Remark42: Self-Hosted, Lightweight Comment Engine

remark42

Remark42 is a self-hosted, lightweight, and simple (yet functional) comment engine, which doesn't spy on users. It can be embedded into blogs, articles or any other place where readers add comments.

• Social login via Google, Twitter, Facebook, Microsoft, GitHub and Yandex
• Login via email
• Optional anonymous access
• Multi-level nested comments with both tree and plain presentations
• Import from Disqus and WordPress
• Markdown support with friendly formatter toolbar
• Moderator can remove comments and block users
• Voting, pinning and verification system
• Sortable comments
• Images upload with drag-and-drop
• Extractor for recent comments, cross-post
• RSS for all comments and each post
• Telegram and email notifications
• Export data to json with automatic backups
• No external databases, everything embedded in a single data file
• Fully dockerized and can be deployed in a single command
• Self-contained executable can be deployed directly to Linux, Windows and MacOS
• Clean, lightweight and customizable UI with white and dark themes
• Multi-site mode from a single instance
• Integration with automatic ssl (direct and via nginx-le )

Demo site available with all authentication methods, including email auth and anonymous access.

Install

Backend

With Docker

this is the recommended way to run remark42

• copy provided docker-compose.yml and customize for your needs
• make sure you don't keep ADMIN_PASSWD=something... for any non-development deployments
• pull prepared images from the DockerHub and start - docker-compose pull && docker-compose up -d
• alternatively compile from the sources - docker-compose build && docker-compose up -d

Without Docker

• download archive for stable release or development version
• unpack with gunzip (Linux, macOS) or with zip (Windows)
• run as remark42.{os}-{arch} server {parameters...} , i.e. remark42.linux-amd64 server --secret=12345 --url=http://127.0.0.1:8080
• alternatively compile from the sources - make OS=[linux|darwin|windows] ARCH=[amd64,386,arm64,arm]

Parameters

• command line parameters are long form --<key>=value , i.e. --site=https://demo.remark42.com
• multi parameters separated by , in the environment or repeated with command line key, like --site=s1 --site=s2 ...
• required parameters have to be presented in the environment or provided in command line

Deprecated

Following list of command-line options is deprecated and will be removed in 2 minor releases or 1 major release (whichever is closer) from the version in which they were deprecated. After remark42 version update, please check startup log once for deprecation warnings to avoid trouble with unrecognized command-line options in the future.

Required parameters

Most of the parameters have sane defaults and don't require customization. There are only a few parameters user has to define:

1. SECRET - secret key, can be any long and hard-to-guess string.
2. REMARK_URL - url pointing to your remark42 server, i.e. https://demo.remark42.com
3. At least one pair of AUTH_<PROVIDER>_CID and AUTH_<PROVIDER>_CSEC defining oauth2 provider(s)

The minimal docker-compose.yml has to include all required parameters:

version: '2'

services:
    remark42:
        image: umputun/remark42:latest
        restart: always
        container_name: "remark42"
        environment:
            - REMARK_URL=https://demo.remark42.com  # url pointing to your remark42 server
            - SITE=YOUR_SITE_ID                     # site ID, same as used for `site_id`, see "Setup on your website"
            - SECRET=abcd-123456-xyz-$%^&           # secret key
            - AUTH_GITHUB_CID=12345667890           # oauth2 client ID
            - AUTH_GITHUB_CSEC=abcdefg12345678      # oauth2 client secret
        volumes:
            - ./var:/srv/var                        # persistent volume to store all remark42 data

Quick installation test

To verify if remark has been properly installed, check a demo page at ${REMARK_URL}/web URL. Make sure to include remark site id to ${SITE} list.

Register oauth2 providers

Authentication handled by external providers. You should setup oauth2 for all (or some) of them to allow users to make comments. It is not mandatory to have all of them, but at least one should be correctly configured.

