Tiny Tiny RSS#

Upgrade#

Updating to a major TT-RSS version requires a database migration. This happens for example when you upgrade from Debian 10 (TT-RSS 18) to Debian 11 (TT-RSS 21)

See also

  • Tiny Tiny RSS - ArchWiki [1]

  1. make a backup of the database

  2. update TT-RSS

    sudo -u www-data -- /usr/bin/php /usr/share/tt-rss/www/update.php --update-schema=force-yes

Torification#

TT-RSS can download all feeds through TOR.

Some websites actively block TOR exit node addresses. In this case you will need to configure an RSS bridge/proxy which can be simply a script that downloads the RSS XML file through clearnet. This file must then be served on a system that is accessible to your TT-RSS instance.

See also

  • Tiny Tiny RSS over TOR [2]

  1. install TOR and Privoxy

    apt-get install tor privoxy

  2. Check that TOR is running

    systemctl status tor@default.service

  3. configure Privoxy. Add this content to the configuration file

    /etc/privoxy/config#
    1forward-socks5t    /   127.0.0.1:9050   .
2listen-address    127.0.0.1:8123
3
4# [ ... ]

    Note

    You can add more forwarding rules to ignore routing the traffic through TOR for specific domains. Have a look at the /etc/privoxy/config file provided by the package which is well documented.

  4. append the following at the end of TT-RSS's configuration file

    /etc/tt-rss/config.php#
    1    // [ ... ]
2
3    define('HTTP_PROXY', '127.0.0.1:8123');
4    define('_HTTP_PROXY', '127.0.0.1:8123');
5    define('_CURL_HTTP_PROXY', '127.0.0.1:8123');
6    define('SELF_USER_AGENT', 'Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:63.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/63.0');

    These variables should cover recent TT-RSS versions.

  5. restart the services

    systemctl restart tt-rss privoxy ${webserver}

Feed proxy#

Sometimes TT-RSS is unable to fetch feeds. You can use this script to act as a bridge to download the XML files directly. You need a running webserver, in this example Apache HTTPD, and then point TT-RSS to the new RSS feed URLs.

  1. install the dependencies

    apt-get install python3-yaml

  2. install fpyutils. See reference

  3. create a new user

    useradd -m -s /bin/bash -U rss
passwd rss
usermod -aG jobs rss

  4. create the jobs directories. See reference

    mkdir -p /home/jobs/{scripts,services}/by-user/rss

  5. create the script

    /home/jobs/scripts/by-user/rss/feed_proxy.py#
     1#!/usr/bin/env python3
 2#
 3# feed_proxy.py
 4#
 5# Copyright (C) 2021-2022 Franco Masotti (franco \D\o\T masotti {-A-T-} tutanota \D\o\T com)
 6#
 7# This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
 8# it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
 9# the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
10# (at your option) any later version.
11#
12# This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
13# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
14# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
15# GNU General Public License for more details.
16#
17# You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
18# along with this program.  If not, see <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
19r"""Save RSS feeds."""
20
21import pathlib
22import shlex
23import sys
24import time
25
26import requests
27import yaml
28
29if __name__ == '__main__':
30    configuration_file = shlex.quote(sys.argv[1])
31    config = yaml.load(open(configuration_file), Loader=yaml.SafeLoader)
32
33    for f in config['feeds']:
34        for feed in f:
35            try:
36                if f[feed]['user_agent'] == '':
37                    headers = dict()
38                else:
39                    headers = {'User-Agent': f[feed]['user_agent']}
40                r = requests.get(f[feed]['url'], headers=headers, timeout=60)
41                full_path_file = str(
42                    pathlib.Path(config['files']['base_path'],
43                                 f[feed]['relative_path']))
44                # Write the new file as binary.
45                with open(full_path_file, 'wb') as f:
46                    f.write(r.content)
47
48            except requests.exceptions.RequestException as e:
49                print(e)
50
51            time.sleep(config['network']['sleep_seconds_between_feeds'])

  6. create a configuration file

    /home/jobs/scripts/by-user/rss/feed_proxy.mypurpose.yaml#
     1#
 2# feed_proxy.mypurpose.yaml
 3#
 4# Copyright (C) 2021-2022 Franco Masotti (franco \D\o\T masotti {-A-T-} tutanota \D\o\T com)
 5#
 6# This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
 7# it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
 8# the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
 9# (at your option) any later version.
10#
11# This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
12# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
13# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
14# GNU General Public License for more details.
15#
16# You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
17# along with this program.  If not, see <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
18
19feeds:
20    - Feed one:
21        url: 'https://some.domain/atom.xml'
22        relative_path: 'some_domain.xml'
23        # Leave empty for default.
24        user_agent: ''
25    - Feed two:
26        url: 'https://another.domain/rss.xml'
27        relative_path: 'another.xml'
28        user_agent: ''
29
30files:
31    base_path: '/var/www/feeds'
32
33network:
34    sleep_seconds_between_feeds: 10

    Important

    files.base_path must point to a readable directory of the webserver, for example /var/www

  7. create the Systemd service unit file

    /home/jobs/services/by-user/rss/feed-proxy.mypurpose.service#
     1[Unit]
 2Description=Feed proxy mypurpose
 3Requires=network-online.target
 4After=network-online.target
 5
 6[Service]
 7Type=simple
 8ExecStart=/home/jobs/scripts/by-user/rss/feed_proxy.py /home/jobs/scripts/by-user/rss/feed_proxy.mypurpose.yaml
 9User=rss
10Group=rss

    Note

    You can use torsocks to retrieve feeds via TOR.

  8. create the Systemd service timer unit file

    /home/jobs/services/by-user/rss/feed-proxy.mypurpose.timer#
    1[Unit]
2Description=Once every 60 minutes feed proxy mypurpose
3
4[Timer]
5OnCalendar=hourly
6Persistent=true
7
8[Install]
9WantedBy=timers.target

  9. add the rss user to the group of the user running the webserver, www-data

    usermod -aG www-data rss

  10. run the deploy script

Footnotes