How to set up a curation bot on raspberry pi

in raspberry •  8 years ago  (edited)

Introduction

If you feel like trusting your keys to external sites is not a great way to curate content, I've got a 35 dollar lifetime solution for you. Not that many people know that steemit curation bots can even be built on your mobile phones, since singing transactions takes little to no computational power.


In this tutorial, I'll be showing you how to set up a curation bot on a small arm processor machine, that takes up little to no power, so you can run it with almost no running costs. The specific machine that I'm going to use is Raspberry Pi 2 Model B however the same process applies to any other Raspberry Pi models, Arduino, BeagleBone or any other device that can run linux.

Needed programs/files/accessories

Raspberry Pi - https://www.amazon.com/Raspberry-Pi-RASP-PI-3-Model-Motherboard/dp/B01CD5VC92


Wifi dongle - https://www.amazon.com/FotoFo-USB-WiFi-Adapter-Raspberry/dp/B01I191N48


Micro SD card - https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-microSD-High-Capacity-microSDHC/dp/B00488G6P8


Micro SD card reader - https://www.amazon.com/IOGEAR-MicroSD-Reader-Writer-GFR204SD/dp/B0046TJG1U


A copy of raspian(any other linux based operating system will work as well) - https://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads/raspbian/
Make sure to download the pixel version.
If you have larger than 8gb sd card I'd reccommend Ubuntu mate located here - https://ubuntu-mate.org/raspberry-pi/
You might even consider rokos OS if you want to stake your favorite altcoins meantime - http://rokos.space/core.html


SDFormatter - https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_4/index.html


etcher - https://etcher.io/


Bitwise SSH client - https://www.bitvise.com/ssh-client-download


Step by step tutorial

1. Format the Micro SD card

Get and install SDFormatter, when that is done insert your Micro SD card to the reader, open up SDFormatter and make sure format size adjustment is swiched on. Then format the SD card.

2. Burn raspbian on the SD card

We're going to use Etcher for this process. Burning the image on the SD card is fairly simple and straight forward.

3. Install raspbian on your raspberry pi and log into your wifi

Installing rasbian is done automatically, you just have to wait until it boots up. After it's done booting, just log into your wifi and write down your local ip for the device. You'll be using this ip to ssh into the device.

4. SSH into your raspberry with bitvise


The default username is : pi
The default password is: raspberry

6. Install piston and all other prerequisites

bitvise will open up a terminal along with a ftp tunnel, paste the following commands into the terminal to install piston

Install screen
sudo apt-get install screen
Install python with all piston the prerequisites
sudo apt-get install python3
sudo apt-get install python3-dev
sudo apt-get install python3-pip

sudo apt-get install git make automake cmake g++ libssl-dev autoconf libtool
sudo apt-get install libboost-thread-dev libboost-date-time-dev libboost-system-dev libboost-filesystem-dev libboost-program-options-dev libboost-signals-dev libboost-serialization-dev libboost-chrono-dev libboost-test-dev libboost-context-dev libboost-locale-dev libboost-coroutine-dev libboost-iostreams-dev
sudo apt-get install doxygen perl libreadline-dev libncurses5-dev
install piston
sudo pip3 install steem-piston

Just paste all of theese commands into your terminal one by one to intsall piston with all of the prerequisites

7. Compile the curation bot script

Make a new folder on your desktop called bot, then create 2 files in that folder called bot.py and votelist.txt
so it would look like this


You can just create 2 text files and rename the extensions to get the .py extension.

Edit the bot.py file and paste the following code inside:
from steem.steem import Steem
from steem.steem import BroadcastingError
import threading
import time
import random
import csv
 
my_subscriptions = []

 
with open('votelist.txt', mode='r') as infile:
    reader = csv.reader(infile)
    for rows in reader:
        v = rows[0]
        my_subscriptions.append(v)
 
# accounts and passwords
account = ["account_goes_here"]
posting_key = ["password_goes_here"]
# delay in seconds when the bot votes
vote_delay = random.randrange(1200,1800)

upvote_history = []
 
def feed():
    print("Waiting for new posts by %s\n\n\nGo Oprah!\nGo Winfrey!" % my_subscriptions)
    steem = Steem(wif=posting_key[0])
    for comment in steem.stream_comments():
 
        if comment.author in my_subscriptions:
            # Comments don't have titles. This is how we can know if we have a post or a comment.
            if len(comment.title) > 0:
 
