skumaran/redditbot repository overview

⁠Reddit Bot for Coronavirus News

Reddit Bot for sending CoronaVirus News by Email.

This is self-hosting application. Please be aware of security implications when you host any application for yourself or for others.

⁠Why?

I found reddit coronavirus community⁠ covering news well. I used ifttt⁠ to keep track of top news everyday. However, ifttt⁠ was not customizable. I ended up writing this program.

I also packaged it to run it as docker container, and on a kubernetes cluster, even on a raspberry-pi based kubernetes cluster.

⁠Hassle Free Service

Do want this news to be delivered to your Inbox? Fill out this form, and your email will be included in hosted version.

• Fill the form: https://forms.gle/YkEAtb1sCKvZqwe77⁠
• You can un-subscribe anytime.
• Your email id will not be shared with anyone and will not be used for any other purpose.

⁠Using this project.

This is a simple open source application. You can customize it and run it yourself. The simplest way to run it is using the docker container.

docker run --env REDDIT_USERNAME=MY-VALUE \
           --env REDDIT_PASSWORD=MY-VALUE \
           --env REDDIT_API_CLIENT_SECRET=MY-VALUE \
           --env REDDIT_API_CLIENT_ID=MY-VALUE \
           --env SENDER_EMAIL=MY-VALUE \
           --env SENDER_EMAIL_PASSWORD=MY-VALUE \
           --env SENDER_NAME=MY-VALUE \
           --env RECEIVER_EMAIL=MY-VALUE \
           skumaran/redditbot:v0.1

⁠Using Gmail as SMTP

We will use Gmail as SMTP Service. You will have to (turn-on using less-secure apps)[https://hotter.io/docs/email-accounts/secure-app-gmail/⁠] in the GMAIL authentication and you could use your username and password for SMTP now.

⁠Docker Images

Docker Image for x86

docker pull skumaran/redditbot:v0.1

Docker Image for Arm

docker pull skumaran/redditbot:arm-v0.1

⁠Kuberbetes Cron Job.

You could run this application in your Kubernetes Cluster, even on Raspberry Pi cluster, using the configuration files cronjob.yaml⁠. Make sure you add the secrets to your cluster as given in the example redditbot-secrets .yaml⁠.

⁠Required Environment Variables and Values.

The docker image requires the following environment variables.

export REDDIT_USERNAME=
export REDDIT_PASSWORD=
export REDDIT_API_CLIENT_SECRET=
export REDDIT_API_CLIENT_ID=
export SENDER_EMAIL=
export SENDER_NAME=
export SENDER_EMAIL_PASSWORD=
export RECEIVER_EMAIL=

To get the REDDIT_API_CLIENT_SECRET and REDDIT_API_CLIENT_ID, please register an app with reddit: https://www.reddit.com/prefs/apps/⁠

Rest are your email and account information.

⁠Operational Mechanics

This is a reference information for quick building and deploying.

Building the image.

docker build -t skumaran/redditbot:v0.1 .

Pushing the image.

docker push skumaran/redditbot:v0.1

⁠Setup a Crontab

0 7 * * * /usr/bin/docker run --env REDDIT_USERNAME=MY-VALUE \
           --env REDDIT_PASSWORD=MY-VALUE \
           --env REDDIT_API_CLIENT_SECRET=MY-VALUE \
           --env REDDIT_API_CLIENT_ID=MY-VALUE \
           --env SENDER_EMAIL=MY-VALUE \
           --env SENDER_EMAIL_PASSWORD=MY-VALUE \
           --env SENDER_NAME=MY-VALUE \
           --env RECEIVER_EMAIL=MY-VALUE \
           skumaran/redditbot:v0.1

⁠Creating a Kubernetes Secret

$ docker login -u username

$ kubectl create secret generic skumaran-docker-login --from-file=.dockerconfigjson=/home/senthil/.docker/config.json --type=kubernetes.io/dockerconfigjson

secret/skumaran-docker-login created

Creating Secrets yaml

apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: redditbot-secrets
type: Opaque
data:
  REDDIT_PASSWORD:
  REDDIT_API_CLIENT_SECRET:
  REDDIT_API_CLIENT_ID:
  SENDER_EMAIL_PASSWORD:

Create each of the secrets in the base64 encoded format.

echo -n aerobic-tram-repulse-ate | base64

⁠Example of an Bot-Email.

⁠Where am I running it?

I am running it on my 4-node kubernetes cluster⁠.

The master is this.