Data

Tools

Indexes

Applications

Experiments

Awesome

An open API service indexing awesome lists of open source software.

https://github.com/cristoper/feedmixer

A self-hosted API to fetch and mix entries from Atom and RSS feeds (returns Atom, RSS, or JSON)
https://github.com/cristoper/feedmixer

api-server atom atom-feed feed python rss self-hosted

Last synced: 2 months ago
JSON representation

A self-hosted API to fetch and mix entries from Atom and RSS feeds (returns Atom, RSS, or JSON)

Awesome Lists containing this project

README 

          
FeedMixer

=========

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.



Status

------



Changelog

~~~~~~~~~



- v2.5.1_ Fix regression that was preventing wsgi app from starting

- v2.5.0_ Change logging from file to stderr. Configuration is now handled by environment variables: `FM_LOG_LEVEL <#logging>`_ for log level, `FM_ALLOW_CORS <#cors>`_ for CORS headers, `FM_TIMEOUT <#timeout>`_ for request timeouts, and `FM_CACHE_SIZE <#cache-size>`_ for the number of feed parse results to cache in memory.

- v2.4.1_ Fix bug where RSS dates were potentially sorted incorrectly (d685db15_)

- v2.4.0_ Migrate from pipenv to uv and update dependencies. `feedgenerator` now produces slightly different output including JSONFeed 1.1.

- v2.3.2_ Update dependencies to use upstream feedparser now that the fix for `this bug `_ 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.



.. _v2.5.1: https://github.com/cristoper/feedmixer/tree/v2.5.1

.. _v2.5.0: https://github.com/cristoper/feedmixer/tree/v2.5.0

.. _v2.4.1: https://github.com/cristoper/feedmixer/tree/v2.4.1

.. _v2.4.0: https://github.com/cristoper/feedmixer/tree/v2.4.0

.. _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

.. _d685db15: https://github.com/cristoper/feedmixer/commit/d685db15ab82d5c4268240aef7eedae051d7a2db



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`.



An OpenAPI specification is available in `openapi.yaml`_



.. _openapi.yaml: openapi.yaml



Features

--------



API

~~~



- Combine several feeds (just about any version of Atom and RSS should work) into a single feed

- Optionally return only the `n` most recent items from each input feed

- Control whether the output feed contains only the summary or the entire content of the input feed items

- Parser results are memoized so that repeated requests for the same feed can

  be returned without re-parsing.



Included 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



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 uv_ to create a virtualenv and install dependencies:

   ``$ uv venv``

   ``$ . .venv/bin/activate``

   ``$ uv 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/

.. _uv: https://github.com/astral-sh/uv



Run Locally

~~~~~~~~~~~



The feedmixer_wsgi module instantiates the feedmixer WSGI object (sets up

logging to stderr) 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::



$ uv venv

$ . .venv/bin/activate

$ uv sync

$ uv pip install gunicorn

$ gunicorn feedmixer_wsgi



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:



- https://catswhisker.xyz/shaarli/?do=atom

- https://hnrss.org/newest



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 `_ 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: https://prospect.org/politics/kyrsten-sinema-anti-net-neutrality-super-pac-comcast-lobbyist/
\n
Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22124592
\n
Points: 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



Docker

~~~~~~



An 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 --rm 8000:8000 feedmixer



You can set configuration environment variables using the ``-e`` flag:



.. code-block:: bash



   $ docker run --rm -p 8000:8000 -e FM_LOG_LEVEL=DEBUG -e FM_ALLOW_CORS=1 -e FM_TIMEOUT=20 feedmixer



Now from another terminal you should be able to connect to FeedMixer on

localhost port 8000 just as in the example above.



The Dockerfile is based on alpine linux and produces an image that is about

60MB.



If you have issue building the docker image, you can try the included

Debian-based Dockerfile (which produces an image about twice the size of the

alpine Dockerfile):



$ docker build . -t feedmixer-debian -f Dockerfile-debian

$ docker run --rm -p 8000:8000 feedmixer-debian



Configure

---------



CORS

~~~~



In order to access the `feedmixer` server from a JavaScript application, both

the API must be accessible from the same origin (protocol, domain, or port) as

the web client or browsers will not allow the connection to be made.



To get around this, the `feedmixer` server can set CORS headers to allow

connections from different origins. To enable this for development, set the

``FM_ALLOW_CORS`` environment variable to any non-empty value when launching

the server.



For example:



.. code-block:: bash



   $ FM_ALLOW_CORS=1 gunicorn feedmixer_wsgi



When this variable is set, the API will include the

``Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *`` header in all responses, allowing the frontend

to make requests from any origin.



In a production environment, it is recommended to configure a front-end reverse

proxy like Nginx to set the appropriate CORS headers instead of relying on this

environment variable. This provides more control and keeps application

configuration separate from deployment-specific concerns.



Logging

~~~~~~~



The log level can be configured via the ``FM_LOG_LEVEL`` environment variable.

Valid values are ``DEBUG``, ``INFO``, ``WARNING``, ``ERROR``, ``CRITICAL``. The

default is ``INFO``.



For example:



.. code-block:: bash



   $ FM_LOG_LEVEL=DEBUG gunicorn feedmixer_wsgi



Request Timeout

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



The http timeout for fetching remote feeds can be configured with the ``FM_TIMEOUT``

environment variable. The value is in seconds, and the default is ``30``.



.. code-block:: bash



   $ FM_TIMEOUT=12 gunicorn feedmixer_wsgi



Cache Size

~~~~~~~~~~



The maximum number of parsed feeds to keep in the in-memory cache can be

configured with the ``FM_CACHE_SIZE`` environment variable. The value is an

integer, and the default is ``128``.



.. code-block:: bash



   $ FM_CACHE_SIZE=256 gunicorn feedmixer_wsgi



Troubleshooting

---------------



Using the provided `feedmixer_wsgi.py` application, information and errors are

logged to `stderr`.



Any errors encountered in fetching and parsing remote feeds are reported in a

custom HTTP header called `X-fm-errors`.



Hacking

-------



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: ``$ uv pip install -r doc/requirements.txt``

2. Change to `doc/` directory: ``$ cd doc``

3. Build: ``$ make html``

4. View: ``$ x-www-browser _build/html/index.html``



Tests

~~~~~



Tests are in the `test` directory and Python will find and run them with::



$ 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 `_



If you're looking to contract a Python developer, I might be able to help.

Contact me at chris@onpc.xyz



License

-------



The project is licensed under the WTFPL_ license, without warranty of any kind.



.. _WTFPL: http://www.wtfpl.net/about/