How to use rutorrent: RSS plugin

shwetha17

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May 24, 2018
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This guide will explain how to use the rss plugin. There are 2 ways to use rss, manually and automatic. I will explain the manual method first.
(note: the automatic method requires you to use regex filters, I'm not going to teach you regex here, as it is outside the scope of this guide.)

First, we need to add a rss feed. There are 2 ways to bring up the "add a feed" window, either click the "add feed" button in the menubar, or right click the rss feed(s) and selecting "add RSS feed" as shown in these next 2 screenshots




Either will bring up this window:



here, you need to add your RSS feed where it says "Feed URL" and give it a name where it says "Custom Alias" (note: It's important that you always use a DOWNLOAD feed. If you use a web feed, you will end up with errors. Also, it's important to note that some feeds require cookies to use. These feeds will require you to use the "cookies" plugin)




once you have added your feed and given it a name, click OK

if everything went well, you should end up with something like this:



To manually download an item from the feed, right click the item and select LOAD as shown in this screenshot



This should bring up an "add torrent" window like this:



if you click ok, it will add it and download it to your default dir, otherwise you can fill out the window options like this:



(if you select "Don't start the download automatically" the torrent will be added in the program "stopped")


If all went well, you should have a downloading torrent as shown here:





This is all well and good, but most people want to have torrents download automatically. This is possible as well. For this, we need to use the RSS manager.

To get to the rss manager, right click on "ALL Feeds" rss link on the left hand side and select RSS manager, as shown here:




This opens the filter manager. The filter manager has SEVERAL options/settings so rather than give you a step by step, i'm going to post a pic explaining what each option does.




1) Add: This adds a new filter rule

2) Filter: This is where you put the filter regex

3) Exclude: This is where you put the exclude regex

4) Check Fields: This is where you decide what the filter should match against
Title Field: This is the title of the RSS entry
Description field: This is the description data for the rss item
Link Field: This is the http link for the rss item
(The default is to use only the title field, if you use the others, make sure you know
what you are doing, otherwise it could lead to unwanted matches)




5) Directory: This is the save path for the torrent data, having _getdir plugin helps here

6) Match Interval: This is the rate at which the filter will download new torrents (the default
is always)

7) Label: This is the label for rutorrent, used mainly to sort the list of seeding torrents (note:
if you use auto-tools, and leave this blank, it will automatically label
the torrent based on normal auto-tools rules)


8 ) Ratio Group: This is the ratio group you want the matched torrents to be in

9) Channel: This is the download/upload channel you want the matched torrents in


10) Download options: These define behavior for matched torrents, don't add the torrent's name to path
or don't start download automatically (torrent added to list in "stopped" format)



So, to add a filter, just click ADD, (1) this will create a new, empty filter rule. Put your regex filter in (2)
(note: regex filters need to be enclosed in "/" tags like this: /somefilter/ though i recommend using /somefilter/i because the i turns on case insensitivity. )


If you want to exclude items, of course you can use normal regex for this, but it's much easier to use the Exclude (3) filter (this will still require regex here but it's much less complicated than trying to include the exclude in your normal filter)

for 4) I just use the default. There are situations where you will need to use the other checkboxes but they are very few and far between, and pretty complicated. It's much easier to just use the default setting here, which is "check title field"

5 of course is the download path, i tend to use auto-tools so i have label directories set up...but anything your rtorrent user has permission for is fine here
for 6, i use the default mostly, but your needs may vary. This basically decides how often a filter should be matched. The default is "always"

anyways, most of the rest has already been explained or pretty self explanatory. Here is what a filter might look like:



You can add as many filters as you like. To disable a filter, you can click the check box next to the filter's name.

Another important point: The default rss update interval is QUITE long (30 minutes) you will probably wish to change this to 10 minutes...or even 3-5. This is done by editing the file
[rutorrent's files]/plugins/rss/conf.php
 

somus1735

Member
May 25, 2018
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Quote
(note, regex filters need to be enclosed in tags like this: / some filter /i or / some filter /u (i means case insensitive, which is what i use most often, u means case sensitive)​

"i" really means case insensitive. By default - case sensetive. And "u" means "use UTF-8 for parsing", dosn't use that modifier, it added automatically.
 

jith45

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May 25, 2018
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Now It might be a stupid Question but does rutorrent run regex matches even if you have closed the web page.
 

shwetha17

Member
May 24, 2018
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this is not a stupid question at all.

