+++ title = "El Monitorro" sort_by = "weight" +++
El Monitorro
El Monitorro is RSS, Atom and JSON feed reader as a Telegram bot.
It's available at @el_monitorro_bot.
Usage
Commands
/start - show the bot's description and contact information
/subscribe url - subscribe to feed
/unsubscribe url - unsubscribe from feed
/list_subscriptions - list your subscriptions
/help - show available commands
/set_timezone - set your timezone. All received dates will be converted to this timezone. It should be offset in minutes from UTC. For example, if you live in UTC +10 timezone, offset is equal to 600
/get_timezone - get your timezone
/set_template url template - set a template for all received items for the specified subscription. All new updates will be converted to the format defined by this subscription. Supported fields you can use for templates:
- bot_feed_name - name of the feed
- bot_feed_link - url of the feed
- bot_item_name - name of the item
- bot_item_link - url of the item
- bot_item_description - description of the item
- bot_date - publication date of the feed
Example: /set_template https://www.badykov.com/feed.xml {{bot_feed_name}}
{{bot_item_name}}
{{bot_date}}
{{bot_item_link}}
Also, there are some helpers for templates:
- `substring` helper that can be used to limit the number of characters. For example, {{substring bot_item_description 100}}
- `create_link` helper. This helper creates an html link. For example, {{create_link bot_item_name bot_item_link}} or {{create_link "custom_name" bot_item_link}}
- `italic` helper. Usage: {{italic bot_item_description}}
- `bold` helper. Usage: {{bold bot_item_name}}
/get_template url - get a template for the subscription
/remove_template url - remove the template
/set_global_template - set global template. This template will be used for all subscriptions. If the subscription has its own template, the subscription template will be used. See /set_template for available fields.
/remove_global_template - remove global template
/get_global_template - get global template
/get_filter url - get a filter for the subscription
/set_filter url filter - set filter, for example, /set_filter https://www.badykov.com/feed.xml telegram,bots. You'll start receiving posts only containing words in the filter. Use `!word` to stop receiving messages containing the specified `word`. You can combine regular filter words with ! filter words. For example, `!bot,telegram`
/remove_filter url - remove filter
/set_global_filter filter - set global filter
/get_global_filter - get a global filter
/remove_global_filter - remove global filter
/info - shows the number of subscriptions and chats. it's available only for the admin (`ADMIN_TELEGRAM_ID`)
/set_content_fields url fields - changes content hash fields of the specified feed. it's available only for the admin (`ADMIN_TELEGRAM_ID`).
Example: /set_content_fields https://www.badykov.com/feed.xml author,title
By default content hash is calculated from title and url.
Available fields:
- link
- title
- publication_date
- guid
- description
- author
/toggle_preview_enabled - disable or enable previews
/get_preview_enabled - check if previews are enabled for the current chat. by default, previews are enabled
Common info
- Feed updates check interval is 1 minute.
- Unread items delivery interval is 1 minute.
- The number of subscriptions is limited to 20.
The bot works in private chats, groups and channels. A couple of channels created with el monitorro:
- https://t.me/emacs_posts - Emacs News and Posts
- https://t.me/metacritic_tv - Latest Tv Show Metascores on Metacritic
Setup
Manual setup
You can deploy your instance of el_monitorro by:
- Set postgres db url (
DATABASE_URL) and telegram bot token (TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN) to.envfile in the root directory. For example:
DATABASE_URL=postgres://admin:pass@localhost/el_monitorro
TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN=MYTOKEN
- Setup database by running:
diesel database setup
You'll need diesel-cli for this
- Start the bot
- Start the command bot
RUST_LOG=info RUST_BACKTRACE=1 cargo run --bin el_monitorro
- Start the sync binary
RUST_LOG=info RUST_BACKTRACE=1 cargo run --bin sync
- Start the delivery binary
RUST_LOG=info RUST_BACKTRACE=1 cargo run --bin deliver
- If you don't want to store all feed items that were synced and feeds without any subscriptions, start the cleaner binary
RUST_LOG=info RUST_BACKTRACE=1 cargo run --bin cleaner
Running all services from a single binary
Set ALL_BINARIES to run all binaries (clean, commands, deliver, sync) in the same binary:
ALL_BINARIES=true
Configuration
All configuration is done through env variables
| Name | Required | Default value | Example / Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| DATABASE_URL | yes | -- | postgres://postgres:postgres@localhost/el_monitorro |
| TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN | yes | -- | 6666618370:AAGx5YhNQvUG4eUcQXN-OB_a09ZzYl6aaaa |
| DATABASE_POOL_SIZE | no | 5 | The maximum number of connections for global connection pool (global per binary except if ALL_BINARIES is set to true). |
| ALL_BINARIES | no | -- | If this var is set, all services will be started in the main binary |
| TELEGRAM_BOT_HANDLE | no | -- | This value is used during parsing of commands. If you set autocompletion menu for your bot, the bot will understand commands like /subscribe@handle along with just /subscribe |
| SUBSCRIPTION_LIMIT | no | 20 | |
| FILTER_LIMIT | no | 20 | The maximum number of filter words that can be set per subscription or as the global filter |
| SYNC_INTERVAL_SECONDS | no | 60 | The bot tries to sync feeds every SYNC_INTERVAL_SECONDS seconds |
| SYNC_WORKERS_NUMBER | no | 1 | The number of workers to sync feeds |
| DELIVER_INTERVAL_SECONDS | no | 60 | The bot tries to deliver new feed items every DELIVER_INTERVAL_SECONDS seconds |
| DELIVER_WORKERS_NUMBER | no | 1 | The number of workers to deliver updates |
| CLEAN_INTERVAL_SECONDS | no | 3600 | The bot cleans old feed items and feeds without subscriptions every CLEAN_INTERVAL_SECONDS seconds |
| CLEAN_WORKERS_NUMBER | no | 1 | The number of workers to remove old data |
| OWNER_TELEGRAM_ID | no | -- | If this value is set, the bot will process commands only from the specified user id |
| REQUEST_TIMEOUT | no | 5 | Timeout in seconds for feed syncing requests |
| ADMIN_TELEGRAM_ID | no | -- | If this value is set, /info command with stats is available for ADMIN_TELEGRAM_ID |
Deployment suggestions
It's recommended to use a self hosted PostgreSQL instance but if it's not possible there are free services that can host it fo you:
- https://supabase.com 500mb db, up to 60 connections
- https://yugabyte.com, 10gb db, up to 10 connections
- https://bit.io, 3gb
Using docker image
The image is published on docker hub under ayratbadykov/el_monitorro. It accepts additional env variables:
SETUP_DB- if this variable is not empty,diesel database setupis run. It creates DB and runs migrations.RUN_MIGRATION- if this variable is not empty,diesel migration runis run. It just runs migrations.BOT_BINARY- depending on this variable, docker container will run one of four binaries. Possible values arecommands,sync,deliver,cleaner. To run all services in the main binary, set:
RUN_MIGRATION=true
BOT_BINARY=commands
ALL_BINARIES=true
Run the docker container:
docker run --env-file ./.env --network host -t ayratbadykov/el_monitorro:latestNotes:
--network hostis used so the docker container can access a host network if you're running Postgres on the same machine
You can check out an example of docker-compose file in the root directory of the project.
Creating a docker image from the latest master branch
Run the following command in the el_monitorro directory to build the image from the master branch:
docker build ./ -t ayratbadykov/el_monitorro:latest