PodCache

Provide access to podcast episodes. Possibly forever.

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Purpose

Podcache was created for a very specific use case: It provides means to access podcast episodes for an unlimited time, even if they have already been removed from the original podcast XML. This is intended for users that aren't tech-savvy and do not use their personal computers often but still want to be able to access a Podcast's episodes a while later.

Another goal of this application is that there needs to be as little change for the end-user as possible (i.e. no need to learn yet another application, etc.).

How does it work

Podcache is run as a small service that lives between the original feed and a user's podcatcher. Feeds are updated automatically and all files are downloaded automatically. It then provides provides it's own feeds to users, consisting of all collected episodes so far. The only thing that changes for the end user is the feed's URL.

Application Setup

Podcatcher consists of a single, complete binary, an executable JAR file. Make sure to read and customize the following settings prior to running the application. To apply these, create a file called "application.yaml" next to the JAR file.

Server Address

The default settings will provide URLs for localhost only. This means that you will only ever be able to access your feeds from another machine.

To change this behavior, add the following line to the settings file:

server.address: HOST_NAME

Replace HOST_NAME with either your server's host name or IP address.

Server Port

The application will use the port 7332 by default.

To change this, you add the following line to the setting file:

server.port: 8080

Directories holding data

The default setting will cause for both the database files as well as all feed files to be stored in the directory "podcache" relative to the directory you've run the application in.

You can change this behavior by adding the following configuration:

podcache.data.directory: /usr/share/podcache

Update interval

Feeds are updated once a day at 1 AM. You can configure the interval via the settings file:

podcache.update.interval: "0 1 0 * * ?"

Read the documentation on Cron for possible values. Put the value between quotes if necessary.

Debugging

If you stumble upon an unexpected behavior you can increase the logging output using the following setting:

logging.level.at.dire: DEBUG

You can also launch the application with the --debug option, which will output even more information, including Spring internal logging.

To help reporting issues, you can also redirect all logging to a log file:

logging.file: /tmp/podcache.log

Running the application

Place the service's JAR file into any directory, add the configuration and then execute the JAR:

java -jar podcache-x.y.z.jar

Once the application is started, you can access the application through your web browser:

http://localhost:7332/

Use this web interface to add new feeds. Feeds will be automatically updated once a day as long as the application is running. Also note that the podcast files are only updated once a day as well.

Click the RSS icon on the web frontend to get a feed's URL that you can then add to a podcatcher of your choosing.

Implementation Details

Components Used

The following components are used to implement the service backend and a simple web frontend.

• Java 8
• Spring Framework (SpringBoot, Spring Data JPA)
• HSQLDB
• RomeTools
• Apache HTTPClient
• Checker Framework
• AngularJS
• Bootstrap CSS
• OpenIconic

Building the Application

Podcache is implemented as a small Maven Project using the spring-boot-maven-plugin. The final JAR file is created through Maven on build.

Comparable tools

None that I know of.

How to contribute

Please feel free to report issues or suggest and share improvement. Criticism is also welcome.