syncMyMoodle 0.0.1

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

Setup

This software requires Python version >= 3.6.

First obtain the source using git or by downloading the zip. Use the following exemplary commands from the syncMyMoodle directory.

syncMyMoodle requires further dependencies which can be installed using pip or your distro's package manager (apt, dnf, pacman, etc.). The recommended method is to first create and activate a virtual environment. If you are unfamiliar, you can use the following commands (more info):

python3 -m venv .venv
source moodle-venv/bin/activate # bash/zsh

commands for shells other than bash

(taken from here)

Platform	Shell	Command to activate virtual environment
POSIX	bash/zsh	source <venv>/bin/activate
	fish	source <venv>/bin/activate.fish
	csh/tcsh	source <venv>/bin/activate.csh
	PowerShell Core	<venv>/bin/Activate.ps1
Windows	cmd.exe	<venv>\Scripts\activate.bat
	PowerShell	<venv>\Scripts\Activate.ps1

Then install the requirements using pip:

pip3 install -r requirements.txt

It is recommended to also install and use the optional FreeDesktop.org Secret Service integration to store your password securely if your system supports it - if you're on Linux, it probably does!

Copy config.json.example to config.json and adjust the settings:

{
    "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
}

And your courses will be synced into the basedir you specified (default is the current directory). Your cookies will be stored in a session file.

CLI usage

Run

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

You can override the fields in the config file by using command line arguments:

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

FreeDesktop.org Secret Service integration

If you have a FreeDesktop.org Secret Service integration compatible keyring installed, you can save your RWTH SSO credentials in it. You need to have the python package secretstorage installed:

pip3 install secretstorage

After you removed your password from the config file (delete the whole line in config.json), you will be prompted for your password when syncing for the first time. In subsequent runs, the credentials will be obtained automatically.