Installation and updates

Before Installation

Before installation, you must perform the following steps:

1. In your Personal Account, check that your IP address is correctly specified (for users with a dynamic IP address, the IP address must be changed when switching to a new one)

   

2. Go to the A-Parser -> Downloads tab

3. Before downloading the required version, you should first click Update, to update to the latest version of A-Parser

   

A-Parser Release - stable version of A-Parser, you can read more about new releases in the News

A-Parser Beta - intermediate version of A-Parser, which is constantly being updated, you can read more about the changes on the forum in the Next Release

A-Parser Installation

⏩ A-Parser video: installation, launch, and update

TODO: (next) actualize video

Installation on Windows

After you complete the Before Installation step, you need to download the program archive and decompress it into the desired folder (it can be any folder, even the desktop)

Go to the aparser folder and run aparser.exe

The first launch may take a long time, from 30 seconds to several minutes. After the server window appears, open http://127.0.0.1:9091/

The default password is empty. Simply click the Login, button, after which the A-Parser web interface will appear

Troubleshooting

Incompatible Programs

Known compatibility issues with the following antivirus and programs:

• Norton Internet Security - possible unstable scraper operation
• Emsisoft Anti-Malware - possible unstable scraper operation
• Guard Mail.ru - must be completely removed from the system
• HTTPDebugger - interrupts A-Parser operation 2 hours after launch

Disabling Windows Indexing Service

The indexing service may block file access during A-Parser operation. If the scraper does not start or crashes during operation, you need to check the A-Parser log for the following entries:

IO error: ... Append: cannot write
or
sysopen: Permission denied

To disable the indexing service, follow these steps:

1. Open Service Management: Start - Run or the key combination Win + R, enter services.msc
2. In the opened window, select Windows Search, , right-click and select Properties
3. In the properties window, on the General tab, change Startup type to Disabled and click Apply
4. If the Stop button is active after this, click it to stop the service

Error while updating distribution

In some cases, Windows may block access to the A-Parser distribution files, in which case the aparser.log will contain the following entry:

remove_tree failed for dist\nodejs\node_modules\...

To solve the issue:

• make sure there are no hanging processes of aparser.exe or aparser-node.exe in the task manager
• delete the dist folder in the A-Parser directory, if Windows reports a deletion error - rename the dist folder to dist_

Installation on MacOS

Currently, installation on MacOS is possible using Docker

The default password is empty. Simply click the Login, button, after which the A-Parser web interface will appear

caution

On MacOS with Apple processors, you must enable the following option in Docker Desktop

Installation on Linux

We recommend using docker or docker-compose to install A-Parser on Linux; for classic installation, follow these instructions

note

A-Parser implements its own web server, so choose a directory without web access for installation

For easy downloading from the server, temporary links are implemented. In your Personal Account , you need to click One-time link (in the English version Get one-time link) - , the distribution can be downloaded once using the obtained link. In the terminal, go to the installation directory (for example, ~/) and execute the following commands using the obtained link:

wget https://a-parser.com/members/onetime/ce42f308eaa577b5/aparser-linux-x64.tar.gz
tar zxf aparser-linux-x64.tar.gz
rm -f aparser-linux-x64.tar.gz
cd aparser/
chmod +x aparser
./aparser

The first launch may take a long time, from 30 seconds to several minutes. After the server window appears, open http://127.0.0.1:9091/, , you can also access A-Parser using the public IP address of the server

The default password is empty. Simply click the Login, button, after which the A-Parser web interface will appear

caution

Note that A-Parser is available on all interfaces by default. We recommend setting a strong password and, if necessary, restricting access using iptables

Troubleshooting

Sometimes the server may be missing some libraries, for example:

./aparser
./aparser: error while loading shared libraries: libz.so.1: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

You need to install the missing libraries:

yum -y install zlib

And restart A-Parser:

./aparser

If no messages are displayed, this indicates a successful launch of A-Parser. You can verify this with the command tail -f aparser.log

If aparser.log contains these lines:

./dist/nodejs/bin/aparser-node: /lib64/libc.so.6: version `GLIBC_2.25' not found (required by ./dist/nodejs/bin/aparser-node)
./dist/nodejs/bin/aparser-node: /lib64/libc.so.6: version `GLIBC_2.28' not found (required by ./dist/nodejs/bin/aparser-node)

then this indicates an outdated version of Linux is being used, and in such a case, it is recommended to update the OS or use docker or docker-compose

Tuning Linux for more threads

By default, Linux limits the number of open files and sockets to 1024 per user. To increase the limit, execute the following commands:

echo 'root soft nofile 10240' >> /etc/security/limits.conf
echo 'root hard nofile 10240' >> /etc/security/limits.conf

If you are running the scraper not as root, but as another user, replace root with the username

