feat(others): optional BORINGPOLL_GLUETUNCOM to fight AI slop scammy gluetun[dot]com

.github/workflows/closed-issue.yml

@@ -18,5 +18,8 @@ jobs:
             If you think this is *still unresolved* and have **more information** to bring, please either
             re-open this issue or create another issue.
 
+            ❤️😠 temporarily help the Gluetun community and fight the AI slop scam website `gluetun[dot]com` by setting `BORINGPOLL_GLUETUNCOM=on` on the latest image.
+            See [the option in the wiki for more information](https://github.com/qdm12/gluetun-wiki/blob/main/setup/options/others.md)
+
             This is an automated comment setup because @qdm12 is the sole maintainer of this project
             which became too popular to monitor closed issues.

Dockerfile

@@ -231,6 +231,7 @@ ENV VPN_SERVICE_PROVIDER=pia \
     PPROF_HTTP_SERVER_ADDRESS=":6060" \
     # Extras
     VERSION_INFORMATION=on \
+    BORINGPOLL_GLUETUNCOM=off \
     TZ= \
     PUID=1000 \
     PGID=1000

README.md

@@ -2,6 +2,8 @@
 
 ⚠️ This and [gluetun-wiki](https://github.com/qdm12/gluetun-wiki) are the only websites for Gluetun, other websites claiming to be official are scams ⚠️
 
+💁 You can optionally set `BORINGPOLL_GLUETUNCOM=on` to... [poll](./internal/boringpoll/boringpoll.go) that **scammy AI slop** website every few minutes so it costs them too much to keep it up. My gentle email reminders to take it down are being grossly ignored 🤷 This would make me very happy and serve this community.
+
 Lightweight swiss-army-knife-like VPN client to multiple VPN service providers
 
 ![Title image](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/qdm12/gluetun/master/title.svg)

cmd/gluetun/main.go

@@ -17,6 +17,7 @@ import (
 
 	_ "github.com/breml/rootcerts"
 	"github.com/qdm12/gluetun/internal/alpine"
+	"github.com/qdm12/gluetun/internal/boringpoll"
 	"github.com/qdm12/gluetun/internal/cli"
 	"github.com/qdm12/gluetun/internal/command"
 	"github.com/qdm12/gluetun/internal/configuration/settings"
@@ -168,7 +169,7 @@ func _main(ctx context.Context, buildInfo models.BuildInformation,
 
 	defer fmt.Println(gluetunLogo)
 
-	announcementExp, err := time.Parse(time.RFC3339, "2026-04-01T00:00:00Z")
+	announcementExp, err := time.Parse(time.RFC3339, "2026-04-30T00:00:00Z")
 	if err != nil {
 		return err
 	}
@@ -179,7 +180,7 @@ func _main(ctx context.Context, buildInfo models.BuildInformation,
 		Version:      buildInfo.Version,
 		Commit:       buildInfo.Commit,
 		Created:      buildInfo.Created,
-		Announcement: "All control server routes are now private by default",
+		Announcement: "Set BORINGPOLL_GLUETUNCOM=on to help combat AI slop and shutdown that scam website",
 		AnnounceExp:  announcementExp,
 		// Sponsor information
 		PaypalUser:    "qmcgaw",
@@ -441,11 +442,14 @@ func _main(ctx context.Context, buildInfo models.BuildInformation,
 		httpClient, unzipper, parallelResolver, publicIPLooper.Fetcher(),
 		openvpnFileExtractor, allSettings.Updater)
 
+	boringPollLogger := logger.New(log.SetComponent("boring poll"))
+	boringPoll := boringpoll.New(httpClient, boringPollLogger, allSettings.BoringPoll)
+
 	vpnLogger := logger.New(log.SetComponent("vpn"))
 	vpnLooper := vpn.NewLoop(allSettings.VPN, ipv6Supported, allSettings.Firewall.VPNInputPorts,
-		providers, storage, allSettings.Health, healthChecker, healthcheckServer, ovpnConf, netLinker, firewallConf,
+		providers, storage, boringPoll, allSettings.Health, healthChecker, healthcheckServer,
-		routingConf, portForwardLooper, cmder, publicIPLooper, dnsLooper, vpnLogger, httpClient,
+		ovpnConf, netLinker, firewallConf, routingConf, portForwardLooper, cmder, publicIPLooper,
-		buildInfo, *allSettings.Version.Enabled)
+		dnsLooper, vpnLogger, httpClient, buildInfo, *allSettings.Version.Enabled)
 	vpnHandler, vpnCtx, vpnDone := goshutdown.NewGoRoutineHandler(
 		"vpn", goroutine.OptionTimeout(time.Second))
 	go vpnLooper.Run(vpnCtx, vpnDone)

