Web Scraping Setup

Learn how to set up and configure your web scraping environment for optimal performance.

Prerequisites

Before starting:

  • Basic understanding of HTML/CSS
  • Knowledge of web protocols
  • Familiarity with selectors
  • Understanding of rate limiting

Installation

1. Configure Environment

{
  "environment": {
    "proxy_enabled": true,
    "headless_browser": true,
    "javascript_enabled": true,
    "cookies_enabled": true
  }
}

2. Set Default Configuration

{
  "default_config": {
    "timeout": 30000,
    "retry_attempts": 3,
    "wait_for_selectors": true,
    "follow_redirects": true
  }
}

Browser Configuration

Headless Chrome Settings

{
  "browser": {
    "type": "chrome",
    "headless": true,
    "args": [
      "--no-sandbox",
      "--disable-setuid-sandbox",
      "--disable-dev-shm-usage"
    ],
    "viewport": {
      "width": 1920,
      "height": 1080
    }
  }
}

Proxy Configuration

Setting Up Proxies

{
  "proxies": {
    "enabled": true,
    "list": [
      {
        "host": "proxy1.example.com",
        "port": 8080,
        "username": "user1",
        "password": "pass1"
      }
    ],
    "rotation": {
      "enabled": true,
      "interval": 100
    }
  }
}

Rate Limiting

Default Rate Limits

{
  "rate_limits": {
    "global": {
      "requests_per_second": 2
    },
    "per_domain": {
      "example.com": {
        "requests_per_second": 1,
        "max_concurrent": 2
      }
    }
  }
}

Authentication

Setting Up Authentication

{
  "auth": {
    "type": "basic",
    "credentials": {
      "username": "user",
      "password": "pass"
    }
  }
}

Headers Configuration

Default Headers

{
  "headers": {
    "User-Agent": "Custom Scraper 1.0",
    "Accept": "text/html,application/xhtml+xml",
    "Accept-Language": "en-US,en;q=0.9",
    "Connection": "keep-alive"
  }
}

Cache Configuration

Setting Up Caching

{
  "cache": {
    "enabled": true,
    "type": "redis",
    "ttl": 3600,
    "config": {
      "host": "localhost",
      "port": 6379
    }
  }
}

Error Handling

Configure error handling:

{
  "error_handling": {
    "retry_codes": [429, 503],
    "max_retries": 3,
    "backoff": {
      "initial": 1000,
      "multiplier": 2,
      "max": 10000
    }
  }
}

Monitoring

Set up monitoring:

{
  "monitoring": {
    "enabled": true,
    "metrics": ["requests_per_minute", "success_rate", "average_response_time"],
    "alerts": {
      "error_rate_threshold": 0.1,
      "response_time_threshold": 5000
    }
  }
}