IRCTC Booking System (Clone) — Full Stack

A Java Spring Boot + vanilla HTML/CSS/JS train booking system, built as a portfolio/learning project. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Indian Railways / IRCTC — it just borrows the familiar workflow (search → book → PNR) as a realistic project to build.

Stack

• Backend: Java 17, Spring Boot 3.3 (Web, Data JPA, Security, Validation), H2 in-memory database, Gradle
• Frontend: Static HTML/CSS/JS served directly from Spring Boot (src/main/resources/static), calling the REST API with fetch
• Auth: Session-based login via Spring Security, BCrypt password hashing, ROLE_USER / ROLE_ADMIN

Features

• Search trains by source, destination, and date, with live seat availability per date
• Book seats → get a generated 10-digit PNR
• Look up PNR status for any booking
• View and cancel your own bookings (My bookings)
• Admin panel: add new trains, view all trains, view & cancel any booking
• Concurrency-safe booking: seat counts are decremented under a row lock so two people booking the last seat at the same time can't both succeed

Project layout

IRCTC_/
├── settings.gradle
├── build.gradle                  (root — empty, config lives in app/)
├── gradlew / gradlew.bat
└── app/
    ├── build.gradle              (Spring Boot dependencies)
    └── src/main/
        ├── java/com/irctc/
        │   ├── IrctcApplication.java
        │   ├── model/            (User, Train, TrainAvailability, Booking, enums)
        │   ├── repository/       (Spring Data JPA repositories)
        │   ├── service/          (UserService, TrainService, BookingService, PnrGenerator)
        │   ├── controller/       (AuthController, TrainController, BookingController, AdminController)
        │   ├── security/         (SecurityConfig, UserDetailsService, JSON auth handlers)
        │   ├── config/           (DataSeeder — creates a demo admin + sample trains on startup)
        │   ├── dto/               (request/response objects)
        │   └── exception/        (GlobalExceptionHandler → clean JSON error responses)
        └── resources/
            ├── application.properties
            └── static/
                ├── index.html     (search trains)
                ├── css/style.css
                ├── js/{api.js, search.js, admin.js}
                └── pages/{login, signup, my-bookings, pnr-status, admin, booking-confirmation}.html

Running it

1. Make sure you have the Gradle wrapper jar. If gradle/wrapper/gradle-wrapper.jar is missing (only the .properties file is included here), generate it once with a local Gradle install:

   gradle wrapper --gradle-version 8.10
   

2. Run the app:

   ./gradlew bootRun        # macOS/Linux
   gradlew.bat bootRun      # Windows
   

3. Open http://localhost:8080 in your browser.

On first startup, DataSeeder creates:

• An admin account: admin@irctc.com / admin123
• 5 sample trains (Mumbai↔Delhi, Delhi↔Kolkata, Chennai↔Delhi, Mumbai↔Amritsar, Delhi↔Bhopal)

You can inspect the H2 database directly at http://localhost:8080/h2-console (JDBC URL: jdbc:h2:mem:irctcdb, user sa, no password).

Known simplifications (good "next steps" to extend this project)

• No seat/coach classes — booking just decrements a single seat pool per train per date, rather than modeling sleeper/AC coaches and specific berths.
• CSRF protection is disabled on the API for simplicity, since the frontend is plain JS calling fetch with session cookies. A production version should either issue a CSRF token to the frontend, or move to token-based (JWT) auth.
• In-memory H2 database — all data resets every time the app restarts. Swap the JDBC URL and driver in application.properties for MySQL/Postgres to persist data.
• No email verification or password reset for signup.
• No waitlist/RAC status — a booking simply fails once a train is full at the requested date.

API reference (quick)

Method	Path	Auth	Description
POST	/api/auth/signup	Public	Create a user account
POST	/api/auth/login	Public	Log in (form-encoded email/password)
POST	/api/auth/logout	Logged in	Log out
GET	/api/auth/me	Logged in	Current user info
GET	/api/trains/search	Public	?source=&destination=&date=YYYY-MM-DD
POST	/api/bookings	Logged in	Book seats
POST	/api/bookings/{pnr}/cancel	Owner/Admin	Cancel a booking
GET	/api/bookings/pnr/{pnr}	Public	Look up booking by PNR
GET	/api/bookings/my	Logged in	Your bookings
POST	/api/admin/trains	Admin	Add a train
GET	/api/admin/trains	Admin	List all trains
GET	/api/admin/bookings	Admin	List all bookings
POST	/api/admin/bookings/{pnr}/cancel	Admin	Cancel any booking