Ubuntu Manpage: Podget - Simple tool to automate downloading of podcasts.

name
synopsis
description
options
example cron job
automatic cleanup
session control
enabling debug output
example server list
authors

NAME

       Podget - Simple tool to automate downloading of podcasts.

SYNOPSIS

       podget <options> [command]
       podget -h | --help

DESCRIPTION

       Podget is a simple podcast aggregator/downloader optimized for scheduled background jobs (i.e. cron).

       It features support for:

       •  Downloading podcasts from RSS and ATOM XML feeds.

       •  For sorting the files into folders and categories.

       •  For importing URLs from iTunes PCAST files and OPML lists.

       •  Automatic M3U & ASX playlist creation.

       •  Cleanup of old files.

       •  Automatic UTF-16 conversion for feeds hosted on MS Windows Servers.

OPTIONS

       -c, --config <FILE>
              Name of configuration file.

       --create-config <FILE>
              Create configuration file and exit.

       -C, --cleanup
              Skip downloading and only run cleanup loop.

       --cleanup_days <NUMBER>
              Cleanup files older than <NUMBER> days.

       --cleanup_simulate
              Simulate cleanup loop to see what files would be deleted.

       -d, --dir_config <DIRECTORY>
              Directory that configuration files are stored in.

       --dir_session <DIRECTORY>
              Directory that session files are stored in.

       -f, --force
              Force download of items from each feed even if they've already been downloaded.

       --import_opml <FILE or URL>
              Import servers from OPML file or HTTP/FTP URL.

       --export_opml <FILE>
              Export serverlist to OPML file.

       --import_pcast <FILE or URL>
              Import server from iTunes PCAST file or HTTP/FTP URL.

       -l, --library <DIRECTORY>
              Directory to store downloaded files in.

       -n, --no-playlist
              Do not create M3U playlist of new items.

       -p, --playlist-asx
              In addition to M3U playlists, create ASX playlists.

       --playlist-per-podcast
              Create a playlist of new items for each podcast feed.

       -r, --recent <COUNT>
              Download only the <COUNT> newest items from each feed.

       --serverlist <FILE>
              Use <FILE> as serverlist instead of default.

       -s, --silent
              Run silently (for cron jobs).

       -v     Set verbosity to level 1.

       -vv    Set verbosity to level 2.

       -vvv   Set verbosity to level 3.

       -vvvv  Set verbosity to level 4.

       --verbosity <LEVEL>
              Set verbosity level (0-3).

       -V, --version
              Display version.

       -h, --help
              Display help.

EXAMPLE CRON JOB

       Once podget is running correctly, it's most useful if you run it from a cron job so that the new episodes
       are available to play or load onto a portable player and you don't have to wait for them to download.

       To edit your crontab, do:

         $ crontab -e

       Then insert one line (i for insert mode), like the following:

         15 04 * * * /usr/bin/podget -s

       This will run podget at 4:15 AM every day.

AUTOMATIC CLEANUP

       You can enable automatic cleanup with every run by configuring it in  your  $HOME/.podget/podgetrc  file.
       Simply set the following options:

         # Autocleanup.
         # 0 == disabled
         # 1 == delete any old content
         cleanup=1

         # Number of days to keep files.   Cleanup will remove anything
         # older than this.
         cleanup_days=7

       However,  some  people  prefer  to run cleanup as a separate cron session. To do that, set the options in
       podgetrc to:

         # Autocleanup.
         # 0 == disabled
         # 1 == delete any old content
         cleanup=0

         # Number of days to keep files.   Cleanup will remove anything
         # older than this.
         cleanup_days=7

       And add a cron job to run cleanup, like one of these examples:

         # Once a week on Sunday at 04:15AM
         15 04 * * Sun /usr/bin/podget -C

SESSION CONTROL

       Podget checks for already running sessions when it starts and  exits  if  any  are  found.  Each  session
       requires  its  own  core  configuration  file,  so  for  multiple  sessions  simply  provide  a unique -c
       <configfile> option for each.

ENABLING DEBUG OUTPUT

       To enable debug output, you can do it two ways.