internal/boringpoll/boringpoll.go

@@ -0,0 +1,188 @@
+package boringpoll
+
+import (
+	"context"
+	"fmt"
+	"io"
+	"math/rand"
+	"net/http"
+	"sync"
+	"time"
+
+	"github.com/qdm12/gluetun/internal/configuration/settings"
+)
+
+type BoringPoll struct {
+	// Injected dependencies
+	client *http.Client
+	logger Logger
+
+	// Internal state
+	urlToData map[string]*urlData
+
+	// Internal signals and channels
+	cancel context.CancelFunc
+	done   <-chan struct{}
+	mutex  sync.Mutex
+}
+
+type urlData struct{}
+
+func New(client *http.Client, logger Logger, settings settings.BoringPoll) *BoringPoll {
+	urlToData := make(map[string]*urlData)
+	if *settings.GluetunCom {
+		urlToData["https://gluetun.com/wp-json"] = &urlData{}
+	}
+	return &BoringPoll{
+		client:    client,
+		logger:    logger,
+		urlToData: urlToData,
+	}
+}
+
+func (b *BoringPoll) Start() (runError <-chan error, err error) {
+	b.mutex.Lock()
+	defer b.mutex.Unlock()
+
+	if len(b.urlToData) == 0 {
+		return nil, nil //nolint:nilnil
+	}
+
+	const minPeriod = time.Minute
+	const maxPeriod = 5 * time.Minute
+	const logEveryBytes = 100 * 1000 * 1000 // 100 IEC MB
+
+	var ready, done sync.WaitGroup
+	ready.Add(len(b.urlToData))
+	done.Add(len(b.urlToData))
+	ctx, cancel := context.WithCancel(context.Background())
+	b.cancel = cancel
+	for url := range b.urlToData {
+		go func(url string) {
+			defer done.Done()
+
+			b.logger.Infof("running against %s periodically between %s and %s "+
+				"and will log every %s downloaded",
+				url, minPeriod, maxPeriod, byteCountSI(logEveryBytes))
+			totalDownloaded := uint64(0)
+			lastDownloaded := uint64(0)
+			consecutiveFails := 0
+			const maxConsecutiveErrs = 3
+			const coolDownTimeout = time.Hour
+			timer := time.NewTimer(time.Hour)
+			var err error
+
+			ready.Done()
+			for {
+				timeout := minPeriod + time.Duration(rand.Int63n(int64(maxPeriod-minPeriod))) //nolint:gosec
+				if consecutiveFails >= maxConsecutiveErrs {
+					b.logger.Debugf("pausing poll to %s for %s due to %d consecutive errors, last error: %s",
+						url, coolDownTimeout, consecutiveFails, err)
+					timeout = coolDownTimeout
+				}
+				timer.Reset(timeout)
+				select {
+				case <-ctx.Done():
+					timer.Stop()
+					totalDownloaded += lastDownloaded
+					if totalDownloaded > 0 {
+						b.logger.Infof("stopping poll to %s, downloaded %s!", url, byteCountSI(totalDownloaded))
+					}
+					return
+				case <-timer.C:
+				}
+
+				n, err := fetchURL(ctx, b.client, url)
+				if err != nil {
+					consecutiveFails++
+					continue
+				}
+				consecutiveFails = 0
+				totalDownloaded += uint64(n) //nolint:gosec
+				lastDownloaded += uint64(n)  //nolint:gosec
+				if lastDownloaded >= logEveryBytes {
+					b.logger.Infof("thanks for helping! Downloaded %s from %s!",
+						byteCountSI(totalDownloaded), url)
+					lastDownloaded = 0
+				}
+			}
+		}(url)
+	}
+	return nil, nil //nolint:nilnil
+}
+
+func fetchURL(ctx context.Context, client *http.Client, url string) (downloaded int64, err error) {
+	const requestTimeout = 10 * time.Second
+	ctx, cancel := context.WithTimeout(ctx, requestTimeout)
+	defer cancel()
+	request, err := http.NewRequestWithContext(ctx, http.MethodGet, url, nil)
+	if err != nil {
+		cancel()
+		return 0, err
+	}
+	request.Header.Set("Cache-Control", "no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate")
+	request.Header.Set("Pragma", "no-cache")
+	request.Header.Set("Expires", "0")
+	request.Header.Set("User-Agent", getRandomUserAgent())
+
+	response, err := client.Do(request)
+	if err != nil {
+		return 0, err
+	}
+	downloaded, err = io.Copy(io.Discard, response.Body)
+	_ = response.Body.Close()
+	if err != nil {
+		return 0, err
+	}
+	return downloaded, nil
+}
+
+func getRandomUserAgent() string {
+	//nolint:lll
+	userAgents := [...]string{
+		"Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/121.0.0.0 Safari/537.36",
+		"Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/121.0.0.0 Safari/537.36",
+		"Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/121.0.0.0 Safari/537.36",
+		"Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:122.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/122.0",
+		"Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/605.1.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/17.2.1 Safari/605.1.15",
+		"Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Edge/121.0.0.0 Safari/537.36",
+		"Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 17_2_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/605.1.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/17.2 Mobile/15E148 Safari/604.1",
+		"Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; CPU OS 17_2_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/605.1.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/17.2 Mobile/15E148 Safari/604.1",
+		"Mozilla/5.0 (Android 14; Mobile; rv:122.0) Gecko/122.0 Firefox/122.0",
+		"Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 10; K) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/121.0.0.0 Mobile Safari/537.36",
+		"Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/120.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 OPR/106.0.0.0",
+		"Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/120.0.0.0 Safari/537.36 OPR/106.0.0.0",
+		"Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)",
+		"Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; bingbot/2.0; +http://www.bing.com/bingbot.htm)",
+	}
+	return userAgents[rand.Intn(len(userAgents))] //nolint:gosec
+}
+
+func (b *BoringPoll) Stop() error {
+	b.mutex.Lock()
+	defer b.mutex.Unlock()
+
+	if b.cancel == nil {
+		return nil
+	}
+	b.cancel()
+	<-b.done
+	b.cancel = nil
+	b.done = nil
+	return nil
+}
+
+func byteCountSI(b uint64) string {
+	const unit = 1000
+	if b < unit {
+		return fmt.Sprintf("%dB", b)
+	}
+
+	div, exp := uint64(unit), 0
+	for n := b / unit; n >= unit; n /= unit {
+		div *= unit
+		exp++
+	}
+
+	return fmt.Sprintf("%.1f%cB", float64(b)/float64(div), "kMGTPE"[exp])
+}

