path: root/README.md

# getwtxt  [![Build Status](https://travis-ci.com/getwtxt/getwtxt.svg?branch=master)](https://travis-ci.com/getwtxt/getwtxt) [![Go Report Card](https://goreportcard.com/badge/github.com/getwtxt/getwtxt)](https://goreportcard.com/report/github.com/getwtxt/getwtxt) [![Code Climate Maintainability](https://api.codeclimate.com/v1/badges/0e48bd9002de0f84b24e/maintainability)](https://codeclimate.com/github/getwtxt/getwtxt/maintainability)

twtxt registry written in Go! 

[twtxt](https://github.com/buckket/twtxt) is a decentralized microblogging platform 
"for hackers" based on text files. The user is "followed" and "mentioned" by referencing 
the URL to their `twtxt.txt` file and a nickname.
Registries are designed to aggregate several users' statuses into a single location,
facilitating the discovery of new users to follow and allowing the search of statuses
for tags and key words.

         
\[ [Installation](#installation) \] 
    \[ [Configuration](#configuration) \] 
    \[ [Using the Registry](#using-the-registry) \] 
    \[ [Benchmarks](#benchmarks) \] 
    \[ [Other Documentation](#other-documentation) \] 
    \[ [Notes](#notes) \]

## Features 
 [![GitHub release](https://img.shields.io/github/release/getwtxt/getwtxt.svg)](https://github.com/getwtxt/getwtxt/releases/latest)

* Easy to set up and maintain 
* Uses an in-memory cache to serve requests
* Pushes to a database at a configurable interval for persistent storage
  * `leveldb (default)` 
  * `sqlite3`
* More database support is in development
* Run directly facing the internet or behind `Caddy` / `nginx`
* Optional `TLS` support
* Optional hostname matching (serve requests for eg. `twtxt.example.com` without a reverse proxy)

A public instance is currently available:
* [twtxt.tilde.institute](https://twtxt.tilde.institute)

## Installation 

I have only personally tested getwtxt on Linux, specifically:
* `Debian 9, 10/Testing, Sid`
* `Ubuntu Server 18.04LTS, 18.10, 19.04`

Build dependencies are minimal, and only include:
* `gnu make`
* `go >= 1.11`
* `git`

First, fetch the sources using `git` and jump into the directory.

```
$ git clone git://github.com/getwtxt/getwtxt.git
...
$ cd getwtxt
```

Then, check out the latest release tag. 

This will be the same tag listed on the badge under the [Features](#features) section heading.

```
$ git checkout v0.0.0
```

Or, if you want to be a `git` ninja, you can use this to just check out whatever
the latest tag is:

```
$ git checkout $(git describe --tags --abbrev=0)

```

Optionally, use the `go` tool to test and benchmark the files in `svc`.

If you choose to run the tests, be sure to return to the main directory 
afterwards.

```
$ cd svc && go test -v -bench . -benchmem
...
...
PASS

$ cd ..
```

Use `make` to initiate the build and install process. 
```
$ make
...
$ sudo make install
```

## Configuration

\[ [Proxying](#proxying) \]   \[ [Starting getwtxt](#starting-getwtxt) \]

To configure getwtxt, you'll first need to open `/usr/local/getwtxt/getwtxt.yml` 
in your favorite editor and modify any values necessary. There are comments in the 
file explaining each option.

If you desire, you may additionally modify the template in 
`/usr/local/getwtxt/assets/tmpl/index.html` to customize the page users will see 
when they pull up your registry instance in a web browser. The values in the 
configuration file under `Instance:` are used to replace text `{{.Like This}}` in 
the template.

### Proxying

Though getwtxt will run perfectly fine facing the internet directly, it does not
understand virtual hosts, nor does it use TLS (yet). You'll probably want to proxy it behind
`Caddy` or `nginx` for this reason. 

`Caddy` is ludicrously easy to set up, and automatically handles `TLS` certificates. Here's the config:

```caddyfile
twtxt.example.com 
proxy / example.com:9001
```

If you're using `nginx`, here's a skeleton config to get you started. Don't forget to change 
the 5 instances of `twtxt.example.com` to the (sub)domain you'll be using to access the registry, 
generate SSL/TLS certificates using `letsencrypt`, and change the port in `proxy_pass` to whichever 
port you specified when modifying the configuration file. Currently, it's set to the default port `9001`

```nginx
server {
    server_name twtxt.example.com;
    listen [::]:443 ssl http2;
    listen 0.0.0.0:443 ssl http2;
    ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/twtxt.example.com/fullchain.pem;
    ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/twtxt.example.com/privkey.pem;
    include /etc/letsencrypt/options-ssl-nginx.conf;
    ssl_dhparam /etc/letsencrypt/ssl-dhparams.pem;
    location / {
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr;
        proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:9001;
    }
}
server {
    if ($host = twtxt.example.com) {
        return 301 https://$host$request_uri;
    }
    listen 80;
    server_name twtxt.example.com;
    return 404;
}
```

### Starting getwtxt

Once you have everything configured to your needs, use `systemctl` to enable it
to run on system boot, then start the service.

```
$ sudo systemctl enable getwtxt
...
$ sudo systemctl start getwtxt
```

## Using the Registry

The following examples will all apply to using `curl` from a `Linux`, `BSD`, or `macOS` terminal.
All timestamps are in `RFC3339` format, per the twtxt registry specification. Additionally, all
queries support the `?page=N` parameter, where `N` is a positive integer, that will retrieve page
`N` of results in groups of twenty.

