[GUIDE] flexget - easy+safe virtualized version, in about 5 minutes.

tintar

(it took me 7x longer to write this stupid nonsense than it will for you to get this up+running)

 

some recent mentions of plex people using flexget motivated me to get my old daily-TV-automatron fired up on the new chrubuntu appliance.

 

except this time I did it "the right way" (the instructions on flexget wiki are fine and all, BUT they can lead to ginormous python troubles.)

I didn't even have to change my old config yaml much, aside from deleting some outdated TV series, and adding some new ones

 

this is HOWTO virtual python dist for flexget.

ends up taking about ~39MB extra in all. maybe a bit more if you don't already have 2.6/2.7 python installed (in which case it auto-installs 2.6-minimal, which I think is well under 10 meg anyway)

it doesn't even have to be on the same machine as your PMS + torrent server, as long as it has permissions to dump magnets/torrents into RPC. I use transmission-daemon, but many others are also supported.

 

what follows is the easy & safe way. just for fun, after it was up and running on the chromebox, I followed my own instructions: tested on both Edison (x86 debian 7/wheezy) and BBB (armv7l ubuntu 14lts) - and it all succeeded exactly the same. as it should. technically also works on OSX and MSWIN, but I can't (read: won't) help you there.

 

pedantic: if, sometime, you ever felt the need to type 'sudo pip something' or 'sudo easy_install something', you are Doing A Bad Thing(tm) and quite likely going to Regret It Later.

 

flexget wants its own particular versions of everything, true. and they are likely going to conflict with the actual python package dist versions from your distro's actual package management / repo system. which may not be an issue for many. but... it usually ends badly.

 

there is only 1 sudo needed here:

 

$ sudo aptitude install python-virtualenv
$ virtualenv ~/flexget/

(foldername/location is arbitrary, you can put it wherever you have write access)

 

$ cd ~/flexget
$ ./bin/pip install flexget

(may see some errors about missing libyaml, if you don't already have one installed - is ok, it will continue and build its own copy of PyYAML). on ARM there were also a couple complaints about python/C, but it manages to figure that out as well.

 

$ ./bin/pip install transmissionrpc

(can also work with deluge, rtorrent, or utorrent - take a look at http://flexget.com/wiki/Plugins)

 

 

good news! because we absolutely do not care about sysvinit vs upstart vs systemd...

 

$ /home/user/flexget/bin/flexget daemon start -d
 
$ crontab -e
reboot /home/user/flexget/bin/flexget daemon start -d

it really literally does not matter what user you installed this under, as long as the config (below) has proper network credentials to access your wherever-RPC.

 

 

you will want to adjust some things e.g. obviously what to download (shut up about what shows I watch!

settings about your torrent rpc service. what quality of files you want. etc.

 

there's also plugins for trakt, if you already manage your programs that way. there are plugins for just about anything.

 

so, flexget checks a number of default locations for config.

it's fine to put this in ~/.flexget/config.yml of the user running the daemon.

it's also fine to put this in (assuming you installed the virtualenv there) ~/flexget/config.yml

there's like 3 other places it also checks, but I don't know/care what they are. you can look it up.

 

later, if you ever need to change the config yaml, afterward simply run:

$ /home/user/flexget/bin/flexget daemon reload

(or whatever path you installed the virtualenv under)

 

so, here is the stripped down version of the config.yml I use. I don't really torrent movies anymore, just current TV, watch it on PLEX-firetv/android, then delete them.