Google Auth Provider

1. Create a new project: https://console.developers.google.com/project
2. Choose the new project from the top right project dropdown (only if another project is selected)
3. In the project Dashboard center pane, choose "API Manager"
4. In the left Nav pane, choose "Credentials"
5. In the center pane, choose "OAuth consent screen" tab. Fill in "Product name shown to users" and hit save.
6. In the center pane, choose "Credentials" tab.
   • Open the "New credentials" drop down
   • Choose "OAuth client ID"
   • Choose "Web application"
   • Application name is freeform, choose something appropriate
   • Authorized origins is your domain ex: https://remark42.mysite.com
   • Authorized redirect URIs is the location of oauth2/callback constructed as domain + /auth/google/callback , ex: https://remark42.mysite.com/auth/google/callback
   • Choose "Create"
7. Take note of the Client ID and Client Secret

instructions for google oauth2 setup borrowed from oauth2_proxy

GitHub Auth Provider

1. Create a new "OAuth App" : https://github.com/settings/developers
2. Fill "Application Name" and "Homepage URL" for your site
3. Under "Authorization callback URL" enter the correct url constructed as domain + /auth/github/callback . ie https://remark42.mysite.com/auth/github/callback
4. Take note of the Client ID and Client Secret

Facebook Auth Provider

1. From https://developers.facebook.com select "My Apps" / "Add a new App"
2. Set "Display Name" and "Contact email"
3. Choose "Facebook Login" and then "Web"
4. Set "Site URL" to your domain, ex: https://remark42.mysite.com
5. Under "Facebook login" / "Settings" fill "Valid OAuth redirect URIs" with your callback url constructed as domain + /auth/facebook/callback
6. Select "App Review" and turn public flag on. This step may ask you to provide a link to your privacy policy.

Microsoft Auth Provider

1. Register a new application using the Azure portal .
2. Under "Authentication/Platform configurations/Web" enter the correct url constructed as domain + /auth/microsoft/callback . i.e. https://example.mysite.com/auth/microsoft/callback
3. In "Overview" take note of the Application (client) ID
4. Choose the new project from the top right project dropdown (only if another project is selected)
5. Select "Certificates & secrets" and click on "+ New Client Secret".

Twitter Auth Provider

1. Create a new twitter application https://developer.twitter.com/en/apps
2. Fill App name , Description and URL of your site
3. In the field Callback URLs enter the correct url of your callback handler e.g. domain + /auth/twitter/callback
4. Under Key and tokens take note of the Consumer API Key and Consumer API Secret key . Those will be used as AUTH_TWITTER_CID and AUTH_TWITTER_CSEC

Yandex Auth Provider

1. Create a new "OAuth App" : https://oauth.yandex.com/client/new
2. Fill "App name" for your site
3. Under Platforms select "Web services" and enter "Callback URI #1" constructed as domain + /auth/yandex/callback . ie https://remark42.mysite.com/auth/yandex/callback
4. Select Permissions . You need following permissions only from the "Yandex.Passport API" section:
   • Access to user avatar
   • Access to username, first name and surname, gender
5. Fill out the rest of fields if needed
6. Take note of the ID and Password

For more details refer to Yandex OAuth and Yandex.Passport API documentation.

Anonymous Auth Provider

Optionally, anonymous access can be turned on. In this case an extra anonymous provider will allow logins without any social login with any name satisfying 2 conditions:

• name should be at least 3 characters long
• name has to start from the letter and contains letters, numbers, underscores and spaces only.

Importing comments

Remark supports importing comments from Disqus, WordPress or native backup format. All imported comments has Imported field set to true .

Initial import from Disqus

1. Disqus provides an export of all comments on your site in a g-zipped file. This is found in your Moderation panel at Disqus Admin > Setup > Export. The export will be sent into a queue and then emailed to the address associated with your account once it's ready. Direct link to export will be something like https://<siteud>.disqus.com/admin/discussions/export/ . See importing-exporting for more details.
2. Move this file to your remark42 host within ./var and unzip, i.e. gunzip <disqus-export-name>.xml.gz .
3. Run import command - docker exec -it remark42 import -p disqus -f {disqus-export-name}.xml -s {your site id}

Initial import from WordPress

1. Install WordPress plugin to export comments and follow it instructions. The plugin should produce a xml-based file with site content including comments.
2. Move this file to your remark42 host within ./var
3. Run import command - docker exec -it remark42 import -p wordpress -f {wordpress-export-name}.xml -s {your site id}

Backup and restore

Automatic backups

Remark42 by default makes daily backup files under ${BACKUP_PATH} (default ./var/backup ). Backups kept up to ${MAX_BACKUP_FILES} (default 10). Each backup file contains exported and gzipped content, i.e., all comments. At any point, the user can restore such backup and revert all comments to the desirable state. Note: restore procedure cleans the current data store and replaces all comments with comments from the backup file.

