Nextcloud News Updater ====================== .. image:: https://img.shields.io/pypi/v/nextcloud_news_updater.svg :target: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/nextcloud_news_updater .. image:: https://travis-ci.org/nextcloud/news-updater.svg?branch=master :target: https://travis-ci.org/nextcloud/news-updater This Python library is a parallel feed updater for the `Nextcloud News app `_ Nextcloud does not require people to install threading or multiprocessing libraries. Because the feed update process is mainly limited by I/O, parallel fetching of RSS feed updates can speed up the updating process significantly. In addition, Web Cron is not a supported cron setting since the update process may time out. Therefore the News app provides an API that offers a more fine grained control over updating feeds. This Python project implements an update mechanism that is based on the `updater REST API `_ or (new in Nextcloud News 8.1.0) the console based update API. .. contents:: :local: Dependencies ------------ * **Python >=3.5** Pre-Installation ---------------- To run the updates via an external threaded script the cron updater has to be disabled. To do that go to the admin section an uncheck the **Use Nextcloud cron** checkbox or open **nextcloud/data/news/config/config.ini** and set:: useCronUpdates = true to:: useCronUpdates = false Installation ------------ There are two different ways to install the updater: * Installation using pip (recommended) * Manual installation * No installation Installation Using Pip ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Since 8.2 the package is available on pypi for installation via pip (the Python library package manager). To install pip on your distribution of choice, `consolidate the pip documentation `_ **Note**: You need to install the Python 3 version of pip After installing pip, run:: sudo pip3 install nextcloud_news_updater To update the library, run:: sudo pip3 install --upgrade nextcloud_news_updater To uninstall the library run:: sudo pip3 uninstall nextcloud_news_updater Manual Installation ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you don't want to install the updater via pip, you can install it manually. This requires setuptools to be installed. On Ubuntu this can be done by running:: sudo apt-get install python3-setuptools Then install the package like this:: python3 setup.py install --install-scripts=/usr/bin To uninstall the updater run:: python3 setup.py uninstall No Installation ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you do not want to install the script at all you can call it directly. Simply run the updater using:: python3 -m nextcloud_news_updater /path/to/nextcloud Usage ----- There are two ways to run the updater: * Using the console API (recommended):: nextcloud-news-updater /path/to/nextcloud * Using the REST API (when running the updater on a different machine than Nextcloud):: nextcloud-news-updater https://domain.com/path/to/nextcloud --user admin_user --password admin_password **Note**: **admin_user** is a user id with admin rights, **admin_password** the user's password You can view all options by running:: nextcloud-news-updater --help :: usage: __main__.py [-h] [--threads THREADS] [--timeout TIMEOUT] [--interval INTERVAL] [--apilevel {v1-2,v2,v15}] [--loglevel {info,error}] [--config CONFIG] [--phpini PHPINI] [--user USER] [--password PASSWORD] [--version] [--mode {endless,singlerun}] [--php PHP] [url] positional arguments: url The URL or absolute path to the directory where Nextcloud is installed. Must be specified on the command line or in the config file. If the URL starts with http:// or https://, a user and password are required. Otherwise the updater tries to use the console based API which was added in 8.1.0 optional arguments: -h, --help show this help message and exit --threads THREADS, -t THREADS How many feeds should be fetched in parallel, defaults to 10 --timeout TIMEOUT, -s TIMEOUT Maximum number of seconds for updating a feed, defaults to 5 minutes --interval INTERVAL, -i INTERVAL Update interval between fetching the next round of updates in seconds, defaults to 15 minutes. The update timespan will be subtracted from the interval. --apilevel {v1-2,v2,v15}, -a {v1-2,v2,v15} API level. Use v15 for News 15 or later, or v1-2 for releases prior to that --loglevel {info,error}, -l {info,error} Log granularity, info will log all urls and received data, error will only log errors --config CONFIG, -c CONFIG Path to config file where all parameters except can be defined as key values pair. See the README.rst for more information --phpini PHPINI, -P PHPINI Custom absolute path to the php.ini file to use for the command line updater. If omitted, the default one will be used --user USER, -u USER Admin username to log into Nextcloud. Must be specified on the command line or in the config file if the updater should update over HTTP --password PASSWORD, -p PASSWORD Admin password to log into Nextcloud if the updater should update over HTTP --version, -v Prints the updater's version --mode {endless,singlerun}, -m {endless,singlerun} Mode to run the updater in: endless runs the update again after the specified interval, singlerun only executes the update once --php PHP Path to the PHP binary, e.g. /usr/bin/php7.0, defaults to php You can also put your settings in a config file, looking like this: .. code:: ini [updater] threads = 10 interval = 900 loglevel = error # or https://domain.com/nextcloud when using the REST API url = /path/to/nextcloud # or v2 which is currently a draft apilevel = v15 mode = endless # The following lines are only needed when using the REST API user = admin password = admin # The following lines are only needed when using the console API # path to php binary php = /usr/bin/php7.0 phpini = /path/to/custom/php.ini **Warning**: If you use REST API with user and password assigned in the config file, you probably don't want anyone else but the file owner to see your user/password in the file. Secure it with:: chmod 600 /path/to/config **Note**: You can omit options in the config file if you want to use the defaults, but you can not have more than the allowed parameters present, otherwise an exception will abort the updater. Then run the updater with:: nextcloud-news-updater -c /path/to/config **Note**: Command line parameters will always overwrite config parameters, so if you just want to change your loglevel to info for one run you can now do the following without globally changing the config file:: nextcloud-news-updater -c /path/to/config --mode singlerun --loglevel info Running The Updater As Systemd Service -------------------------------------- Almost always you want to run and stop the updater using your in init system. As for Systemd, you can create a simple text file at **/etc/systemd/system/nextcloud-news-updater.service** with the following contents: .. code:: ini [Unit] After=default.target [Service] Type=simple User=http ExecStart=/usr/bin/nextcloud-news-updater -c /etc/nextcloud/news/updater.ini [Install] WantedBy=default.target Then to enable and start it run:: sudo systemctl enable nextcloud-news-updater.service sudo systemctl start nextcloud-news-updater.service **Note**: If you are using the cli based updater (as in set an absolute directory as url) you need to set the web-server user as user in the unit file. Otherwise the command will fail because Nextcloud checks for the owner of its files. This user varies from distribution to distribution, e.g in Debian and Ubuntu you would use the **www-data** user: .. code:: ini [Unit] After=default.target [Service] Type=simple User=www-data ExecStart=/usr/bin/nextcloud-news-updater -c /etc/nextcloud/news/updater.ini [Install] WantedBy=default.target If you are using the REST API, most of the time you can get away by using **nobody** as user, but again, that might vary depending on your distribution. Running The Updater As OpenRC Service -------------------------------------- On Alpine/postmarketOS/Gentoo/Artix or the other OpenRC based distros, you can create a simple text file at **/etc/init.d/nextcloud-news-updater** with the following contents: .. code:: sh #!/sbin/openrc-run description="Nextcloud News Updater Daemon" pidfile=${pidfile:-/run/nextcloud-news-updater.pid} output_log="/var/log/nextcloud-news-updater/output.log" error_log="/var/log/nextcloud-news-updater/error.log" command=${command:-/usr/bin/nextcloud-news-updater} command_user=${command_user:-www-data:www-data} command_args="-c /etc/nextcloud/news/updater.ini" command_background=true Then to enable and start it run:: sudo -u www-data mkdir /var/log/nextcloud-news-updater sudo -u www-data touch /var/log/nextcloud-news-updater/output.log \ /var/log/nextcloud-news-updater/error.log sudo chmod 755 /etc/init.d/nextcloud-news-updater sudo rc-update add nextcloud-news-updater sudo rc-service nextcloud-news-updater start Troubleshooting ---------------- If you are having trouble debugging updater errors, try running it again using the **info** loglevel:: nextcloud-news-updater --loglevel info -c /path/to/config.ini How Do I Enable Support For Self-Signed Certificates ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you are using self-signed certificates, don't. It's very easy to sign your cert for free from `Lets Encrypt `_ If you still have to use a self-signed certificate no matter what, don't patch the code to turn off certificate verification but rather globally add your certificate to the trusted certificates. Read up on your distributions documentation to find out how. Can I Run The Updater Using Cron ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Yes, you can by using the **--mode singlerun** parameter which will exit after one full update. However it's your job to ensure, that the job will not be executed more than once at the same time. If update jobs overlap, they **can take down your system and/or server** since each new updater will slow down the previous ones causing more updaters to be spawned. If you can not ensure that the updater is run only one at a time use the default mode (**--mode endless**). This mode runs the update in a loop. You can control the update frequency through the **--interval** parameter (or **interval** using a config file). The updater works in the following way: * If a full update takes longer than the passed interval, another update will be run immediately afterwards * If a full update took less than the passed interval, the updater will sleep for the remaining time and run an update afterwards Using The CLI Based Updater Fails ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The updater uses the PHP executable to run the occ file inside your nextcloud directory. The general process boils down to the following: .. code-block:: bash # delete folders and feeds marked for deletion php -f /home/bernhard/programming/core/occ news:updater:before-update # get all feeds to udpate php -f /home/bernhard/programming/core/occ news:updater:all-feeds # run all feed updates php -f /home/bernhard/programming/core/occ news:updater:update-feed FEED_ID USER_ID # delete old articles php -f /home/bernhard/programming/core/occ news:updater:after-update Most of the time there are two possible points of failure that can be debugged by using the **--logelevel info** parameter: * Most distributions uses different **php.ini** files for your command line and web-server. This can manifest itself in weird errors like not being able to connect to the database. The solution is to either adjust **php.ini** used for the CLI PHP or to use a different **php.ini** altogether by specifying the **--phpini** parameter, e.g.:: nextcloud-news-updater -c /path/to/config --phpini /etc/php/nextcloud-news-updater.ini * The **news:updater:all-feeds** command returns invalid JSON. This can be due to due broken or missing **php.ini** settings or PHP warnings/errors produced by Nextcloud. The solution to this issue can range from adjusting your **php.ini** (see previous point) to manually patching Nextcloud to remove the warnings from the output. Working with Centos/RHEL ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Since Centos only provides Python 3.4, you can use `SoftwareCollections `_ to install a newer Python version. For example Python 3.5: https://www.softwarecollections.org/en/scls/rhscl/rh-python35/ .. code-block:: bash # 1. Install the Software Collection Repository $ sudo yum install centos-release-scl # 2. Install the collection: $ sudo yum install rh-python35 # 3. Start using software collections: $ scl enable rh-python35 bash # 4. Install nextcloud-news.updater $ sudo pip3 install nextcloud_news_updater After the install you can run the updater as a service by extending the service file with the correct environment variable for your Python version. In this example we use Python 3.5: .. code:: ini [Unit] After=default.target [Service] Type=simple User=http ExecStart=/usr/bin/nextcloud-news-updater -c /etc/nextcloud-news-updater.ini Environment=LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/rh/rh-python35/root/usr/lib64 [Install] WantedBy=default.target