internal/boringpoll/interfaces.go

@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+package boringpoll
+
+type Logger interface {
+	Infof(format string, args ...any)
+	Debugf(format string, args ...any)
+}

internal/configuration/settings/boringpoll.go

@@ -0,0 +1,51 @@
+package settings
+
+import (
+	"github.com/qdm12/gosettings"
+	"github.com/qdm12/gosettings/reader"
+	"github.com/qdm12/gotree"
+)
+
+type BoringPoll struct {
+	GluetunCom *bool
+}
+
+func (b BoringPoll) validate() error {
+	return nil
+}
+
+func (b BoringPoll) Copy() BoringPoll {
+	return BoringPoll{
+		GluetunCom: gosettings.CopyPointer(b.GluetunCom),
+	}
+}
+
+func (b *BoringPoll) overrideWith(other BoringPoll) {
+	b.GluetunCom = gosettings.OverrideWithPointer(b.GluetunCom, other.GluetunCom)
+}
+
+func (b *BoringPoll) setDefaults() {
+	b.GluetunCom = gosettings.DefaultPointer(b.GluetunCom, false)
+}
+
+func (b BoringPoll) String() string {
+	return b.toLinesNode().String()
+}
+
+func (b BoringPoll) toLinesNode() *gotree.Node {
+	if !*b.GluetunCom {
+		return nil
+	}
+
+	node := gotree.New("Boring-poll settings:")
+	node.Append("gluetun.com: on")
+	return node
+}
+
+func (b *BoringPoll) read(r *reader.Reader) (err error) {
+	b.GluetunCom, err = r.BoolPtr("BORINGPOLL_GLUETUNCOM")
+	if err != nil {
+		return err
+	}
+	return nil
+}

internal/configuration/settings/settings.go

@@ -28,6 +28,7 @@ type Settings struct {
 	Version       Version
 	VPN           VPN
 	Pprof         pprof.Settings
+	BoringPoll    BoringPoll
 }
 
 type FilterChoicesGetter interface {
@@ -57,6 +58,7 @@ func (s *Settings) Validate(filterChoicesGetter FilterChoicesGetter, ipv6Support
 		"VPN": func() error {
 			return s.VPN.Validate(filterChoicesGetter, ipv6Supported, warner)
 		},
+		"boring poll": s.BoringPoll.validate,
 	}
 
 	for name, validation := range nameToValidation {
@@ -85,6 +87,7 @@ func (s *Settings) copy() (copied Settings) {
 		Version:       s.Version.copy(),
 		VPN:           s.VPN.Copy(),
 		Pprof:         s.Pprof.Copy(),
+		BoringPoll:    s.BoringPoll.Copy(),
 	}
 }
 