For safety and security reasons restore functionality not exposed outside of your server by default. The recommended way to restore from the backup is to use provided scripts/restore-backup.sh . It can run inside the container:

docker exec -it remark42 restore -f {backup-filename.gz} -s {your site id}

Manual backup

In addition to automatic backups user can make a backup manually. This command makes userbackup-{site id}-{timestamp}.gz by default.

docker exec -it remark42 backup -s {your site id}

Restore from backup

Restore will clean all comments first and then will processed with complete import from a given file.

docker exec -it remark42 restore -f {backup file name} -s {your site id}

Backup format

Backup file is a text file with all exported comments separated by EOL. Each backup record is a valid json with all key/value unmarshaled from Comment struct (see below).

Admin users

Admins/moderators should be defined in docker-compose.yml as a list of user IDs or passed in the command line.

environment:
        - ADMIN_SHARED_ID=github_ef0f706a79cc24b17bbbb374cd234a691a034128,github_dae9983158e9e5e127ef2b87a411ef13c891e9e5

To get user id just login and click on your username or any other user you want to promote to admins. It will expand login info and show full user ID.

Docker parameters

Two parameters allow customizing Docker container on the system level:

APP_UID
TIME_ZONE

see umputun/baseimage for more details

example of docker-compose.yml :

version: '2'

services:
    remark42:
        image: umputun/remark42:latest
        restart: always
        container_name: "remark42"
        environment:
            - APP_UID=2000                          # runs remark42 app with non-default UID
            - TIME_ZONE=GTC                         # sets container time to UTC

            - REMARK_URL=https://demo.remark42.com  # url pointing to your remark42 server
            - SITE=YOUR_SITE_ID                     # site ID, same as used for `site_id`, see "Setup on your website"
            - SECRET=abcd-123456-xyz-$%^&           # secret key
            - AUTH_GITHUB_CID=12345667890           # oauth2 client ID
            - AUTH_GITHUB_CSEC=abcdefg12345678      # oauth2 client secret
        volumes:
            - ./var:/srv/var                        # persistent volume to store all remark42 data

Setup on your website

Comments

It's a main widget which renders list of comments.

Add this snippet to the bottom of web page:

<script>
  var remark_config = {
    host: "REMARK_URL", // hostname of remark server, same as REMARK_URL in backend config, e.g. "https://demo.remark42.com"
    site_id: 'YOUR_SITE_ID',
    components: ['embed'], // optional param; which components to load. default to ["embed"]
                           // to load all components define components as ['embed', 'last-comments', 'counter']
                           // available component are:
                           //     - 'embed': basic comments widget
                           //     - 'last-comments': last comments widget, see `Last Comments` section below
                           //     - 'counter': counter widget, see `Counter` section below
    url: 'PAGE_URL', // optional param; if it isn't defined
                     // `window.location.origin + window.location.pathname` will be used,
                     //
                     // Note that if you use query parameters as significant part of url
                     // (the one that actually changes content on page)
                     // you will have to configure url manually to keep query params, as
                     // `window.location.origin + window.location.pathname` doesn't contain query params and
                     // hash. For example default url for `https://example/com/example-post?id=1#hash`
                     // would be `https://example/com/example-post`.
                     //
                     // The problem with query params is that they often contain useless params added by
                     // various trackers (utm params) and doesn't have defined order, so Remark treats differently
                     // all this examples:
                     // https://example.com/?postid=1&date=2007-02-11
                     // https://example.com/?date=2007-02-11&postid=1
                     // https://example.com/?date=2007-02-11&postid=1&utm_source=google
                     //
                     // If you deal with query parameters make sure you pass only significant part of it
                     // in well defined order
    max_shown_comments: 10, // optional param; if it isn't defined default value (15) will be used
    theme: 'dark', // optional param; if it isn't defined default value ('light') will be used
    page_title: 'Moving to Remark42', // optional param; if it isn't defined `document.title` will be used
    locale: 'en' // set up locale and language, if it isn't defined default value ('en') will be used
  };

  (function(c) {
    for(var i = 0; i < c.length; i++){
      var d = document, s = d.createElement('script');
      s.src = remark_config.host + '/web/' +c[i] +'.js';
      s.defer = true;
      (d.head || d.body).appendChild(s);
    }
  })(remark_config.components || ['embed']);
</script>

And then add this node in the place where you want to see Remark42 widget:

<div id="remark42"></div>

After that widget will be rendered inside this node.

