Installing FreshRSS (for Free)

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Circles

May 30, 2024

While developing Circles Reader, the most obvious choice for a Google Reader API compatible server was FreshRSS. Not only is it highly functional as an RSS aggregator, but it also includes a built-in web reader, making it useful for testing. Of course, the best part is that it is free.

Here's how to run FreshRSS (almost) for free on your own computer.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, make sure you have the following:

Docker installed on your computer.
A Cloudflare account. You can sign up for free.
A domain name. If you don't have one, you can purchase it from providers like GoDaddy, Namecheap, etc.

Create a Local Tunnel Using `cloudflared` CLI

Refer to Create a locally-managed tunnel (CLI) for detailed instructions.

Cloudflare Tunnel allows you to securely expose your local server to the internet. Follow these steps:

Download and install cloudflared
Log in using your Cloudflare account
```
cloudflared tunnel login
```
Create a tunnel
```
cloudflared tunnel create <NAME>
```
<NAME> can be something like freshrss.
Confirm that the tunnel has been created
```
cloudflared tunnel list
```
Configure the tunnel to route traffic
```
cloudflared tunnel route dns <UUID> <hostname>
```
You can get the <UUID> from the previous list and replace <hostname> with the subdomain you want to use.

Once you are done with all this, you'll probably have the <UUID>.json file in your .cloudflared directory under your home directory.

Create `config.yml`

Create a directory for FreshRSS Docker, such as freshrss, somewhere on your computer and copy the <UUID>.json file there.
```
mkdir ~/freshrss
cd ~/freshrss
cp ~/.cloudflared/<UUID>.json .
```

Create a file called config.yml and put the following content.

url: http://freshrss
tunnel: <UUID>
credentials-file: /etc/cloudflared/<UUID>.json

Configure Docker

Refer to Deploy FreshRSS with Docker for detailed instructions.

Create .env and replace variables with your own

ADMIN_EMAIL=admin@example.net
ADMIN_PASSWORD=freshrss
ADMIN_API_PASSWORD=freshrss
PUBLISHED_PORT=8000

DB_HOST=db
DB_BASE=freshrss
DB_PASSWORD=freshrss
DB_USER=freshrss

Create docker-compose.yml

services:
  # freshrss
  freshrss:
    image: freshrss/freshrss:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - 8088:80
    logging:
      options:
        max-size: 10m
    volumes:
      - data:/var/www/FreshRSS/data
      - extensions:/var/www/FreshRSS/extensions
    environment:
      TZ: Asia/Seoul
      CRON_MIN: '3,33'
      DB_HOST: db
      FRESHRSS_INSTALL: |-
        --api_enabled
        --db-base ${DB_BASE}
        --db-host ${DB_HOST}
        --db-password ${DB_PASSWORD}
        --db-type pgsql
        --db-user ${DB_USER}
        --default_user admin
        --language en
      FRESHRSS_USER: |-
        --api_password ${ADMIN_API_PASSWORD}
        --email ${ADMIN_EMAIL}
        --language en
        --password ${ADMIN_PASSWORD}
        --user admin
  # common
  db:
    image: postgres:16
    restart: unless-stopped
    logging:
      options:
        max-size: 10m
    volumes:
      - db:/var/lib/postgresql/data
    environment:
      POSTGRES_DB: ${DB_BASE:-freshrss}
      POSTGRES_USER: ${DB_USER:-freshrss}
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: ${DB_PASSWORD:-freshrss}
    command:
      - -c
      - shared_buffers=1GB
      - -c
      - work_mem=32MB
  cloudflared:
    image: cloudflare/cloudflared:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    command: tunnel --no-autoupdate --config /etc/cloudflared/config.yml run
    volumes:
      - ./config.yml:/etc/cloudflared/config.yml
      - ./<UUID>.json:/etc/cloudflared/<UUID>.json

volumes:
  data:
  extensions:
  db:

Run FreshRSS using Docker Compose

You should probably have 4 files by now.

.env
<UUID>.json
config.yml
docker-compose.yml

Run using docker compose

docker compose up -d

Once the server is up, you can connect to FreshRSS locally using http://localhost:8080 and remotely using https://<hostname>.

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