 

templates:
  tv:
    regexp:
      from: title
# I only want Canadian / UK / US TV in english, please.
      reject:
        - subbed
        - subs
        - NL
        - Subs
        - SUB
        - .ESP.
        - dubbed
        # no, "espaol" is NOT a typo, thanks.
        - ESPAOL
        - FASTSUB
        - VOSTFR
        - Subtitulado
        - SWESUB
    # note: content filter does not work with magnets
    # maybe with magnetization_timeout enabled?
    content_filter:
      reject:
        - '*.rar'
        - '*.zip'
        - '*.wmv'
        - '*.avi'
    series:
      settings:
        tv:
          exact: yes
          propers: 3 days
          # I basically want x264 480p stuff:
          quality: webdl|hdtv <720p !xvid !divx
      tv:
        - Adventure Time
        - Archer
        - Arrow
        - Atlantis 2013
        - Backstrom
        - Bates Motel
        - Bones
        - Brooklyn Nine-Nine
        - Castle 2009
        - Childrens Hospital US
        - Elementary
        - Fresh Off the Boat
        - Gotham
        - Grimm
        - Madam Secretary
        - Marvels Agents of S H I E L D
        - Motive
        - Olympus
        - Ordinary Lies
        - Outlander
        - Parks and Recreation
        - Penny Dreadful
        - Salem
        - Scorpion
        - Secrets and Lies
        - Sirens 2014
        - Supernatural
        - Survivor
        - The 100
        - The Amazing Race
        - The Americans 2013
        - The Big Bang Theory
        - The Flash 2014
        - The Following
        - The Last Man On Earth
        - The Lizzie Borden Chronicles
        - The Mentalist
        - The Red Road
        - The Simpsons
        - Veep
    transmission:
      enabled: yes
      host: localhost
      port: 9091
      username: myuser
      password: "mypassword"
      magnetization_timeout: 30
# this doesn't work with magnets by default
# maybe with magnetization_timeout?
      main_file_only: Yes
      main_file_ratio: 0.75
# not sure if this works with magnets either
# maybe with magnetization_timeout?
#      skip_files:
#        - '*.nfo'
#        - '*.sfv'
#        - '*[sS]ample*'
#        - '*.txt'
#        - '*.jpeg'
#        - '*.jpg'
    clean_transmission:
# autodeletes torrents once completed
      enabled: yes
      host: localhost
      port: 9091
      username: myuser
      password: "mypassword"
      transmission_seed_limits: yes
tasks:
  kat:
    priority: 1
    rss:
      url: 'http://kickass.to/search/ettv/?rss=1'
# kat uses a funky cdata object for magnets...
      link: torrent:magnetURI
      ascii: yes
    template: tv
#  ez:
# probably should enable, since ettv don't ship Adventure Time 

#    priority: 2 #    rss: #      url: 'http://showrss.info/feeds/all.rss' #      link: magneturi #      ascii: yes #    template: tv schedules: # Run every task once an hour #  - tasks: '*' #    interval: #      hours: 1   # Run every 30 minutes   - tasks: kat     interval:       minutes: 30

tintar

IT LIVES!

lol daemon-ized version ist working well so something must have gone less-wrong.

tintar

also, how to upgrade flexget when it's running in a virtualenv.
fairly straightforward but it's nice to have written down:

/home/user/flexget/bin/flexget daemon stop ps -ef | grep flex # just to make sure it stopped cd /home/user/flexget ./bin/pip install --upgrade setuptools ./bin/pip install --upgrade flexget ./bin/pip install --upgrade transmissionrpc

tintar

also
/home/user/flexget/bin/flexget -V
will tell you not only your current version but also if there is a newer version. obvs you don't need to upgrade if you are already at the latest version.

also I wouldn't try to copy paste and run the whole thing at once --
the pip commands produce a LOT of output and you want to make sure to be able to read the final lines to make sure each one succeeded etc.

tintar

also just some more obvious:

make absolutely sure you are running ./bin/pip from inside your ~/flexget directory.

i.e. you want to effectively be running

/home/user/flexget/bin/pip

NOT the systemwide pip (if you even have it installed)

otherwise Very Bad Things will start to happen.

tintar

2 more important things:

• the reason I upgraded is that flexget daemon stopped grabbing shows for rss, but showing no errors. for no apparent reason at all since nothing on the machine had changed.
• after I upgraded, it was fine for a while then started getting an error about delimiters - supposedly a missing comma in the transmissionrpc module. looked at the relevant python file, could not see any problems on line specified. turns out not so much bug as red herring. saw ubuntu defect ticket about it: simply restart transmission-daemon, and it works fine again, no more bug.