Themes

Right now Remark has two themes: light and dark. You can pick one using configuration object, but there is also a possibility to switch between themes in runtime. For this purpose Remark adds to window object named REMARK42 , which contains function changeTheme . Just call this function and pass a name of the theme that you want to turn on:

window.REMARK42.changeTheme('light');

Locales

Right now Remark is translated to en, ru (partially), de, and fi languages. You can pick one using.

Do you want translate remark42 to other locale? Please see this documentation for details.

Last comments

It's a widget which renders list of last comments from your site.

Add this snippet to the bottom of web page, or adjust already present remark_config to have last-comments in components list:

<script>
  var remark_config = {
    host: "REMARK_URL", // hostname of remark server, same as REMARK_URL in backend config, e.g. "https://demo.remark42.com"
    site_id: 'YOUR_SITE_ID',
    components: ['last-comments']
  };

  (function(c) {
    for(var i = 0; i < c.length; i++){
      var d = document, s = d.createElement('script');
      s.src = remark_config.host + '/web/' +c[i] +'.js';
      s.defer = true;
      (d.head || d.body).appendChild(s);
    }
  })(remark_config.components || ['embed']);
</script>

And then add this node in the place where you want to see last comments widget:

<div data-max="50"></div>

data-max sets the max amount of comments (default: 15 ).

Counter

It's a widget which renders a number of comments for the specified page.

Add this snippet to the bottom of web page, or adjust already present remark_config to have counter in components list:

<script>
  var remark_config = {
    host: "REMARK_URL", // hostname of remark server, same as REMARK_URL in backend config, e.g. "https://demo.remark42.com"
    site_id: 'YOUR_SITE_ID',
    components: ['counter']
  };

  (function(c) {
    for(var i = 0; i < c.length; i++){
      var d = document, s = d.createElement('script');
      s.src = remark_config.host + '/web/' +c[i] +'.js';
      s.defer = true;
      (d.head || d.body).appendChild(s);
    }
  })(remark_config.components || ['embed']);
</script>

And then add a node like this in the place where you want to see a number of comments:

<span data-url="https://domain.com/path/to/article/"></span>

You can use as many nodes like this as you need to. The script will found all them by the class remark__counter , and it will use data-url attribute to define the page with comments.

Also script can use url property from remark_config object, or window.location.origin + window.location.pathname if nothing else is defined.

Build from the source

• to build Docker container - make docker . This command will produce container umputun/remark42 .
• to build a single binary for direct execution - make OS=<linux|windows|darwin> ARCH=<amd64|386> . This step will produce executable remark42 file with everything embedded.

Development

You can use fully functional local version to develop and test both frontend & backend. It requires at least 2GB RAM or swap enabled

To bring it up run:

# if you mainly work on backend
docker-compose -f compose-dev-backend.yml build
docker-compose -f compose-dev-backend.yml up
# if you mainly work on frontend
docker-compose -f compose-dev-frontend.yml build
docker-compose -f compose-dev-frontend.yml up

It starts Remark42 on 127.0.0.1:8080 and adds local OAuth2 provider “Dev”. To access UI demo page go to 127.0.0.1:8080/web . By default, you would be logged in as dev_user which defined as admin. You can tweak any ofin corresponded yml file.

Backend Docker Compose config by default skips running frontend related tests. Frontend Docker Compose config by default skips running backend related tests and sets NODE_ENV=development for frontend build.

Backend development

In order to run backend locally (development mode, without Docker) you have to have the latest stable go toolchain installed .

To run backend - cd backend; go run app/main.go server --dbg --secret=12345 --url=http://127.0.0.1:8080 --admin-passwd=password --site=remark It stars backend service with embedded bolt store on port 8080 with basic auth, allowing to authenticate and run requests directly, like this: HTTP http://admin:password@127.0.0.1:8080/api/v1/find?site=remark&sort=-active&format=tree&url=http://127.0.0.1:8080

Frontend development

Developer guide

Frontend guide can be found here: ./frontend/Readme.md

Build

You should have at least 2GB RAM or swap enabled for building

• install Node.js 12.11 or higher;
• install NPM 6.13.4 ;
• run npm install inside ./frontend ;
• run npm run build there;
• result files will be saved in ./frontend/public .

NoteRunning npm install will set up precommit hooks into your git repository. It used to reformat your frontend code using prettier and lint with eslint and stylelint before every commit.

