FeedMixer is a little web service (Python3/WSGI) which takes a list of feed URLs and combines them into a single (Atom, RSS, or JSON) feed. Useful for personal news aggregators, "planet"-like websites, etc.
Changelog
- v2.3.2_ Update dependencies to use upstream feedparser now that the fix for `this bug <https://github.com/kurtmckee/feedparser/pull/260>`_ has been merged.
- v2.3.1_ More consistent builds: update dependencies in Pipfile.lock (which also seems to work better with newer versions of pipenv) and pin Dockerfile base image to specific hash
- v2.3.0_ Replace on-disk cache with in-memory cache. This simplifies application code and administration (don't have to worry about pruning the cache database)
- v2.2.0_ Fix handling of RSS feeds with missing pubDates so that they sort to the bottom instead of throwing an exception during sorting
- v2.1.0_ Fix handling of RSS enclosures and Atom links so that they are included in output (important if you're trying to aggregate podcasts or similar)
- v2.0.0_ The JSON output now conforms to `JSON Feed version 1`_. This breaks any client which depends on the previous ad-hoc JSON format. That legacy format will continue to be maintained in the `v1 branch`_, so any clients which don't want to update to the JSON Feed format should depend on that branch.
- v1.0.0_ Stable API. I'm using it in production for small personal "planet"-like feed aggregators.
.. _v2.3.2: https://github.com/cristoper/feedmixer/tree/v2.3.2
.. _v2.3.1: https://github.com/cristoper/feedmixer/tree/v2.3.1
.. _v2.3.0: https://github.com/cristoper/feedmixer/tree/v2.3.0
.. _v2.2.0: https://github.com/cristoper/feedmixer/tree/v2.2.0
.. _v2.1.0: https://github.com/cristoper/feedmixer/tree/v2.1.0
.. _v2.0.0: https://github.com/cristoper/feedmixer/tree/v2.0.0
.. _`JSON FEED version 1`: https://jsonfeed.org/
.. _`v1 branch`: https://github.com/cristoper/feedmixer/tree/v1
.. _v1.0.0: https://github.com/cristoper/feedmixer/tree/v1.0.0
API
---
FeedMixer exposes three endpoints:
- /atom
- /rss
- /json
When sent a GET request they return an Atom, an RSS 2.0, or a JSON feed, respectively. The query string of the GET request can contain these fields:
f
A url-encoded URL of a feed (any version of Atom or RSS). To include multiple feeds, simply include multiple `f` fields.
n
The number of entries to keep from each field (pass 0 to keep all entries, which is the default if no `n` field is provided).
full
If set to anything, prefer the full entry `content`; if absent, prefer the shorter entry `summary`.
Features
--------
APIn most recent items from each input feedIncluded WSGI app
- The provided `feedmixer_wsgi.py` application uses a session that caches HTTP
responses so that repeatedly fetching the same sets of feeds can usually be
responded to quickly by the FeedMixer service.
The `FeedMixer` object can be passed a custom `requests.session` object used
to make HTTP requests, which allows flexible customization in how requests
are made if you need that.
Non-features
------------
FeedMixer does not (yet?) do any resource restriction itself:
- Authorization
- Rate limiting
- CORS restriction
TO protect your installation either configure a front-end http proxy to take
care of your required restrictions (Nginx is a good choice), or/and use
suitable WSGI middleware.
Installation
------------
#. Clone this repository:
``$ git clone https://github.com/cristoper/feedmixer.git``
#. ``$ cd feedmixer``
#. Recommended: use pipenv_ to create a virtualenv and install dependencies:
``$ pipenv sync``
The project consists of three modules:
- ``feedmixer.py`` - contains the core logic
- ``feedmixer_api.py`` - contains the Falcon_-based API. Call ``wsgi_app()`` to
get a WSGI-compliant object to host.
- ``feedmixer_wsgi.py`` - contains an actual WSGI application which can be used
as-is or as a starting point to create your own custom FeedMixer service.
.. _falcon: https://falconframework.org/
.. _gunicorn: http://gunicorn.org/
.. _`virtual environment`: https://virtualenv.pypa.io/en/stable/
.. _pipenv: https://pipenv.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
Run LocallyThe feedmixerwsgi module instantiates the feedmixer WSGI object (with sensible
defaults and a rotating logfile) as both api and application (default names
used by common WSGI servers). To start the service with gunicorn, for example,
clone the repository and in the root directory run::
$ pipenv sync $ pipenv run pip3 install gunicorn $ pipenv run gunicorn feedmixer_wsgi
Note that the top-level install directory must be writable by the server running the app, because it creates the logfiles ('fm.log' and 'fm.log.1') there.