                # check if we already upvoted this. Sometimes the feed will give duplicates.
                if comment.identifier in upvote_history:
                    continue
 
                print("New post by @%s %s" % (comment.author, url_builder(comment)))
                workerThread = threading.Thread(name=comment.identifier, target=worker, args=(comment,))
                workerThread.start()
 

def url_builder(comment):
    return "https://steemit.com/%s/%s" % (comment.category, comment.identifier)
 
def worker(worker_comment):
     time.sleep(vote_delay)
     try:
       for (k,v) in enumerate(account):
         worker_steem = Steem(wif=posting_key[k])
         upvote_comment = worker_steem.get_content(worker_comment.identifier)
         # vote weight 100 full power vote -100 full power flag
         upvote_comment.vote(100, v)
         print("@%s====> ^Upvoted^" % upvote_comment.author)
         upvote_history.append(upvote_comment.identifier)
     except BroadcastingError as e:
       print("@%s<- failed" % upvote_comment.author)
       print(str(e))

 
if __name__ == "__main__":
    while True:
        try:
            feed()
        except (KeyboardInterrupt, SystemExit):
            print("Quitting...")
            break
        except Exception as e:
            traceback.print_exc()
            print("### Exception Occurred: Restarting...")

8. Add your account to the curation bot, also modify the the settings

add your account to "your_account_goes_here"
add your password to "your_password_goes_here"

you can also add multiple account by seperating the accounts and keys with a comma like so:
account = ["account1", "account2"]
posting_key = ["key1", "key2"]
You can modify the delay when the bot votes by altering this line (in seconds)
vote_delay = random.randrange(1200,1800)
You can also modify the vote weight by altering this line (100 being full power and -100 being full power flag)
upvote_comment.vote(100, v) 

9. Add users to the curation list

open up your votelist.txt and add users you want to vote on, each line contains a new user for the bot to vote on

So the list would go like so
ubg
fyrstikken
furion
contentjunkie
xeroc
steempowertwins

10. Move the files from your desktop to raspberry

After you're done adding accounts to your curation list just via bitvise ftp tunnel like so

11. Run your bot

To run your bot, you first need to navigate to the bots folder

you do that by typing
cd bot
then you need to run your bot
screen python3 bot.py

By using that command you're attaching the python script to a screen. So you can close your terminal and log out.

Each time you want to know how the bot is doing you type
screen -r


If you want to detach the screen use keyboard shortcut ctrl+a+d
If you want to close the script use keyboard shortcut ctrl+c


Big thanks to @fyrstikken for releasing the source code for the winfrey bot.
You can find the original code for the winfrey bot here: https://steemit.com/socialist-bot/@fyrstikken/the-anonymous-winfrey-bot-upvotes-for-everyone-download-here-easy-steps-for-n00bs
Also if you have any questions regarding setting up your own bot, just ask in the comments or contact @ubg in rocket chat. Also a huge thanks to @noganoo for providing me the piston prerequisites.

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Hello @ubg,

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noganoo !cheetah ban

Okay, I have banned @spin.

how the hell did you make 2000 accounts...

noganoo !cheetah ban

Okay, I have banned @tinder.

noganoo !cheetah ban

Okay, I have banned @tawnie.

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Okay, I have banned @steemville.

noganoo !cheetah ban

Okay, I have banned @snake-plissken.

will this work on a mac?

  ·  8 years ago (edited)

Yes, just paste the commands in the terminal.
Just to do steps 6, 7, 8, 9 and 11

what about the other steps?
Hmm....when I decide to tackle this, how can i reach you? are you in steemit chat a lot?

@ubg in steemit.chat

ah ok thanks

dude, there are problems with that piston. Does this code still works? I wrote a different bot in python with the selenium framework(browser automation framework).

That is boss level! Just think.....that little Raspberry Pi could curate and probably stake some other coins at the same time. I'm not going to have time for the project but I think it would be cool if someone built a miniature DIY Tesla power wall and had a solar panel hooked up and ran a setup like this just to curate and stake coins.

