reminder-rs

Reminder Bot for Discord.

How do I use it?

I offer a hosted version of the bot. You can invite it with: https://invite.reminder-bot.com. The catch is that repeating reminders are paid on the hosted version of the bot. Keep reading if you want to host it yourself.

You'll need rustc and cargo for compilation. To run, you'll need Python 3 still (due to no suitable replacement for dateparser in Rust)

Build APT package

Recommended method.

By default, this builds targeting Ubuntu 20.04. Modify the Containerfile if you wish to target a different platform. These instructions are written using podman, but docker should work too.

1. Install container software and Make: sudo apt install podman make.
2. Install database server: sudo apt install mysql-server-8.0. Create a database called reminders
3. Install SQLx CLI matching the project's SQLx version: cargo install sqlx-cli --version 0.8.2 --locked.
4. Install the local build requirements (Rust, Node.js/npm, GCC, CMake, pkg-config, and OpenSSL development headers), then install dashboard dependencies: npm ci --prefix reminder-dashboard.
5. Export the URL of your build/test database: export DATABASE_URL="mysql://user[:password]@localhost/reminders".
6. From the source code directory, execute sqlx migrate run.
7. Run make (or make build). This prepares SQLx query metadata in .sqlx, runs the Rust tests, builds the reminder-rs container image, and runs cargo deb inside it. The resulting package is written to target/debian/.

Preparation and database-dependent tests use the local database. The container packaging step uses the prepared .sqlx metadata with SQLX_OFFLINE=true, so it does not need database access, including when a .env file is present in the mounted source directory.

The stages can also be run separately: make prepare, make test (includes preparation), and make image (includes preparation and tests). Override IMAGE to change the container image tag, or PODMAN to use another container command, for example make PODMAN=docker.

Compiling for other target

1. Install requirements: sudo apt install gcc gcc-multilib cmake libssl-dev build-essential python3-dateparser
2. Install rustup from https://rustup.rs
3. Install the nightly toolchain: rustup toolchain default nightly
4. Install database server: sudo apt install mysql-server-8.0. Create a database called reminders.
5. Install sqlx-cli: cargo install sqlx-cli.
6. Run migrations: sqlx migrate run.
7. Set environment variables:
   • DATABASE_URL - the URL of your MySQL database (mysql://user[:password]@domain/database)
8. Build: cargo build --release

Configuring

Reminder Bot reads a number of environment variables. Some are essential, and others have hardcoded fallbacks. Environment variables can be loaded from a .env file in the working directory.

Required Variables

• DATABASE_URL - the URL of your MySQL database (mysql://user[:password]@domain/database)
• DISCORD_TOKEN - your application's bot user's authorization token

Other Variables

• MIN_INTERVAL - default 600, defines the shortest interval the bot should accept
• LOCAL_TIMEZONE - default UTC, necessary for calculations in the natural language processor
• SUBSCRIPTION_ROLES - default None, accepts a list of Discord role IDs that are given to subscribed users
• CNC_GUILD - default None, accepts a single Discord guild ID for the server that the subscription roles belong to
• PYTHON_LOCATION - default /usr/bin/python3. Can be changed if your Python executable is located somewhere else
• THEME_COLOR - default 8fb677. Specifies the hex value of the color to use on info message embeds

Running with Docker

A compose.yml file is provided to aid in running the bot agnostically using docker.

• Populate a .env file as in conf/default.env
• Add the additional variable ROCKET_SECRET_KEY with a key generated from head -c64 /dev/urandom | base64
• Run docker compose up

Please note that this is not production-ready when run via compose. We do not offer a way for backing up of your data, or a way to run the dashboard securely via HTTPS, which is required for OAuth.