@@ -106,6 +109,7 @@ func (s *Settings) OverrideWith(other Settings,
 	patchedSettings.Version.overrideWith(other.Version)
 	patchedSettings.VPN.OverrideWith(other.VPN)
 	patchedSettings.Pprof.OverrideWith(other.Pprof)
+	patchedSettings.BoringPoll.overrideWith(other.BoringPoll)
 	err = patchedSettings.Validate(filterChoicesGetter, ipv6Supported, warner)
 	if err != nil {
 		return err
@@ -129,6 +133,7 @@ func (s *Settings) SetDefaults() {
 	s.VPN.setDefaults()
 	s.Updater.SetDefaults(s.VPN.Provider.Name)
 	s.Pprof.SetDefaults()
+	s.BoringPoll.setDefaults()
 }
 
 func (s Settings) String() string {
@@ -152,6 +157,7 @@ func (s Settings) toLinesNode() (node *gotree.Node) {
 	node.AppendNode(s.Updater.toLinesNode())
 	node.AppendNode(s.Version.toLinesNode())
 	node.AppendNode(s.Pprof.ToLinesNode())
+	node.AppendNode(s.BoringPoll.toLinesNode())
 
 	return node
 }
@@ -209,6 +215,7 @@ func (s *Settings) Read(r *reader.Reader, warner Warner) (err error) {
 		"version":     s.Version.read,
 		"VPN":         s.VPN.read,
 		"profiling":   s.Pprof.Read,
+		"boring poll": s.BoringPoll.read,
 	}
 
 	for name, read := range readFunctions {

internal/vpn/cleanup.go

@@ -25,4 +25,9 @@ func (l *Loop) cleanup() {
 			l.logger.Error("stopping port forwarding: " + err.Error())
 		}
 	}
+
+	err = l.boringPoll.Stop()
+	if err != nil {
+		l.logger.Error("stopping boring poll: " + err.Error())
+	}
 }

internal/vpn/interfaces.go

@@ -115,3 +115,8 @@ type HealthChecker interface {
 type HealthServer interface {
 	SetError(err error)
 }
+
+type Service interface {
+	Start() (runError <-chan error, err error)
+	Stop() error
+}

internal/vpn/loop.go

@@ -33,6 +33,7 @@ type Loop struct {
 	portForward PortForward
 	publicip    PublicIPLoop
 	dnsLooper   DNSLoop
+	boringPoll  Service
 	// Other objects
 	starter CmdStarter // for OpenVPN
 	logger  log.LoggerInterface
@@ -52,9 +53,9 @@ const (
 )
 
 func NewLoop(vpnSettings settings.VPN, ipv6Supported bool, vpnInputPorts []uint16,
-	providers Providers, storage Storage, healthSettings settings.Health,
+	providers Providers, storage Storage, boringPoll Service,
-	healthChecker HealthChecker, healthServer HealthServer, openvpnConf OpenVPN,
+	healthSettings settings.Health, healthChecker HealthChecker, healthServer HealthServer,
-	netLinker NetLinker, fw Firewall, routing Routing,
+	openvpnConf OpenVPN, netLinker NetLinker, fw Firewall, routing Routing,
 	portForward PortForward, starter CmdStarter,
 	publicip PublicIPLoop, dnsLooper DNSLoop,
 	logger log.LoggerInterface, client *http.Client,
@@ -80,6 +81,7 @@ func NewLoop(vpnSettings settings.VPN, ipv6Supported bool, vpnInputPorts []uint1
 		versionInfo:    versionInfo,
 		ipv6Supported:  ipv6Supported,
 		vpnInputPorts:  vpnInputPorts,
+		boringPoll:     boringPoll,
 		openvpnConf:    openvpnConf,
 		netLinker:      netLinker,
 		fw:             fw,

internal/vpn/tunnelup.go

@@ -119,6 +119,11 @@ func (l *Loop) onTunnelUp(ctx, loopCtx context.Context, data tunnelUpData) {
 	if err != nil {
 		l.logger.Error(err.Error())
 	}
+
+	_, err = l.boringPoll.Start()
+	if err != nil {
+		l.logger.Error("cannot start boring poll: " + err.Error())
+	}
 }
 
 func (l *Loop) collectHealthErrors(ctx, loopCtx context.Context, healthErrCh <-chan error) {