Social-cross-post

Cross-post to Bluesky, Mastodon, Posthaven, Instagram, Facebook and, ugh, Twitter in one fell swoop!

[installation guide is a work in progress!!!]

How to Install "social-cross-post" on a Brand New Ubuntu Server Using nginx and Flask

Step 1: Set Up the Ubuntu Server

(You can use Ubuntu on a physical computer, on a virtual machine or in the cloud (Amazon Lightsail etc))

Start by ensuring your system is up to date:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

Step 2: Install Required Packages

Install Python, pip, virtualenv, nginx, and other necessary packages:

sudo apt install python3 python3-pip python3-venv nginx git

Step 3: Clone the Repository

First, navigate to a directory where you want to store the application's files. In this example, we will create a new directory called myapps in the home directory, and then navigate into it:

Copy code
cd ~
mkdir myapps
cd myapps

Now, within the myapps directory, clone the "social-cross-post" repository from GitHub to your server. This will create a new subdirectory named social-cross-post containing all the files from the repository:

git clone https://github.com/GanWeaving/social-cross-post.git

Navigate into the newly created social-cross-post directory:

cd social-cross-post

You're now in the directory containing the files of the "social-cross-post" application. All the following commands should be executed within this directory.

Step 4: Set Up Virtual Environment

Create a virtual environment and activate it:

python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate

Step 5: Install Python Libraries

Create a requirements.txt file with the following content:

pytz
Pillow
Flask
Flask-Session
Flask-APScheduler
Flask-SQLAlchemy
atproto
requests
Mastodon.py
tweepy
requests-oauthlib

Then execute this command:

pip install -r requirements.txt

Step 6: Configure the Application

Get your API keys etc here (of course only those that you need, adapt the code accordingly):

• Bluesky: your username and an app password generated under 'settings' is enough
• Mastodon API: https://docs.joinmastodon.org/api/guidelines/
• Twitter API: https://developer.twitter.com/en/products/twitter-api
• Instagram API: https://developers.facebook.com/products/instagram/apis/
• Facebook Pages API: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/pages/
• Posthaven: use the API of your e-mail provider

And then save them into the config.py file using these variable names (replace Fastmail with your own e-mail provider; the 4 lowercase keys are Twitter-related):

BLUESKY_EMAIL
BLUESKY_PASSWORD
FB_ACCESS_TOKEN
FB_PAGE_ID
INSTAGRAM_USER_ID
USER_ACCESS_TOKEN
MASTODON_ACCESS_TOKEN
MASTODON_API_BASE_URL
FASTMAIL_USERNAME
FASTMAIL_PASSWORD
EMAIL_RECIPIENTS
consumer_key
consumer_secret
access_token
access_token_secret

Also add this to your config.py file:

class Config(object):
    SECRET_KEY = os.urandom(24)
    SESSION_TYPE = 'filesystem'
    VERSION = "1.0."
    SQLALCHEMY_DATABASE_URI = 'sqlite:///posts.db'
    SCHEDULER_JOBSTORES = {
        'default': SQLAlchemyJobStore(url='sqlite:///jobs.db')
    }
    SCHEDULER_API_ENABLED = True

Step 7: Start the Application with Gunicon

Use Gunicorn as the WSGI server to serve the Flask app:

gunicorn -w 4 app:app

Step 8: Configure nginx

Create a configuration file for your site in the /etc/nginx/sites-available/ directory and create a symbolic link to it in the /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/ directory.

Here is an example configuration file (replace yourdomain.com with your domain):

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name yourdomain.com;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8000;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
    }
}

Enable the configuration and restart nginx:

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/your-config /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
sudo nginx -t
sudo systemctl restart nginx

Step 9: Secure Your Site with Let's Encrypt (optional)

If you want to secure your site with HTTPS, you can use Certbot to obtain a free SSL certificate from Let's Encrypt:

sudo apt install certbot python3-certbot-nginx
sudo certbot --nginx -d yourdomain.com

Follow the prompts to configure Certbot.

Step 10: Access the Application

Now, you should be able to access your web application by visiting your domain in a web browser.