Devserver

For local development mode with Hot Reloading use npm start instead of npm run build . In this case webpack will serve files using webpack-dev-server on localhost:9000 . By visiting 127.0.0.1:9000/web you will get a page with main comments widget communicating with demo server backend running on https://demo.remark42.com . But you will not be able to login with any oauth providers due to security reasons.

You can attach to locally running backend by providing REMARK_URL environment variable.

npx cross-env REMARK_URL=http://127.0.0.1:8080 npm start

The best way for start local developer enviroment:

cp compose-dev-frontend.yml compose-private-frontend.yml
docker-compose -f compose-private-frontend.yml up --build
cd frontend
npm run dev

Developer build running by webpack-dev-server supports devtools for React and Redux .

API

Authorization

• GET /auth/{provider}/login?from=http://url&site=site_id&session=1 - perform "social" login with one of supported providers and redirect to url . Presence of session (any non-zero value) change the default cookie expiration and makes them session-only.
• GET /auth/logout - logout

type User struct {
    Name    string `json:"name"`
    ID      string `json:"id"`
    Picture string `json:"picture"`
    Admin   bool   `json:"admin"`
    Blocked bool   `json:"block"`
    Verified bool  `json:"verified"`
}

currently supported providers are google , facebook , github and yandex

Commenting

• POST /api/v1/comment - add a comment. auth required

type Comment struct {
    ID        string          `json:"id"`      // comment ID, read only
    ParentID  string          `json:"pid"`     // parent ID
    Text      string          `json:"text"`    // comment text, after md processing
    Orig      string          `json:"orig"`    // original comment text
    User      User            `json:"user"`    // user info, read only
    Locator   Locator         `json:"locator"` // post locator
    Score     int             `json:"score"`   // comment score, read only
    Vote      int             `json:"vote"`    // vote for the current user, -1/1/0.
    Controversy float64       `json:"controversy,omitempty"` // comment controversy, read only
    Timestamp time.Time       `json:"time"`    // time stamp, read only
    Edit      *Edit           `json:"edit,omitempty" bson:"edit,omitempty"` // pointer to have empty default in json response
    Pin       bool            `json:"pin"`     // pinned status, read only
    Delete    bool            `json:"delete"`  // delete status, read only
    PostTitle string          `json:"title"`   // post title
}

type Locator struct {
    SiteID string `json:"site"`     // site id
    URL    string `json:"url"`      // post url
}

type Edit struct {
  Timestamp time.Time `json:"time" bson:"time"`
  Summary   string    `json:"summary"`
}

• POST /api/v1/preview - preview comment in html. Body is Comment to render

• GET /api/v1/find?site=site-id&url=post-url&sort=fld&format=tree|plain - find all comments for given post

This is the primary call used by UI to show comments for given post. It can return comments in two formats - plain and tree . In plain format result will be sorted list of Comment . In tree format this is going to be tree-like object with this structure:

type Tree struct {
    Nodes []Node `json:"comments"`
    Info  store.PostInfo `json:"info,omitempty"`
}

type Node struct {
    Comment store.Comment `json:"comment"`
    Replies []Node        `json:"replies,omitempty"`
}

Sort can be time , active or score . Supported sort order with prefix -/+, i.e. -time . For tree mode sort will be applied to top-level comments only and all replies always sorted by time.

• PUT /api/v1/comment/{id}?site=site-id&url=post-url - edit comment, allowed once in EDIT_TIME minutes since creation. Body is EditRequest json

type EditRequest struct {
     Text    string `json:"text"`    // updated text
     Summary string `json:"summary"` // optional, summary of the edit
     Delete  bool   `json:"delete"`  // delete flag
   }{}

• GET /api/v1/last/{max}?site=site-id&since=ts-msec - get up to {max} last comments, since (epoch time, milliseconds) is optional

• GET /api/v1/id/{id}?site=site-id - get comment by comment id

• GET /api/v1/comments?site=site-id&user=id&limit=N - get comment by user id , returns response object

  type response struct {
      Comments []store.Comment  `json:"comments"`
      Count    int              `json:"count"`
  }{}

• GET /api/v1/count?site=site-id&url=post-url - get comment's count for {url}

• POST /api/v1/count?site=siteID - get number of comments for posts from post body (list of post IDs)

• GET /api/v1/list?site=site-id&limit=5&skip=2 - list commented posts, returns array or PostInfo , limit=0 will return all posts

  type PostInfo struct {
      URL   string      `json:"url"`
      Count int         `json:"count"`
      ReadOnly bool     `json:"read_only,omitempty"`
      FirstTS time.Time `json:"first_time,omitempty"`
      LastTS  time.Time `json:"last_time,omitempty"`
  }

