glanch / syncMyMoodle

Synchronization client for RWTH Moodle

syncMyMoodle

Synchronization client for RWTH Moodle

Downloads the following materials:

• Assignment files, submissions and feedback
• Resource files
• URLs: OpenCast, Youtube and Sciebo videos/files, and all other non HTML files
• Folders
• Quizzes (Disabled by default)
• Pages and Labels: Embedded Opencast and Youtube Videos

Installation

This software requires Python 3.6 or higher.

Using pip (recommended)

The simplest way to install syncMyMoodle is using pip.

You're advised to use a virtual environment to make sure that its dependencies can't do anything evil on your machine.

Please consult the guide from the Python website for more information.

If you just want to get the job done, just use the following commands:

python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate  # bash/zsh, for other shells view the docs
pip3 install syncmymoodle

Manual installation

If you are living on the bleeding edge, you can also download the source code directly and build everything by yourself.

syncMyMoodle's dependencies can be installed using pip or your distro's package manager (apt, dnf, pacman, etc.).

To install the requirements using pip execute the following command from the repository root.

# It is best to run this in a virtual environment.
# For more information see the section above.
pip3 install .

Configuration

You can use syncMyMoodle with command line arguments or using a configuration file. Which one is the best? Well, the answer mostly depends on how and how often you are using it.

If you use it often, it may be best to set up a configuration file so that you won't have to keep entering the same settings options over and over again. If you are on Windows, want to automatically conduct backups, or use the tool irregularly, you may want to use the command line arguments for the sake of simplicity.

Command line arguments

Using pip

Use python3 -m syncmymoodle and use the command line arguments.

Manual installation

source .venv/bin/activate  # if you installed using virtual environment
python3 -m syncmymoodle
deactivate  # leave virtual environment

Arguments

The following command line arguments are available:

usage: syncMyMoodle.py [-h] [--secretservice] [--user USER] [--password PASSWORD] [--config CONFIG]
                       [--cookiefile COOKIEFILE] [--courses COURSES] [--skipcourses SKIPCOURSES]
                       [--semester SEMESTER] [--basedir BASEDIR] [--nolinks]

Synchronization client for RWTH Moodle. All optional arguments override those in config.json.

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --secretservice       Use FreeDesktop.org Secret Service as storage/retrival for username/passwords.
  --user USER           Your RWTH SSO username
  --password PASSWORD   Your RWTH SSO password
  --config CONFIG       The path to the config file
  --cookiefile COOKIEFILE
                        The location of the cookie file
  --courses COURSES     Only these courses will be synced (comma seperated links) (if empty, all courses will be
                        synced)
  --skipcourses SKIPCOURSES
                        These courses will NOT be synced (comma seperated links)
  --semester SEMESTER   Only these semesters will be synced, of the form 20ws (comma seperated) (only used if
                        [courses] is empty, if empty all semesters will be synced)
  --basedir BASEDIR     The base directory where all files will be synced to
  --nolinks             Wether to not inspect links embedded in pages

Configuration file

Copy config.json.example or the following text (minus the comments) to config.json in your current directory or to ~/.config/syncmymoodle/config.json if you wish to configure syncmymoodle user-wide.

Here's an overview of the file with some additional remarks as to what each configuration does:

{
    "selected_courses": [], //Only these courses will be synced, of the form "https://moodle.rwth-aachen.de/course/view.php?id=XXXXX" (if empty, all courses will be synced)
    "skip_courses": [], //Skip these courses
    "only_sync_semester": [], //Only these semesters will be synced, of the form 20ws (only used if selected_courses is empty, if empty all semesters will be synced)
    "user": "", //Your RWTH SSO username
    "password": "", //Your RWTH SSO password (not needed if you use secret service)
    "basedir": "./", //The base directory where all files will be synced to
    "cookie_file": "./session", //The location of the cookie file,
    "use_secret_service": false, //Use the secret service integration (requires the secretstorage pip module)
    "no_links": false, //Skip links embedded in pages. This would disable OpenCast links for example
    "used_modules": { //Disable downloading certain modules
        "assign": true, //Assignments
        "resource": true, //Resources
        "url": {
            "youtube": true, //Youtube Links/Embeds
            "opencast": true, //Opencast Links/Embeds
            "sciebo": true, //Sciebo Links/Embeds
            "quiz": false //Quiz Links
        },
        "folder": true, //Folders
    },
    "exclude_filetypes": [] //Exclude specific filetypes, e.g. ["mp4","mkv"] do disable downloading most videos
}

Command line arguments have a higher priority than configuration files. You can override any of the options that you have configured in the file using command line arguments.

FreeDesktop.org Secret Service integration

This section is intended for Linux desktop users, as well as users of certain Unix-like operating systems (FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD).

You are advised to install and use the optional FreeDesktop.org Secret Service integration to store your password securely if your system supports it - if you're on a modern Linux desktop-oriented distribution, it most probably does!

If you have a FreeDesktop.org Secret Service integration compatible keyring installed, you can store your RWTH SSO credentials in it and use it with syncMyMoodle, which can be particularly useful if you do not like storing your passwords in plain text files.

To do that, you will have to install syncMyMoodle with an extra keyring argument:

pip3 install syncmymoodle[keyring]  # when installing from PyPi
# or
pip3 install .[keyring]  # when installing manually

You will be asked for your password when using syncMyMoodle for the first time, which you can supply as a parameter or in the configuration file.

If everything went alright, you won't need to enter your password again in the future, as it will be obtained automatically and securely from the Secret Service Integration.