Yea, you can run rokos to stake the coins at the same time
http://rokos.space/core.html

I want to cry...😢 So proud of you @ubg 😋

💗

I'll be trying this with my Pi Zero. I plan to have that showing my notifications for Steemit on a scrolling LED display. I'll publish the code for that when I do. I'll put it on Github. Can use a separate file for passwords so they don't get shared in the code.

Try Felixes updated script, he has accounts and passwords separated from the code.
https://steemit.com/piston/@felixxx/learning-python-with-steem-the-winfrey-bot

Thanks for the detailed tutorial!

I am getting this error pls help :( :

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "bot.py", line 1, in module
from steem.steem import Steem

Good info!

Awesome!!

Nice job and I have all the parts needed.

This is great! :)

Not only do I now follow you but would you like work?

Thank you for posting such a helpful article.
@The-Steem-Store

  ·  8 years ago (edited)

What kind of work are you talking about?

Making a bot to help automate a middleman service.

The idea, would be to connect users who need things, to users who can ship them.

After an arrangement is made, users can pay @The-Steem-Store in STEEM to receive their item after delivery. When payment to this account is made, the bot would make a post calling for the delivery of the goods.

When the delivery is complete the payment will be past onto the user who delivered the goods.

Sorry for the late response,

Amazing information. Thank you for sharing it with us.

This post has been ranked within the top 80 most undervalued posts in the second half of Jan 11. We estimate that this post is undervalued by $5.98 as compared to a scenario in which every voter had an equal say.

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this is an amazing tutorial.

Nice. :-)

look at you! you got some whale love!

wait, so i have to be running linux, right? it won't work with a mac?

Good idea, I have to try this, I've got Raspberry Pi 3 , really good information for me, cause I am new on steemit :)

I have an issue. The BroadcastingError will no import.
Not sure what the problem is. I did this with the latest version of steem-piston. Could be that's broken now in the latest version.

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "bot.py", line 9, in module
from steem.steem import BroadcastingError
ImportError: cannot import name 'BroadcastingError'

instead of installing steem-piston, you may try to install python-steem with the following command:

pip3 install steem==0.3.1

I found that the 0.4 version of steem-piston broke all of my scripts, now I download version 0.3.1 of python steem. That does the job for me.

do you suggest uninstalling steem-piston?

  ·  8 years ago (edited)

hrmm..... had to uninstall the version I had of steem to get it to work.
pip3 uninstall steem=0.4.3

i think It's working noow

  ·  8 years ago (edited)

Glad you got it working!
I was going to suggest installing steem to a clean operating system with the prerequisites installed. Bot on!

late reply :D i saw your bot upvoting my post :D and yeah i run kinda the same bot (i own raspberry pi B+ and raspberry pi 2 B+) both of them are capable of curating i think :) nice post :)

Drphil?

?

WELL DONE SIR!

  ·  7 years ago (edited)

This is so exciting. But I am completely lost. From my first reading I get this card is similar to an Arduino. So here goes my first question:

Can I use an old Arduino card for this purpose, with these instructions? I bought one once, and almost never used it. I did some childish tests with a breadboard.

Second question: Can I use a computer instead of a usb card like these? Why is this type of hardtware required? Or is it just that it is cheaper than a computer?

Thank you very much for the article and for any comments on simpler stuff I can read, more elementary things to get started.

And excuse the silly questions :-)

Awesome, thanks!

I need your help.. :( I cant connect to my rasperry pi 3 model b via SSH and i dont know why.

This is dope, I have a Pi 2B sitting around collecting dust. Time to put that joint back to work.

Amazing! )))))))))

Is this bot still a viable project? I haven't found any new posts on this . I love the idea and would love ti try it out if ut definitely still works.

I love this tutorial. ..I have a pi that im not using im going to try it out. Upvoted, followed, resteemed

Hi @ubg does this project is still working ? I do everything what you show in this article , but when I go to step 11 and I am writing commend "screen python3 bot.py" to run this bot, but it doesn't work. Tell me, do I need to use ssh bitvise, or can I enter these commands directly from step 6 in the raspbberry terminal, without using ssh bitvise from windows?

@ubg when I am entering the commad " screen python3 bot.py" in raspberry pi3 terminal it shows me " screen is terminating" and nothing goes on ? Tell me what should I do ?

  ·  8 years ago Reveal Comment