rssrdr

The simplest RSS reader on the planet.

Feed inspiration

For inspiration of RSS feeds, see the most popular links posted on Hackernews or the most popular blogs posted on Hackernews, between 26 August 2023 - 26 August 2024.

Developers

To install the project

• dotnet restore

To run the unit test

• cd SimpleRssServer.Tests
• dotnet test

Starting the server. You can watch it at 127.0.0.1:5000

• cd SimpleRssServer
• dotnet watch

Initial setup on Linux server

1. Copy the service configuration for the webserver from ./server-config/, assuming you're in this top folder of this repo.

   • sudo cp -i ./server-conf/rssrdr-server.service /etc/systemd/system/rssrdr-server.service

2. Create the logging folders

   • sudo mkdir -p /var/log/rssrdr-server
   • sudo chown rss:1000 /var/log/rssrdr-server

3. Create the folder for the binaries. This is where the executable for the server is going to be.

   • sudo mkdir /var/www/rssrdr
   • sudo chown -R rss:1000 /var/www/rssrdr

4. After creating the service file, reload the systemctl manager configuration to recognize the new service:

   • sudo systemctl daemon-reload

5. Enable the service to start automatically at boot:

   • sudo systemctl enable rssrdr-server.service

6. Start the service immediately:

   • sudo systemctl start rssrdr-server.service

7. Check if the service is running:

   • sudo systemctl status rssrdr-server.service

8. Check the logs. View the logs (stdout) using: - sudo tail -f /var/log/rssrdr-server/rssrdr.log

   View the error logs (stderr) using: - sudo tail -f /var/log/rssrdr-server/rssrdr.err

Deploying

To deploy, assuming the repo is cloned in ~/rssrdr/ and the setup above is done:

• ~/rssrdr/deploy.sh

Enabling HTTPS

Certificates

Certificates are created using https://certbot.eff.org/. Follow the instructions there to generate a certificate.

• Certificat is created with: certbot --nginx -d rssrdr.com
• Certificate is saved at: /etc/letsencrypt/live/rssrdr.com/fullchain.pem
• Key is saved at: /etc/letsencrypt/live/rssrdr.com/privkey.pem

nginx setup

Note

.NET's HttpClient doesn't support HTTPS on Linux. Therefore we need nginx as a front end with SSL and the SimpleRssServer as non-SSL. See also this GitHub discussion.

Setup

 --Client--             ---------Server--------------
|          |           |                             |
| Browser  | --------> | nginx  -->  SimpleRssServer |
|          |  Request  | :443        :8000           |
 ----------             -----------------------------

1. Install nginx according to the instructions
2. Copy content of ./server-conf/nginx.conf to /etc/nginx/nginx.conf.
3. Start nginx
   • nginx

Server paths overview

ngnix

• config: /etc/nginx/nginx.conf
• logs: /var/log/nginx

rssrdr-server

• service: /etc/systemd/system/rssrdr-server.service
• logs: /var/log/rssrdr-server/
• source code: ~/rssrdr
• binaries: /var/www/rssrdr

Attribution

Inspired by motherfuckingwebsite.com and bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com.

This RSS reader was created by me, with a little help from aider, ChatGPT and the people of the interwebs.