Use

You can start the application by pulling the docker image from Dockerhub. You will need to provide the required environment variables, and mount the session file to the container. The best approach would be to create your own .env file, following .env.template, and load it into the container:

docker run --rm \
    --name mpi-telegram-scraper \
    -v "${PWD}/sda-telgram-scraper.session:/telegram_scaper/sda-telegram-scraper.session:ro" \
    -v "${PWD}/.env:/app/.env:ro" \
    --net="host" \
    mpi-telegram-scraper

See the Development section for more information on the required environment variables. Now you can run the main scraper script with the following command. All parameters have the default values stated below:

docker exec -it mpi-telegram-scraper python3 telegram_scraper.py --log-level=WARNING --job-id=1 --tracer-id="1" --channel-name="GCC_report"

Change --log-level to INFO to see more detailed logs.

When executing the telegram_scraper.py script inside the container, if everything is set up correctly, the Telegram client will send a verification code to the phone number you provided. You will need to enter this code in the terminal to continue.

Development

Setup and Environment Variables

1. Install the required packages, preferably in a virtual environment

python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

2. Start a kernel-planckster instance:

   • Clone the kernel-planckster repo elsewhere
   • Install the required packages, preferable in its own virtual environment, following the instructions in the README
   • Run it in dev mode with a object store following the README (e.g., poetry run dev --storage), where you'll find the host, port, auth key and schema (they should match this repo's .env.example file)

3. Obtain the following credentials from Telegram: api ID, and api hash. You will also need the phone number and a password of the account you want to use for scraping. IMPORTANT: You will need access to the phone you provided, as Telegram will send a verification code to it.

4. Copy the .env.example file to .env and fill in the required fields.

   • For KERNEL_PLANCKSTER_*, get them from the kernel-planckster README or the instance you started in step 3
   • You can choose the STORAGE_PROTOCOL to use:
     • s3
     • local for local storage, will create a data directory in the root of the project and store the files there. DEPRECATED: use s3 with Kernel Planckster running on the side
   • The TELEGRAM_* fields are the credentials you obtained in step 4

Standalone Execution

After doing the setup, you can now execute the main scraper script. All parameters are optional, and below are the default values:

python3 telegram_scraper.py --log-level=WARNING --job-id=1 --tracer-id="1" --channel-name="GCC_report"

If everything is set up correctly, the Telegram client will send a verification code to the phone number you provided. You will need to enter this code in the terminal to continue. This configuration will be stored in a file called sda-telegram-scraper.session in the root of the project. This file will be used to authenticate the Telegram client in future runs, so you won't need to enter the verification code again.

Build Image

You can dockerize the application by building an image with the following command. Make sure to fill in the .env file with the required credentials, by following the .env.template file and the Setup and Environment Variables section:

docker build -t mpi-telegram-scraper .
# or, if using buildx:
docker build --load -t mpi-telegram-scraper .

Then you can do:

docker run --rm \
    --name mpi-telegram-scraper \
    -v "${PWD}/sda-telgram-scraper.session:/telegram_scaper/sda-telegram-scraper.session:ro" \
    -v "${PWD}/.env:/app/.env:ro" \
    --net="host" \
    mpi-telegram-scraper

And now, to run the main scraper script:

docker exec -it mpi-telegram-scraper python3 telegram_scraper.py --log-level=WARNING --job-id=1 --tracer-id="1" --channel-name="sda_test"

Change --log-level to INFO to see more detailed logs.