       The first way is by uncommenting the DEBUG option in your podgetrc and setting it to '1'.   However  this
       way  will not enable DEBUG until just over 1400 lines into the script when the podgetrc is read.  This is
       sufficient for most issues.

       The second way is from the command line and enables debug as early as possible.   Simply  execute  podget
       like so: DEBUG=1 podget -vvvv

       You  can enable other options as well if you need to but for debugging purposes, it is highly recommended
       that you enabled as much verbosity as possible.

EXAMPLE SERVER LIST

By default, Podget uses $HOME/.podget/serverlist for the default list of servers to contact. However you
can configure the name with the config_serverlist variable in your $HOME/.podget/podgetrc file.

Default format with category and name:
<url> <category> <name>

Alternate Formats:
1. With a category but no name.
<url> <category>
2. With a name but no category (2 ways).
<url> No_Category <name>
<url> . <name>
3. With neither a category or name.
<url>

NOTES:
1. URL Rules:
A. Any spaces in the URL need to be converted to %20
2. Category Rules:
A. Must be one word without spaces.
B. You may use underscores and dashes.
C. You can insert date substitutions.
%YY% == Year
%MM% == Month
%DD% == Day
D. If you want to disable the use of a category for a feed that has a name, the
category must be either a single period (.) or 'No_Category'. If the name is
blank, then the category can also be blank.
3. Name Rules:
A. If you are creating ASX playlists, make sure the feed name does not
have any spaces in it and the filename cannot be blank.
B. You can leave the feed name blank, and files will be saved in the
category directory.
C. Names with spaces are only compatible with filesystems that allow for spaces
in filenames. For example, spaces in feed names are OK for feeds saved to
Linux ext partitions but are not OK for those saved to Microsoft FAT partitions.
D. Feed names can be disabled by leaving them blank.
4. Disable the downloading of any feed by commenting it out with a leading #.

Examples:
http://www.lugradio.org/episodes.rss Linux LUG Radio

Example with date substitution in the category and a blank feed name:
http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rmhttp/downloadtrial/worldservice/summary/rss.xml News-%YY%-%MM%-%DD%

Example of two ways to do a feed with authentication:
http://somesite.com/feed.rss CATEGORY Feed Name USER:username PASS:password
http://username:password@somesite.com/feed.rss CATEGORY Feed Name

NOTE: The second method will fail if a colon (:) is part of the username or password.
Both methods will fail if a space is part of the username or password.

Atom Feed Options:
The following options are available for advanced handling of Atom feeds.
ATOM_FILTER_SIMPLE - This option will enable filtering for just audio or video files from a feed.
ATOM_FILTER_TYPE="type" - This option allows more detailed filtering of the variety of types available. This can
limit the files downloaded to one type (example: "audio/mpeg") or to a few types
(example: "(audio|video)/.*" for all audio and video types, OR "audio/.*" for all audio
types).
ATOM_FILTER_LANG="language" - If an Atom feed supports multiple languages for enclosures, then you can use this
option to filter to only those you desire. You can limit to one language (example: "en"
for just English) or combine several supported languages to get them all (example: "(en|es|fr)"
to download files in English, Spanish and French. How the languages are defined may vary
from feed to feed.

Note: If you do not enable ANY of the ATOM_FILTER options, when you run podget with "-vv" or higher, for every Atom feed
that supports multiple enclosures per item, Podget will tell you with the count per type or language to help you decide
if you should use the filters to reduce the quantity of your downloads.

Examples:
http://somesite.com/feed.rss CATEGORY Feed Name ATOM_FILTER_SIMPLE
http://somesite.com/feed.rss CATEGORY Feed Name ATOM_FILTER_TYPE="audio/mpeg"
http://somesite.com/feed.rss CATEGORY Feed Name ATOM_FILTER_TYPE="(audio|video)/.*"
http://somesite.com/feed.rss CATEGORY Feed Name ATOM_FILTER_LANG="en"
http://somesite.com/feed.rss CATEGORY Feed Name ATOM_FILTER_LANG="(en|es|fr)"
http://somesite.com/feed.rss CATEGORY Feed Name ATOM_FILTER_TYPE="audio/mpeg" ATOM_FILTER_LANG="en"

