Installation

Linux + Docker

1. Install Docker.

2. Pull the image:

   $ sudo docker pull scrapinghub/splash
   

3. Start the container:

   $ sudo docker run -p 8050:8050 -p 5023:5023 scrapinghub/splash
   

4. Splash is now available at 0.0.0.0 at ports 8050 (http) and 5023 (telnet).

OS X + Docker

1. Install Docker for Mac (see https://docs.docker.com/docker-for-mac/).

2. Pull the image:

   $ docker pull scrapinghub/splash
   

3. Start the container:

   $ docker run -p 8050:8050 -p 5023:5023 scrapinghub/splash
   

5. Splash is available at 0.0.0.0 address at ports 8050 (http) and 5023 (telnet).

Ubuntu 16.04 (manual way)

Warning

On desktop machines it is often better to use Docker. Use manual installation with care; at least read the provision.sh script.

1. Clone the repo from GitHub:

   $ git clone https://github.com/scrapinghub/splash/
   

2. Install dependencies:

   $ cd splash/dockerfiles/splash
   $ sudo cp ./qt-installer-noninteractive.qs /tmp/script.qs
   $ sudo ./provision.sh \
              prepare_install \
              install_msfonts \
              install_extra_fonts \
              install_deps \
              install_flash \
              install_qtwebkit_deps \
              install_official_qt \
              install_qtwebkit \
              install_pyqt5 \
              install_python_deps
   

   Change back to the parent directory of splash, i.e. cd ~, then run:

   $ sudo pip3 install splash/
   

To run the server execute the following command:

python3 -m splash.server

Run python3 -m splash.server --help to see options available.

By default, Splash API endpoints listen to port 8050 on all available IPv4 addresses. To change the port use --port option:

python3 -m splash.server --port=5000

Note

Official Docker image uses Ubuntu 16.04; commands above are similar to commands executed in Dockerfile. The main difference is that dangerous provision.sh remove… commands are not executed; they allow to save space in a Docker image, but can break unrelated software on a desktop system.

Required Python packages

# install PyQt5 (Splash is tested on PyQT 5.9)
# and the following packages:
twisted >= 15.5.0, < 16.3.0
qt5reactor
psutil
adblockparser >= 0.5
https://github.com/sunu/pyre2/archive/c610be52c3b5379b257d56fc0669d022fd70082a.zip#egg=re2
xvfbwrapper
Pillow > 2.0

# for scripting support
lupa >= 1.3
funcparserlib >= 0.3.6

Splash Versions

docker pull scrapinghub/splash will give you the latest stable Splash release. To obtain the latest development version use docker pull scrapinghub/splash:master. Specific Splash versions are also available, e.g. docker pull scrapinghub/splash:2.3.3.

Customizing Dockerized Splash

Passing Custom Options

To run Splash with custom options pass them to docker run, after the image name. For example, let’s increase log verbosity:

$ docker run -p 8050:8050 scrapinghub/splash -v3

To see all possible options pass --help. Not all options will work the same inside Docker: changing ports doesn’t make sense (use docker run options instead), and paths are paths in the container.

Folders Sharing

To set custom Request Filters use -v Docker option. First, create a folder with request filters on your local filesystem, then make it available to the container:

$ docker run -p 8050:8050 -v <my-filters-dir>:/etc/splash/filters scrapinghub/splash

Replace <my-filters-dir> with a path of your local folder with request filters.

Docker Data Volume Containers can also be used. Check https://docs.docker.com/userguide/dockervolumes/ for more info.

Proxy Profiles and Javascript Profiles can be added in a similar way:

$ docker run -p 8050:8050 \
      -v <my-proxy-profiles-dir>:/etc/splash/proxy-profiles \
      -v <my-js-profiles-dir>:/etc/splash/js-profiles \
      scrapinghub/splash

To setup Adding Your Own Modules mount a folder to /etc/splash/lua_modules. If you use a Lua sandbox (default) don’t forget to list safe modules using --lua-sandbox-allowed-modules option:

$ docker run -p 8050:8050 \
      -v <my-lua-modules-dir>:/etc/splash/lua_modules \
      scrapinghub/splash \
      --lua-sandbox-allowed-modules 'module1;module2'

Warning

Folder sharing (-v option) may still have issues on OS X and Windows (see https://github.com/docker/docker/issues/4023). If you have problems with volumes, use workarounds mentioned in issue comments or clone Splash repo and customize its Dockerfile.

Building Local Docker Images

To build your own Docker image, checkout Splash source code using git, then execute the following command from Splash source root:

$ docker build -t my-local-splash .

To build Splash-Jupyter Docker image use this command:

$ docker build -t my-local-splash-jupyter -f  dockerfiles/splash-jupyter/Dockerfile .

You may have to change FROM line in dockerfiles/splash-jupyter/Dockerfile if you want it to be based on your local Splash Docker container.