• GET /api/v1/user - get user info, auth required

• PUT /api/v1/vote/{id}?site=site-id&url=post-url&vote=1 - vote for comment. vote =1 will increase score, -1 decrease. auth required

• GET /api/v1/userdata?site=site-id - export all user data to gz stream auth required

• POST /api/v1/deleteme?site=site-id - request deletion of user data. auth required

• GET /api/v1/config?site=site-id - returns configuration (parameters) for given site

  type Config struct {
        Version        string   `json:"version"`
        EditDuration   int      `json:"edit_duration"`
        MaxCommentSize int      `json:"max_comment_size"`
        Admins         []string `json:"admins"`
        AdminEmail     string   `json:"admin_email"`
        Auth           []string `json:"auth_providers"`
        LowScore       int      `json:"low_score"`
        CriticalScore  int      `json:"critical_score"`
        PositiveScore  bool     `json:"positive_score"`
        ReadOnlyAge    int      `json:"readonly_age"`
        MaxImageSize   int      `json:"max_image_size"`
        EmojiEnabled   bool     `json:"emoji_enabled"`
  }

• GET /api/v1/info?site=site-idd&url=post-url - returns PostInfo for site and url

Streaming API

Streaming API provide server-sent events for post updates as well as site update

• GET /api/v1/stream/info?site=site-idd&url=post-url&since=unix_ts_msec - returns stream ( event: info ) with PostInfo records for the site and url. since is optional
• GET /api/v1/stream/last?site=site-id&since=unix_ts_msec - returns updates stream ( event: last ) with comments for the site, since is optional

data: {"url":"https://radio-t.com/blah1","count":2,"first_time":"2019-06-18T12:53:48.125686-05:00","last_time":"2019-06-18T12:53:48.142872-05:00"}

event: info
data: {"url":"https://radio-t.com/blah1","count":3,"first_time":"2019-06-18T12:53:48.125686-05:00","last_time":"2019-06-18T12:53:48.157709-05:00"}

event: info
data: {"url":"https://radio-t.com/blah1","count":4,"first_time":"2019-06-18T12:53:48.125686-05:00","last_time":"2019-06-18T12:53:48.172991-05:00"}

event: info
data: {"url":"https://radio-t.com/blah1","count":5,"first_time":"2019-06-18T12:53:48.125686-05:00","last_time":"2019-06-18T12:53:48.188429-05:00"}

event: info
data: {"url":"https://radio-t.com/blah1","count":6,"first_time":"2019-06-18T12:53:48.125686-05:00","last_time":"2019-06-18T12:53:48.204742-05:00"}

event: info
data: {"url":"https://radio-t.com/blah1","count":7,"first_time":"2019-06-18T12:53:48.125686-05:00","last_time":"2019-06-18T12:53:48.220692-05:00"}

event: info
data: {"url":"https://radio-t.com/blah1","count":8,"first_time":"2019-06-18T12:53:48.125686-05:00","last_time":"2019-06-18T12:53:48.23817-05:00"}

event: info
data: {"url":"https://radio-t.com/blah1","count":9,"first_time":"2019-06-18T12:53:48.125686-05:00","last_time":"2019-06-18T12:53:48.254669-05:00"}

RSS feeds

GET /api/v1/rss/post?site=site-id&url=post-url
GET /api/v1/rss/site?site=site-id
GET /api/v1/rss/reply?site=site-id&user=user-id

Images management

• GET /api/v1/picture/{user}/{id} - load stored image
• POST /api/v1/picture - upload and store image, uses post form with FormFile("file") . returns {"id": user/imgid} auth required

returned id should be appended to load image url on caller side

Email subscription

• GET /api/v1/email?site=site-id - get user's email, auth required

• POST /api/v1/email/subscribe?site=site-id&address=user@example.org - makes confirmation token and sends it to user over email, auth required

  Trying to subscribe same email second time will return response code 409 Conflict and explaining error message.

• POST /api/v1/email/confirm?site=site-id&tkn=token - uses provided token parameter to set email for the user, auth required

  Setting email subscribe user for all first-level replies to his messages.

