easyepg.minimal

A minimal docker container for running easyepg either on demand or permanently with built-in cronjob

Manual installation via shell

This section is not for users with a GUI interface for docker on a NAS system like Synology, UnRaid or OpenMediaVault (see here for details) but for people having a dedicated host running TVheadend directly but wanting to run easyepg as docker on this host.

Prerequisites

You will need to have docker installed on your system and the user you want to run it needs to be in the docker group.

Installation

Switch to the user you want to run the container with and issue the following command to get everything up and running

sh -c "$(curl -s -H 'Cache-Control: no-cache' https://raw.githubusercontent.com/dlueth/easyepg.minimal/master/init)"

Note: The image is a multi-arch build providing variants for amd64, arm32v7 and arm64v8 - the correct variant for your architecture should^TM be pulled automatically.

Note: If the init-script successfully detects a valid xmltv.sock it will default to "yes" and provide the correct path automatically. Otherwise it will default to "no".

Initial setup

Switch to the user you want to run the container with and start the admin container and enter it via

docker start easyepg.admin
docker exec -ti -u easyepg -w /easyepg easyepg.admin /bin/bash ./epg.sh

to start easyepg's setup and configure it. When your setup is finished return to the shell and issue exit to leave the container followed by docker stop easyepg.admin to stop it.

Note: If you did run the init-script as root user the container will not have an easyepg user and you will have remove the -u easyepg from the line above. I do not recommend this for security though.

Updating EPG XML-files

Variant A: via Cronjob in the container

Simply run the following command while logged in as the desired user

docker start easyepg.cron

There already is a crontab in the container that will run easyepg at 2:00am every night.

Variant B: via Cronjob on the host

Note: Skip this section if you decided to go with Variant A (e.g. you are running the container on a NAS)

Simply run the following command while logged in as the desired user

crontab -e

Append the following line to the file that should have been opened

0 2 * * * docker start easyepg.run 

If you did not set a path to xmltv.sock during installation you might need the following two lines in addition.

0 4 * * * cat ~/easyepg/xml/[your file].xml | socat - UNIX-CONNECT:/home/hts/.hts/tvheadend/epggrab/xmltv.sock
10 4 * * * cat ~/easyepg/xml/[your file].xml | socat - UNIX-CONNECT:/home/hts/.hts/tvheadend/epggrab/xmltv.sock

Replace [your file] with the filename of your generated XML.

Save and exit the file and you are done!

Technical info for docker GUIs (e.g. Synology, UnRaid, OpenMediaVault)

To learn how to manually start the container or about available parameters (you might need for your GUI used) see the following example:

docker run \
  -d \
  -e MODE="admin" \
  -e USER_ID="1099" \
  -e GROUP_ID="1099" \
  -e TIMEZONE="Europe/Berlin" \
  -e FREQUENCY="0 2 * * *" \
  -e UPDATE="yes" \
  -e REPO="sunsettrack4" \
  -e BRANCH="master" \
  -v {EASYEPG_STORAGE}:/easyepg \
  -v {XML_STORAGE}:/easyepg/xml \
  -v {XMLTV_SOCKET}:/xmltv.sock \
  -v {XMLTV_DIRECTORY}:/xmltv \
  --name=easyepg \
  --restart unless-stopped \
  --tmpfs /tmp \
  --tmpfs /var/log \
  qoopido/easyepg.minimal:latest

The available parameters in detail:

Parameter	Optional	Values/Type	Default	Description
MODE	yes	run, admin, cron	run	Mode to run the container in
USER_ID	yes	[integer]	1099	UID to run easyepg as
GROUP_ID	yes	[integer]	1099	GID to run easyepg as
TIMEZONE	yes	[string]	Europe/Berlin	Timezone for the container
FREQUENCY	yes	[string]	0 2 * * *	Cron frequency (when run in MODE='cron')
UPDATE	yes	yes, no	yes	Flag whether to update easyepg on container start
REPO	yes	sunsettrack4, DeBaschdi	sunsettrack4	The repo to update/install easyepg from
BRANCH	yes	[string]	master	The branch to update/install easyepg from

Frequently used volumes:

Volume	Optional	Description
EASYEPG_STORAGE	no	The directory to persist easyepg to
XML_STORAGE	yes	The directory to store the finished XML files in
XMLTV_SOCKET	yes	The socket to automatically write finished XMLs to
XMLTV_DIRECTORY	yes	The directory to alternatively expect an xmltv.sock in

When passing volumes please replace the name including the surrounding curly brackets with existing absolute paths with correct permissions.

If you decide to remove XML_STORAGE the finished XML files can be found in the xml subdirectory of EASYEPG_STORAGE instead.

Note: XML_STORAGE can, e.g., be used to directly write finished XMLs into the directory you pass into a separately running TVheadend docker container.

Crontab syntax

 ┌───────────── minute (0 - 59)
 │ ┌───────────── hour (0 - 23)
 │ │ ┌───────────── day of month (1 - 31)
 │ │ │ ┌───────────── month (1 - 12)
 │ │ │ │ ┌───────────── day of week (0 - 6) (Sunday to Saturday;
 │ │ │ │ │                                       7 is also Sunday on some systems)
 │ │ │ │ │
 │ │ │ │ │
 * * * * *  /command/to/execute