As an example, assuming an instance of the FeedMixer app is running on the localhost on port 8000, let's fetch the newest entry each from the following Atom and RSS feeds:
The constructed URL to GET is:
http://localhost:8000/atom?f=https://catswhisker.xyz/shaarli/?do=atom&f=https://hnrss.org/newest&n=1
Entering it into a browser will return an Atom feed with two entries. To GET it from a client programatically, remember to URL-encode the f fields::
$ curl 'localhost:8000/atom?f=https%3A%2F%2Fcatswhisker.xyz%2Fshaarli%2F%3Fdo%3Datom&f=https%3A%2F%2Fhnrss.org%2Fnewest&n=1'
HTTPie <https://httpie.org/>_ is a nice command-line http client that makes testing RESTful services more pleasant::
$ pip3 install httpie $ http localhost:8000/json f==http://hnrss.org/newest f==http://catswhisker.xyz/atom.xml n==1
You should see some JSONFeed output (since we are requesting from the /json endpoint):
.. code-block:: json
HTTP/1.1 200 OK Connection: close Date: Thu, 23 Jan 2020 03:53:45 GMT Server: gunicorn/20.0.4 content-length: 1296 content-type: application/json
{ "version": "https://jsonfeed.org/version/1", "title": "FeedMixer feed", "home_page_url": "http://localhost:8000/json?f=http%3A%2F%2Fhnrss.org%2Fnewest&f=https%3A%2F%2Fcatswhisker.xyz%2Fatom.xml&n=1", "description": "json feed created by FeedMixer.", "items": [ { "title": "Kyrsten Sinema, the Only Anti-Net Neutrality Dem, Linked to Comcast Super Pac", "content_html": "
Article URL: <a href=\"https://prospect.org/politics/kyrsten-sinema-anti-net-neutrality-super-pac-comcast-lobbyist/\">https://prospect.org/politics/kyrsten-sinema-anti-net-neutrality-super-pac-comcast-lobbyist/
\nComments URL: <a href=\"https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22124592\">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22124592
\nPoints: 1
\n# Comments: 0
", "url": "https://prospect.org/politics/kyrsten-sinema-anti-net-neutrality-super-pac-comcast-lobbyist/", "id": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22124592", "author": { "name": "joeyespo" }, "date_published": "2020-01-23T03:32:19Z", "date_modified": "2020-01-23T03:32:19Z" }, { "title": "FO Roundup December 2019", "content_html": "I've started knitting again.", "url": "http://catswhisker.xyz/log/2019/12/3/fo_december/", "id": "tag:catswhisker.xyz,2019-12-04:/log/2019/12/3/fo_december/", "author": { "name": "A. Cynic", "url": "http://catswhisker.xyz/about/" }, "date_published": "2019-12-04T04:48:59Z", "date_modified": "2019-12-04T04:48:59Z" } ] }Deploy
Deploy FeedMixer using any WSGI-compliant server (uswgi, gunicorn, mod_wsgi,
...). For a production deployment, put an asynchronous http proxy (like Nginx)
in front of FeedMixer to protect it from too many and slow connections (as well
as to provide SSL termination, additional caching, authoriziation, etc., as
required)
Refer to the documentation of the server of your choice.
Apache
````````
For notes on deploying behind Apache, see `apache.rst`_ (from html docs: `apache.html`_)
.. _apache.rst: doc/apache.rst
.. _apache.html: apache.html
DockerAn alternative to using a virtualenv for both building and deploying is to run FeedMixer in a Docker container. The included Dockerfile will produce an image which runs FeedMixer using gunicorn.
Build the image from the feedmixer directory::
$ docker build . -t feedmixer
Run it in the foreground::
$ docker run -p 8000:8000 feedmixer
Now from another terminal you should be able to connect to FeedMixer on localhost port 8000 just as in the example above.
Using the provided feedmixer_wsgi.py application, information and errors are
logged to the file fm.log in the directory the application is started from
(auto rotated with a single old log called fm.1.log).
Any errors encountered in fetching and parsing remote feeds are reported in a
custom HTTP header called X-fm-errors.
First install as per instructions above.
Documentation
Other than this README, the documentation is in the docstrings. To build a
pretty version (HTML) using Sphinx:
1. Install Sphinx dependencies: ``$ pipenv run pip install -r doc/requirements.txt``
2. Change to `doc/` directory: ``$ cd doc``
3. Build: ``$ pipenv run make html``
4. View: ``$ x-www-browser _build/html/index.html``
TestsTests are in the test directory and Python will find and run them with::
$ pipenv run python3 -m unittest
Typechecking
To check types using mypy_::
$ MYPYPATH=stub/ mypy --ignore-missing-imports -p feedmixer
Not everything is stubbed out, but can be useful for catching bugs after changing `feedparser.py`
.. _mypy: http://mypy-lang.org/
Get help
--------
Feel free to open an issue on Github for help: https://github.com/cristoper/feedmixer/issues
Support the project
-------------------
If this package was useful to you, please consider supporting my work on this
and other open-source projects by making a small (like a tip) one-time
donation: `donate via PayPal <https://www.paypal.me/cristoper/5>`_
If you're looking to contract a Python developer, I might be able to help.
Contact me at chris.burkhardt@orangenoiseproduction.com
License
-------
The project is licensed under the WTFPL_ license, without warranty of any kind.
.. _WTFPL: http://www.wtfpl.net/about/