• DELETE /api/v1/email?site=siteID - removes user's email, auth required

Admin

• DELETE /api/v1/admin/comment/{id}?site=site-id&url=post-url - delete comment by id .
• PUT /api/v1/admin/user/{userid}?site=site-id&block=1&ttl=7d - block or unblock user with optional ttl (default=permanent)
• GET api/v1/admin/blocked&site=site-id - list of blocked user ids

  type BlockedUser struct {
      ID        string    `json:"id"`
      Name      string    `json:"name"`
      Until     time.Time `json:"time"`
  }

• GET /api/v1/admin/export?site=site-id&mode=[stream|file] - export all comments to json stream or gz file.
• POST /api/v1/admin/import?site=site-id - import comments from the backup, uses post body.
• POST /api/v1/admin/import/form?site=site-id - import comments from the backup, user post form.
• POST /api/v1/admin/remap?site=site-id - remap comments to different URLs. Expect list of "from-url new-url" pairs separated by \n. From-url and new-url parts separated by space. If urls end with asterisk (*) it means matching by prefix. Remap procedure based on export/import chain so make backup first.

  http://oldsite.com* https://newsite.com*
  http://oldsite.com/from-old-page/1 https://newsite.com/to-new-page/1

• GET /api/v1/admin/wait?site=site-id - wait for completion for any async migration ops (import or remap).
• PUT /api/v1/admin/pin/{id}?site=site-id&url=post-url&pin=1 - pin or unpin comment.
• GET /api/v1/admin/user/{userid}?site=site-id - get user's info.
• DELETE /api/v1/admin/user/{userid}?site=site-id - delete all user's comments.
• PUT /api/v1/admin/readonly?site=site-id&url=post-url&ro=1 - set read-only status
• PUT /api/v1/admin/verify/{userid}?site=site-id&verified=1 - set verified status
• GET /api/v1/admin/deleteme?token=token - process deleteme user's request

all admin calls require auth and admin privilege

Privacy

• Remark42 is trying to be very sensitive to any private or semi-private information.
• Authentication requesting the minimal possible scope from authentication providers. All extra information returned by them dropped immediately and not stored in any form.
• Generally, remark42 keeps user id, username and avatar link only. None of these fields exposed directly - id and name hashed, avatar proxied.
• There is no tracking of any sort.
• Login mechanic uses JWT stored in a cookie (httpOnly, secured). The second cookie (XSRF_TOKEN) is a random id preventing CSRF.
• There is no cross-site login, i.e., user's behavior can't be analyzed across independent sites running remark42.
• There are no third-party analytic services involved.
• User can request all information remark42 knows about and export to gz file.
• Supported complete cleanup of all information related to user's activity.
• Cookie lifespan can be restricted to session-only.
• All potentially sensitive data stored by remark42 hashed and encrypted.

Technical details

• Data stored in boltdb (embedded key/value database) files under STORE_BOLT_PATH
• Each site stored in a separate boltbd file.
• In order to migrate/move remark42 to another host boltbd files as well as avatars directory AVATAR_FS_PATH should be transferred. Optionally, boltdb can be used to store avatars as well.
• Automatic backup process runs every 24h and exports all content in json-like format to backup-remark-YYYYMMDD.gz .
• Authentication implemented with go-pkgz/auth stored in a cookie. It uses HttpOnly, secure cookies.
• All heavy REST calls cached internally in LRU cache limited by CACHE_MAX_ITEMS and CACHE_MAX_SIZE with go-pkgz/rest
• User's activity throttled globally (up to 1000 simultaneous requests) and limited locally (per user, usually up to 10 req/sec)
• Request timeout set to 60sec
• Admin authentication ( --admin-password set) allows to hit remark42 API without social login and with admin privileges. Adds basic-auth for username: admin , password: ${ADMIN_PASSWD} .
• User can vote for the comment multiple times but only to change the vote. Double-voting not allowed.
• User can edit comments in 5 mins (configurable) window after creation.
• User ID hashed and prefixed by oauth provider name to avoid collisions and potential abuse.
• All avatars resized and cached locally to prevent rate limiters from oauth providers, part of go-pkgz/auth functionality.
• Images can be proxied ( IMAGE_PROXY_HTTP2HTTPS=true ) to prevent mixed http/https.
• All images can be proxied and saved ( IMAGE_PROXY_CACHE_EXTERNAL=true ) instead of serving from original location. Beware, images which are posted with this parameter enabled will be served from proxy even after it will be disabled.
• Docker build uses publicly available base images.