvicorn servicesRunner:subApp --reload

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Running the rideMatching server.py:
python server.py 
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Running the client:
python client.py
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Database

This distributed system uses MongoDB as its database.
The database location is the default "mongodb://localhost:27017"
The database is called "uber-cli-database"

There are 3 collections in the database: users, paymentInfos and transactions:

users collection has username, password, accountType and status
accountType can be either passenger or driver
status can be None, "available" or "on_ride"

paymentInfos collection has user_id and cardNumber
user_id is the MongoDB ObjectId for the user (gotten from the users collection)
This is done to separate sensitive financial data from other data
cardNumber is used as a stand-in for actual banking information like credit card number, expiration and CVC

The passwords are NOT stored as plain text in the database but are HASHED!