The example API calls can also be found on the landing page of any getwtxt instance, assuming
the admin has not customized the landing page.
* [twtxt.tilde.institute](https://twtxt.tilde.institute)

### Adding a User
Both nickname and URL are required
```
$ curl -X POST 'https://twtxt.example.com/api/plain/users?url=https://mysite.ext/twtxt.txt&nickname=FooJr'

200 OK
```

### Get All Tweets
```
$ curl 'https://twtxt.example.com/api/plain/tweets'

foo_barrington  https://foo.bar.ext/twtxt.txt  2019-03-01T09:31:02.000Z Hey! It's my first status!
...
...
```

### Query Tweets by Keyword
```
$ curl 'https://twtxt.example.com/api/plain/tweets?q=getwtxt'

foo_barrington    https://example3.com/twtxt.txt    2019-04-30T06:00:09.000Z    I just installed getwtxt!
```

### Get All Users
Timestamp reflects when the user was added to the registry.

```
$ curl 'https://twtxt.example.com/api/plain/users'

foo_barrington      https://foo.barrington.ext/twtxt.txt  2017-01-01T09:17:02.000Z
foo_barrington_jr   https://example.com/twtxt.txt         2019-03-01T09:31:02.000Z
...
...
```

### Query Users
Can use either keyword or URL.

```
$ curl 'https://twtxt.example.com/api/plain/users?url=https://example.com/twtxt.txt'

foo               https://example.com/twtxt.txt     2019-05-09T08:42:23.000Z


$ curl 'https://twtxt.example.com/api/plain/users?q=foo'

foo               https://example.com/twtxt.txt     2019-05-09T08:42:23.000Z
foobar            https://example2.com/twtxt.txt    2019-03-14T19:23:00.000Z
foo_barrington    https://example3.com/twtxt.txt    2019-05-01T15:59:39.000Z
```

### Get all tweets with mentions
Mentions are placed within a status using the format `@<nickname http://url/twtxt.txt>`
```
$ curl 'https://twtxt.tilde.institute/api/plain/mentions'

foo               https://example.com/twtxt.txt     2019-02-28T11:06:44.000Z    @<foo_barrington https://example3.com/twtxt.txt> Hey!! Are you still working on that project?
bar               https://mxmmplm.com/twtxt.txt     2019-02-27T11:06:44.000Z    @<foobar https://example2.com/twtxt.txt> How's your day going, bud?
foo_barrington    https://example3.com/twtxt.txt    2019-02-26T11:06:44.000Z    @<foo https://example.com/twtxt.txt> Did you eat my lunch?
```

### Query tweets by mention URL
```
$ curl 'https://twtxt.tilde.institute/api/plain/mentions?url=https://foobarrington.co.uk/twtxt.txt'

foo    https://example.com/twtxt.txt    2019-02-26T11:06:44.000Z    @<foo_barrington https://foobarrington.co.uk/twtxt.txt> Hey!! Are you still working on that project?e
```

### Get all Tags
```
$ curl 'https://twtxt.example.com/api/plain/tags'

foo    https://example.com/twtxt.txt    2019-03-01T09:33:04.000Z    No, seriously, I need #help
foo    https://example.com/twtxt.txt    2019-03-01T09:32:12.000Z    Seriously, I love #programming!
foo    https://example.com/twtxt.txt    2019-03-01T09:31:02.000Z    I love #programming!
```

### Query by Tag
```
$ curl 'https://twtxt.example.com/api/plain/tags/programming'

foo    https://example.com/twtxt.txt    2019-03-01T09:31:02.000Z    I love #programming!
```

## Benchmarks

* [bombardier](https://github.com/codesenberg/bombardier)

```
$ bombardier -c 100 -n 200000 http://localhost:9001/api/plain/tweets

Bombarding http://localhost:9001/api/plain/tweets with 200000 request(s) using 100 connection(s)
 200000 / 200000 [=============================================================] 100.00% 19961/s 10s

Done!

Statistics        Avg      Stdev        Max
  Reqs/sec     20006.58    2408.55   26054.73
  Latency        5.00ms     3.58ms    62.99ms
  HTTP codes:
    1xx - 0, 2xx - 200000, 3xx - 0, 4xx - 0, 5xx - 0
    others - 0
  Throughput:    39.27MB/s	
```

## Other Documentation

In addition to what is provided here, additional information, particularly regarding the configuration
file, may be found by running getwtxt with the `-m` or `--manual` flags. You will likely want to pipe the output
to `less` as it is quite long.

```
$ ./getwtxt -m | less

$ ./getwtxt --manual | less
```

If you need to remove getwtxt from your system, navigate to the source directory
you acquired using `git` during the installation process and run the appropriate
`make` hook:

```
$ sudo make uninstall
```

## Notes

twtxt Information: [`twtxt.readthedocs.io`](https://twtxt.readthedocs.io)

twtxt Client Repo: [`github.com/buckket/twtxt`](https://github.com/buckket/twtxt)

Registry Specification: [`twtxt.readthedocs.io/en/latest/user/registry.html`](https://twtxt.readthedocs.io/en/latest/user/registry.html)

Special thanks to [`github.com/kognise/water.css`](https://github.com/kognise/water.css) for open-sourcing a pleasant, easy-to-use, importable stylesheet

### Contributing

All contributions are greatly appreciated! Please open an issue, submit
a pull request, anything. 

If you're interested in contributing, take a look at the
github project page for getwtxt, linked below, where I've listed various items I'm 
working on or plan to work on in the very near future. It'll give you some inspiration for 
pull requests to submit. If you have an idea for a new feature or come across a bug,
submitting a new issue will be greatly appreciated as well.

* [getwtxt Development: the road to 1.0.0](https://github.com/getwtxt/getwtxt/projects/1)
* [open an issue](https://github.com/getwtxt/getwtxt/issues)