The short answer is "yes" BUT it is important to note that if your server reboots and the wbesite HASNT been opened it won't

The workaround for this is QUITE simple though

just add this to your .rtorrent.rc:

Code: [Select]
execute = {sh,-c,/usr/local/bin/php /usr/local/www/rutorrent/php/initplugins.php &}
a couple notes:

when you add this, it's important to add the PROPER path for you php-cli binary, this is from a freebsd system, which is why it's listed as /usr/local/bin/php, on debian it's going to be /usr/bin/php..if you aren't sure, type which php

the other important thing, is again, it needs to point to the initplugins.php in your rutorrent install...on my system, this is /usr/local/www/rutorrent/php/initplugins, on yours it may be different.

and the last important thing, if you have a multiuser system (or if you have a system with webauth) you will need to add the webauth username like this:
Code: [Select]
execute = {sh,-c,/usr/local/bin/php /usr/local/www/rutorrent/php/initplugins.php wonslung &}
where the username is wonslung
 

das329717

Member
May 25, 2018
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erm

one question, how can i increase the number of torrent display in rss? currently the default set to 10

thanks
 

shwetha17

Member
May 24, 2018
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this has nothing to do with rutorrent.

sites set rss at a limit. i've seen as few as 5 and as many as 100. It's 100% up to the site
 

simur612

Member
May 25, 2018
879
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hi ,

can i ask one more question,
yesterday, my server crashed and when we restarted the server, all my feeds are gone except for the filter. when i try to add the rss again, it give me a msg saying that the feeds already exist.

how can i get my feeds back? i am using rutorrent v3.0. i look into /plugins/rss but there is no cache folder like in version before this.

thanks
 

randac56

Member
May 25, 2018
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how can i get my feeds back? i am using rutorrent v3.0. i look into /plugins/rss but there is no cache folder like in version before this.
See to rutorrent/share/settings/rss or to rutorrent/share/users/YOUR_USERNAME/settings/rss folder (this dependens from your configuration). Delete from it all files except 'filters'.
 

peshua19

Member
May 25, 2018
897
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Hello,
I have a question I am tiring to download my whole feed that I have setup by using "**" in the filter field
It's not working for me.Is this the right way to do it?

I just tried /.XXX.*/i and this worked but all I have in my download link is XXX but I would like to download everything that I have In my download like I have setup.

Yes this is all new to me

Thanks for looking
 

lisas4567

Member
May 25, 2018
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if you want it to download everything on the feed set your filter to:
Code:
/.*/i


this works because the . (period) means "any character" and the * means "preceding item 0 or more times" so .* means "any characters match"


The reason XXX.* isn't working is, it basically says

"match XXX and any other charcters" but it still must have the XXX to win.
 

simur612

Member
May 25, 2018
879
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it's site specific.

check the site, go to your profile and make sure you aren't set to "secure" (meaning only one ip)


make sure the link is a "DOWNLOAD LINK"

if it's still broken, you may need to add a cookie.

If you've added the proper cookie and it's still broken, you will need to send the info to novik without it xx'd out
 

randac56

Member
May 25, 2018
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Yeah, it did need the cookie. I wasn't sure because I could not find pass and uid for that site.
So I used the "digest" part of the link as the pass and didn't worry about uid, and it's working fine now.
 

saroos1

Member
May 25, 2018
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I'm having a little trouble with the autoupdate. I have a webauth system so I need the multiuser setup. If I login on the website and update the feed manually everything is fine and works great. But it just doesn't autoupdate.

I have a conf.php in the user file with the only entry $updateInterval = 1. In the plugins/rss/conf the Interval is 30 But it doesn't update at all. I do run the initplugins.php on startup but it also doesn't update even after I login to the page.

I run lighttpd with fastcgi. I dont know if this matters somehow.

I'm not sure about the next fact but I think it worked before I set up the webauth.

Thanks for any help
 

simur612

Member
May 25, 2018
879
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i wouldn't mess with the one in conf/config.php

i'd look at adding something like this to your .rtorrent.rc
Code
execute = {sh,-c,/usr/local/bin/php /usr/local/www/rutorrent/php/initplugins.php wonslung &}


that's mine, notice the wonslung at the end, that's my webauth username.

also not the paths....the php path should be set to the output of "which php" and the second path should be the location of initplugins.php in rutorrent
 

randac56

Member
May 25, 2018
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I actually did that already it doesn't seem to work. Is there a possibility to log rutorrent?
 

peshua19

Member
May 25, 2018
897
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yes. you can turn on the execute log, it's different for different versions of rtorrent, search the forums for execute log