Additional Options:
OPT_CONTENT_DISPOSITION - Attempt to get filename from the Content-Disposition tag that is part of
wget --server-response.
OPT_DISPOSITION_FAIL - This option works in conjunction with OPT_CONTENT_DISPOSITION by removing
any URLs that fail to receive a filename from the COMPLETED log. This allows
them to be automatically retried the next time a session runs. If this option
is added to a feed that has already been downloaded then the user will need to
remove the URLs for the problematic files from the COMPLETED log manually. On
one feed this allowed for the improvement of the number of filename problems from
approximately 15% to under 2% over the course of 6 sessions. Those sessions can
occur sequentially on one day or as part of your established cron rotation.
OPT_FILENAME_LOCATION - Some feeds do not have the detailed filename listed in the FEED but rather rename
the file on redirection. This option address that issue by attempting to grab the
filename from the last 'Location:' tag in the output of 'wget --server-response'.
OPT_FILENAME_RENAME_MDATE - For feeds that use a singular filename for each item that is identified by a long
somewhat incomprehensible string in the URL. These feeds were previously fixed
with FILENAME_FORMATFIX4 which would append the string to the common filename to
produce unique filenames for each item. However this produced filenames that were
not very easy to understand. This option gives us another method for dealing with
these common filenames. This appends the date of the files last change (modification
date) as a prefix to the filename in the format of YYYYMMDD_HHhMMm_<common-part>. This
makes the filenames sortable and gives the user something that makes a moderate amount
of sense. Does not work for all feeds, for some feeds the last modification time for
each file is the time of download. Which may be acceptable in some situations but can
cause confusion when downloading more than one item at a time from a feed.
OPT_FEED_ORDER_ASCENDING - By default, Podget assumes that items in a feed will be listed from newest to oldest
(descending order). This option will modify Podget's handling of the feed for those
that are listed from oldest to newest. This option will not have any noticeable effect
for feeds where you want to download every item. It will have an effect for new feeds
when combined with the --recent [COUNT] option.
OPT_FEED_PLAYLIST_NEWFIRST - Most playlist options create lists of just the new items that are downloaded in the
current session. This option creates or updates a full playlist for all items available
for a feed sorted from newest to oldest based on the modification date/time of the file.
OPT_FEED_PLAYLIST_OLDFIRST - Same as OPT_FEED_PLAYLIST_NEWFIRST except playlist is ordered from oldest to newest.

Note: It is possible to use more than one option per feed, this will combine the effects of the options in order from
top to bottom as they are listed here. Exception is the OPT_FEED_PLAYLIST options, they are mutually exclusive
and cannot be combined with each other but can be combined with other options.

Examples:
http://somesite.com/feed.rss CATEGORY Feed Name OPT_CONTENT_DISPOSITION
http://somesite.com/feed.rss CATEGORY Feed Name OPT_CONTENT_DISPOSITION OPT_DISPOSITION_FAIL
http://somesite.com/feed.rss CATEGORY Feed Name OPT_FILENAME_LOCATION
http://somesite.com/feed.rss CATEGORY Feed Name OPT_FILENAME_RENAME_MDATE
http://somesite.com/feed.rss CATEGORY Feed Name OPT_FILENAME_LOCATION OPT_FILENAME_RENAME_MDATE
http://somesite.com/feed.rss CATEGORY Feed Name OPT_FEED_ORDER_ASCENDING
http://somesite.com/feed.rss CATEGORY Feed Name OPT_FEED_PLAYLIST_NEWFIRST
http://somesite.com/feed.rss CATEGORY Feed Name OPT_FEED_PLAYLIST_OLDFIRST

HANDLING UTF-16 FEEDS

Some servers provide their feeds in UTF-16 format rather than the more common UTF-8.

To automatically convert these files, create a secondary serverlist at:

$HOME/.podget/serverlist.utf16

Remember to change the name of the serverlist to match what you set it to with config_serverlist if you
changed it.

AUTHORS

       Dave Vehrs

                                                  01 July 2019                                         podget(7)