Instaswarm

Instaswarm

Instaswarm is an Instagram content publishing bot cluster, that can be managed from one account. for now application is container based .NET app that has endpoint for Instagram webhook and based on that it uploads reels to multiple accounts.

How does it works at its core

• At its base its just a .NET docker Container that runs an endpoint for Instagram webhook.
• when the request app ignores everything that is not a message from admin user, must have an Reel attachment and must have a needed post count.
• then it goes on the link that attachment is from, downloads it.
• fixes name and recaptions it if available.
• then uploads on each account.

Install

first there list of stuff needed

prerequisite

1. server where this container can live at. could be anything and with help of the Tailscale VPN funneling it is a breeze, also anything that can get app endpoint and a video directory online will work but i will not cover that. i will only cover Linux server.
2. Tailscale VPN is needed for getting endpoint and video directory online and accessible for whole internet.
3. git to clone the repo.
4. docker compose for building and running the container.

Setup

clone this repo with git

git clone https://github.com/demetrebadzaradze/InstaSwarm.git

and also have directory for videos, this must be outside of the project directory like:

mkdir ../videos
sudo chown 1000 ../videos
chmod 777 ../videos

make sure you own the directory and use proper permissions 777 might be overkill but this is what worked for me.

Get Tailscale

1. download it from here and go thru setup process.
2. enable funnel. learn here.
3. and funnel the needed videos directory path

   tailscale funnel --bg "~/videos"
   

   and also the port where app is living (HTTPS port)

   tailscale funnel --https 10000 https+insecure://127.0.0.1:5001
   

Make Facebook/Meta app

1. for this go over to Facebook for developer website and sign up.
2. make and app
   • name it and enter your E-mal.
   • is use case chouse other.
   • app type business.
   • then add product Instagram
   • go over to the API Setup with Instagram login
   • and add an account or accounts that will be posting from App roles -> Roles -> Add people. and sent a invitation as Instagram tester with username (account needs to be converted as creator). then on that account accept invitation from profile -> gear icon -> apps and websites -> tester Invites and accept
   • now generate access token on Instagram -> API Setup with Instagram login page click on generate token on each account and save them for latter. (tip: sometimes it will give error after login if account is recently added so wait for like a hour or two and then retry)
   • also whichever account you will be using as admin account( meaning messaging reels) enable webhooks for that account
   • for the configure webhooks as callback URL enter whatever Tailscale funnel gave you (Link) and add /webhook/instagram at the end.
   • for verify token this is like a password for webhook for verification so enter something save and save that for later too.
   • also here subscribe to messages.
   • and after app is running hit verify and save (at tis point this is not ready).

• also set the App Mode to Live

make .env file

in the cloned repo add .env file and configure it as needed. in the repo there is example .env file and just copy that and replace descriptions with actual things. there is more info about them [[Instaswarm#.ENV guide]]

Running the app

app does comes with compose.yaml file you can either run that after changing the video directory:

docker compose up -d

or run with Dockerfile directly:

• build

  sudo docker build .
  

• run

  sudo docker run --rm --env-file .env -v ~/opt/videos:/app/video -p 5000:8080 -p 5001:8081 --name Instaswarm <last container id from build command>
  

you can of course tweak this.

How does it works on user side

Once app is running and is configured, when you or admin user sends a reel to the admin bot it will get that Reel and then reupload that reel to all accounts it manages.

.ENV guide

in this project environmental variables are most important thin for app to work for other individuals. .env.example is the example file and this is what it contains:

INSTAGRAM_USER_TOKENS=IGJHHTDMHNBVMHY, more...	 
YTDLP_PATH=
VIDEO_DOWNLOAD_PATH=./video
HTTPS_CERT_PASSWORD=pass123
PUBLIC_BASE_URL=https://test.taile6d42d.ts.net/
WEBHOOKK_VERIFY_TOKEN=VERIFY_TOKEN
ADMIN_INSTAGRAM_USER_ID=12456789

1. INSTAGRAM_USER_TOKEN is Instagram users token from meta app dashboard and it is used for fetching data about user and also for uploading on their profile. in the future there will be many like this for clustering like INSTAGRAM_USER_TOKEN_1, INSTAGRAM_USER_TOKEN_2 or INSTAGRAM_USER_TOKEN_ADMIN and such.
2. YTDLP_PATH this is the path where your Yt-dlp tool executable is located at. since container OS is Linux and .exe don’t work once Dockerfile downloads the tool it also makes a link from its binary and exe file in the app directory:

   ln -s /usr/local/bin/yt-dlp /app/yt-dlp.exe
   

   so no need for yt-dlp path if this is not edited and everything is ‘stock’.
3. VIDEO_DOWNLOAD_PATH is a path where the apps will be downloaded in. by default this is set to the ./video folder inside the app directory and is also a volume for Tailscale to host on host machine set this as default too but the Tailscale could be moved into a container in the future. if you need to change the destination path you will also need to edit volumes and folder creation in the Dockerfile.
4. HTTPS_CERT_PASSWORD is a password for your HTTPS Dev certificate creatin that is explained in [[Instaswarm#make your own HTTPS certificate]] without this on Linux HTTPS won’t work and that is required for Instagram webhook to work.
5. PUBLIC_BASE_URL is from Tailscale so when you funnel the app what URL is it accessible on (Eg.https://test.taile6d42d.ts.net/) so a

   HTTPS://{MACHINE_NAME}.{TAILNET_NAME}.ts.ent/
   

   it must have a slash at the end this could be fount in Tailscale admin console. also for testing you could just funnel something and it will output URL like this and end the funnel.
6. WEBHOOKK_VERIFY_TOKEN is a token that is used for verifying the webhook. so once you set it in the .env file it also will be used in meta dashboard.
7. ADMIN_INSTAGRAM_USER_ID is and id of an user where app accepts messages from, at first you can set this to 2123123 or something and then send the message to account and check the webhook in the logs with:

   docker logs <container name>
   

Make your own HTTPS certificate

according to this dotnet can make the https certificate but if you don’t have it run a container that app uses to run like this:

docker run --rm -v "~/opt/certs:/output" mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/sdk:8.0 bash -c "
  dotnet dev-certs https --export-path /output/https-dev.pfx --password '<your strong password>' &&
  chown 1000:1000 /output/https-dev.pfx &&
  chmod 644 /output/https-dev.pfx
"

replace the password and after running this it will make HTTPS certificate in ~/opt/certs directory i thing you can also enter the working directory here too and that will work too. after that move that certificate to the app redirect and enter password in .env file