Cronnit

A free service for making scheduled posts to Reddit. It's available at https://cronnit.us or you can download the code and host it yourself!

Installation

Quick Install

If you have a fresh server you can run the install script:

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/krisives/cronnit.us/master/install.sh
nano install.sh # Enter your hostname, client_id, etc.
chmod +x install.sh
sudo ./install.sh

This will:

• Install all the packages needed for Apache, MySQL, PHP, etc.
• Create a 2GB swapfile to ensure the server doesn't run out of memory
• Create the Linux user cronnit
• Create a cronnit MySQL database
• Create a cronnit MySQL user (with a secure random 30 character password)
• Grant permissions for cronnit to use the database
• Import the Cronnit SQL schema
• Disable insecure Apache modules (mod_status, mod_userdir)
• Acquire an SSL certificate from LetsEncrypt using certbot
• Configure Apache to run Cronnit including the SSL certificate
• Downloads the latest version of Cronnit from GitHub
• Generates a config.php script for Cronnit
• Installs all of the composer dependencies
• Creates a CRON job to run the cron.sh script
• Creates a CRON job to update from GitHub every day
• Configures the system to install security updates automatically

Before running the script you should ensure the DNS record for your domain name point to the IP running this server.

For client_id and client_secret you will need to create a Reddit app using a redirect URI of https://example.com/authorize ensure you are using https:// in the URI.

You can skip using https:// and certbot if you want by running the script with the HTTP_ONLY environment variable set:

sudo HTTP_ONLY=1 ./install.sh

Development Server

If you want to run Cronnit using the PHP development server:

sudo apt install php-cli php-sqlite3 composer
git clone git@github.com:/krisives/cronnit.us.git
cd cronnit
composer update
cp config.php.example config.php
nano config.php
cd public_html/
php -S localhost:8080

Configuring Reddit Application for Dev Server

If you're running cronnit via the PHP development server, it's likely slightly simpler than a full-fledged server.

For the configuration (certbot, etc), if you're not keen to set this up, (or your server isn't actually public facing) you can get away with running via http, by specifying http urls (rather than https) in config.php and your reddit app's redirect uri.

• Set up a reddit application for oauth:
  • From https://www.reddit.com/prefs/apps
    • Create an app, it should be a web-app.
      • Name it whatever.
      • For the redirect URI, choose the exact same address and port as you specified in config.php, suffixed by /authorize.
        • In our case, that should be: http://localhost:8080/authorize.
      • The about URL and description don't really matter.
  • The client_id should appear below your application name/to the right of the icon on the apps page.

Setting Up the Development Server on a fresh VM

Tested on:

vagrant 2.2.9
VirtualBox 6.1.6 r137129

(In my experience) VirtualBox >= 6.1.8 seems to hang on vagrant up. See this ticket

• Install vagrant and VirtualBox 6.1.6*.
• From within this project (where the vagrantfile lives):
  • install the vm with:

    vagrant up

  • Log into the vm with:

    vagrant ssh

    You should find yourself logged in as cronnit@ubuntu-focal.
  • Edit config.php:

    vim config.php

    Replace:
    • 'url' => 'http://my.hostname.com' with 'url' => 'http://localhost:8080'
    • 'client_id => 'xxxx, 'client_secret' => 'xxxx' with those obtained from your reddit app.

Running Server on Vagrant VM

• To make the site you serve accessible by the host (from a browser on your main computer):

  $ lout &

  (This is simply an alias for some socat redirection)
• To run the website:

  serve

  (This just navigates to public_html, and calls php -S localhost:8080).
• To view the website, from a browser on your host, navigate to http://localhost:8080 !
• To refresh changes, you'll need to interrupt serve (Ctrl+c ) and call it again serve.

Donate

If you find Cronnit useful as a tool or source please consider making a donation!