Installation and Updates

Before installation

Before installation, you must perform the following actions:

1. In the Members Area, check if your IP address is correctly specified (for users with a dynamic IP address, it is required to change the IP address 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, more details about the release of new versions can be found in the News section

A-Parser Beta - intermediate version of A-Parser, which is constantly updated, more details about changes can be found on the forum in the Next Release section

Installation of A-Parser

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

Installation on Windows

After you complete the Before installation stage, you need to download the program archive and extract it to the folder you need (it can be any folder, even on 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/ in your browser

Default password is empty. Just click the Login button, after which the A-Parser web interface will appear

Troubleshooting

Incompatible programs

Compatibility issues are known with the following antiviruses and programs:

• Norton Internet Security - unstable scraper operation is possible
• Emsisoft Anti-Malware - unstable scraper operation is possible
• 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 can block access to files during A-Parser operation. If the scraper does not start or crashes during operation, you must 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 keyboard shortcut Win + R, enter services.msc
2. In the window that opens, select Windows Search, right-click and select Properties
3. In the properties window on the General tab, change the Startup type to Disabled and click Apply
4. If the Stop button is active after this - click it and stop the service

Error while updating distribution

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

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

To solve the problem:

• make sure there are no hung aparser.exe or aparser-node.exe processes 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

Default password is empty. Just 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 a classic installation, follow these instructions

note

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

For convenience of downloading from the server, one-time links are implemented. In the Members Area, you need to click Get one-time link - you can download the distribution once using the received link. In the terminal, go to the installation directory (for example ~/) and execute the following commands using the received 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/ in your browser; you can also access A-Parser using the server's public IP address

Default password is empty. Just click the Login button, after which the A-Parser web interface will appear

caution

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

Troubleshooting

Sometimes some libraries may be missing on the server, 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 issued, this indicates a successful launch of A-Parser. You can verify this with the command tail -f aparser.log

If aparser.log contains such 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 the use of an outdated version of Linux, and in such a case it is recommended to update the OS or use docker or docker-compose

Configuring 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

It is also necessary 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

In the absence of the iptables firewall, an error will be displayed for this command - just ignore it

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

ulimit -n

On some systems, it is additionally required to add the following line to 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 stably with A-Parser

File structure of the installed program

A-Parser working directory structure:

File	Description
config	Directory with configuration files, we recommend making a backup before updating A-Parser
dist	Directory with A-Parser distribution, includes NodeJS and other additional modules
files/proxy	Directory with proxy checker settings
files/parsers	Directory contains source codes of JavaScript scrapers that were created or imported by the user
logs	Task execution logs
queries	Directory with queries for scrapers
results	Scraping results directory
tmp	Temporary directory
.htaccess	Apache web server configuration file to protect the working directory from web access
aparser.exe or aparser	A-Parser executable file
aparser.log	A-Parser operation log, the main way to diagnose the current state and possible errors

config directory structure:

File	Description
tasks	Directory with task files (active and completed)
unique	Directory with deduplication 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

To display file extensions in the Windows operating system, enable the following setting:

Initial setup

When starting to work with A-Parser, it is necessary to pre-configure it for yourself in the Settings -> Global Settings menu

• Password - the default password is set to empty, you can create a new password to log into the system.
• Language - the ability to choose the interface language, news, and tooltips - Russian and English are available.
• Check updates and Updates channel - notifications about the release of new versions of the scraper. The update channel allows you to choose between stable, beta, and alpha versions.

The configuration of other options is described in the General Settings section

Default password

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

Password reset

You can reset the access password to the scraper 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, just click Login

Updating A-Parser

Update via interface

Select the Update Channel in General Settings:

In the Tools menu, go to the Update A-Parser tab:

Select the 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's executable file.

• Stop A-Parser - click Stop server
• Download the archive from the Members Area and overwrite aparser.exe
• Run aparser.exe

Manual update on Linux

• Stop A-Parser - in the console execute killall aparser
• Download the archive from the Members Area and overwrite the aparser file
• Run aparser - in the console execute ./aparser

Update using 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. At the same time, having one license, it is not forbidden to install A-Parser on several computers at once. But in this case, A-Parser can only be launched on the PC/server whose IP is specified in the Members Area

An example of such use could be a work PC and a home laptop: the scraper can be installed on both machines, and used either on the work PC or on the home laptop. The number of IP changes in the Members Area 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 actions.

To run A-Parser simultaneously on multiple computers or servers, perform the following actions:

1. Add Additional licenses
2. In the Members Area, 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 you to install and run simultaneously an unlimited number of copies of A-Parser within one machine. This allows you to maximize the capabilities of powerful systems where one copy does not use all resources and performance needs to be increased.

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

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

bind: 0.0.0.0:9092

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

After that, the scraper can be launched and it 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 canceled without a refund or the possibility of restoration.