You also need to increase the size of the ip_conntrack table:

sysctl -w net.ipv4.netfilter.ip_conntrack_max=262144
echo 'net.ipv4.netfilter.ip_conntrack_max=262144' >> /etc/sysctl.conf

If the iptables firewall is not present, this command will output an error - simply ignore it

You need to exit and re-enter the terminal (ssh), and then restart A-Parser. To check the current limit, execute:

ulimit -n

On some systems, an additional configuration is required in the /etc/pam.d/common-session file:

session required pam_limits.so

Installation on FreeBSD

Currently, the Linux emulator for FreeBSD is unable to work reliably with A-Parser

Installed Program File Structure

Structure of the A-Parser working directory:

File	Description
config	Directory with configuration files, we recommend backing up before updating A-Parser
dist	Directory with the A-Parser distribution, includes NodeJS and other auxiliary modules
files/proxy	Directory with proxy checker settings
files/parsers	Directory contains the source codes of JavaScript scrapers that were created or imported by the user
logs	Task execution logs
queries	Directory with requests for scrapers
results	Directory of scraping results
tmp	Temporary directory
.htaccess	Apache web server configuration file for protecting the working directory from web access
aparser.exe or aparser	A-Parser executable file
aparser.log	A-Parser operation log, the main method for diagnosing current status and possible errors

| File | Description |

File	Description
tasks	Directory with task files (running and completed)
unique	Directory with uniqueness files
config.db	Main configuration file where settings and presets are stored
queue.db	File with task queue data
scheduler.db	File with scheduled task data
config.txt	Additional Configuration File

tip

| config | Directory with configuration files, we recommend backing up before updating A-Parser |

Initial Setup

When starting work with A-Parser, you must first configure it to your needs in the Settings -> General Settings menu

• Password - The default password is empty, you can create a new password for logging into the system.
• Language - The ability to select the interface language, news, and tips - Russian and English languages are available.
• Check for updates and Update Channel - notifications about new scraper releases. The Update Channel allows you to choose between stable, beta, and alpha versions.

Configuration of other options is described in the General Settings section

Default Password

The default password is empty. Simply click the Login, button, after which the A-Parser web interface will appear. For password reset, see below.

Password Reset

The password for access to the scraper can be reset by running it from the command line with the -resetpassword option

For Windows:

aparser.exe -resetpassword

For Linux:

./aparser -resetpassword

The password will be reset to empty, to log into A-Parser simply click Login

Updating A-Parser

Update via interface

Select the Update Channel in General Settings:

Go to the Update A-Parser tab in the Tools menu:

Select files to update, A-Parser will be restarted:

caution

Attention! Unless otherwise specified, it is sufficient to update only the executable file (aparser.exe or aparser)

Manual update on Windows

In general, it is sufficient to replace the scraper executable file.

• Stop A-Parser - click Stop server
• Download the archive from your Personal Account and overwrite aparser.exe
• Run aparser.exe

Manual update on Linux

• Stop A-Parser - run killall aparser in the console
• Download the archive from your Personal Account and overwrite the aparser file
• Start aparser - run ./aparser in the console

Update using a one-time link

wget https://a-parser.com/members/onetime/0d19621928c25a48/aparser.tar.gz
kill $(cat files/pid)
sleep 1
tar xzf aparser.tar.gz -O aparser/aparser > aparser
rm -f aparser.tar.gz
chmod +x aparser
./aparser

Installing One License on Multiple Computers

Each license can be used simultaneously on only one PC/server. However, having one license does not prohibit installing A-Parser on multiple computers at once. But in this case, A-Parser can only be launched on the PC/server whose IP is specified in the Personal Account

An example of such use could be a work PC and a home laptop: the scraper can be installed on both machines, but used either on the work PC or on the home laptop. The number of IP changes in the Personal Account is unlimited, but it is not recommended to do this more than 5 times a day, as otherwise, you may be required to confirm the absence of fraudulent activity.

To run A-Parser simultaneously on multiple computers or servers, follow these steps:

1. Add Additional Licenses
2. In the Personal Account, go to the A-Parser -> IP Configuration tab
3. Enter the IP addresses of the additional computers

Installing Multiple Copies on One PC or Server

Each license allows installing and running an unlimited number of copies of A-Parser simultaneously within one machine. This allows maximum utilization of powerful systems where one copy may not use all resources and increased performance is required.

The process for installing multiple copies of the scraper on one system is:

• download and install each copy into a separate directory according to the standard installation instructions
• in each copy of the scraper, create a config.txt file in the config directory and specify a setting like this:

bind: 0.0.0.0:9092

• instead of 9092 , specify the port on which this copy will run

After this, the scraper can be launched and will be available on the specified port

caution

Any methods of shared access, as well as renting out A-Parser, are prohibited and, if detected, the license will be revoked without refund or possibility of recovery.