Install FlexGet on Ubuntu to add RSS functionality to Deluge

The classic way to download files using torrents is as follows:

1. Go to your favourite torrent site

2. Search for the torrent you want

3. Once you've found it, download the torrent file manually

4. Add the downloaded torrent file to your favourite torrent client

5. Once it has finished downloading, manually move the file to its final location. (although some torrent clients can do this step for you)

There is a better way, a fully automated way, and that is to use RSS functionality. So for example, let's say you're a Lost fan and you currently manually download each episode of Lost as and when it becomes available. Using RSS you can automate this task meaning you can get Deluge to automatically download each episode for you as and when it becomes available. And then, once it's downloaded it will automatically move the file to the location you specify. And this final location can be different for each and every series you download. And you can even get it to send you an email when it's found a new episode to download.

There is a truly excellent tool called FlexGet which can do this, and indeed much more. However, FlexGet can be a little tricky to get up and running and so I've explained how I did it below:

IMPORTANT: Downloading TV shows and the like from the internet can have questionable legality in many countries. So, if you're not familiar with the particular law in your part of the world then let your conscience be your guide as to what you do and do not download!

NOTE: These instructions have been written for Precise Pangolin 12.04, Maverick Meerkat 10.10, Lucid Lynx 10.04 and Karmic Koala 9.10 and rely on Deluge being installed.

Install Python & pip

First off we need to install Python and pip if they're not installed already. So type or paste the following two commands into a Putty session or directly into the command line of your Ubuntu installation:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install python python-pip

Download and install FlexGet

We now want to download and install FlexGet itself. This is a LOT easier than it used to be. Now it's just a single command:

sudo pip install flexget

To verify the installation worked properly type:

flexget -V

and it should return the version number. eg. 1.0r2977

When a new version of FlexGet is released and you want to upgrade to it, simply type the following:

sudo pip install --upgrade flexget

Create the FlexGet working area

Often scripts and applications are run as the default Ubuntu User. However, I run FlexGet using the "deluge" user. The deluge user is the username the Deluge daemon runs under (assuming of course that you've installed Deluge following my guide). If we don't do so then we will hit permission problems since the two parts of the setup (Deluge and FlexGet) will be creating files and folders using different usernames and thus will be using different file/folder permissions.

So we first need to create the working area which FlexGet will use:

sudo -u deluge mkdir /var/lib/deluge/.flexget

Next we need to add the deluge user as a valid user for the deluge API. So:

sudo -u deluge vim /var/lib/deluge/.config/deluge/auth

This will open a file called auth which lives in the /var/lib/deluge/.config/deluge folder.

There is already one line in this file but we need to insert an extra line. So press the [Insert] key once (to go into "edit" mode) and insert a new blank line. Next type or paste the following string into this new blank line:

deluge:deluge:10

Now press the [Esc] key once and type the following:

:wq

This should save your changes and bring you back to the command line. If you make a mistake editing the file then issue :q! instead of :wq to abort your changes.

Configure FlexGet

Now we have FlexGet installed we need to configure it to suit our needs. See the Configure FlexGet guide.

      

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