Calibre Server

[Skinn0r]

Creating a software request

Formal software information

• Software title | Calibre
• Short description | Software for ebooks with a media server
• Official URL (if available) | https://calibre-ebook.com
• GitHub URL (if available) | https://github.com/kovidgoyal/calibre
• (Official) install documentation |

Are there similar/alternative software titles available with DietPi-Software?

no

What makes your requested software better than the above solutions, if available?

How can DietPi make the installation easier or compatible, than following the install instructions or do APT installation, if available?

https://www.pradoshkharel.com/2020/07/18/setting-up-a-calibre-server-on-the-raspberry-pi.html

• ...

Can you provide the installation steps that you would suggest DietPi-Software to do?

Setting up calibre
Install calibre. The newest version of calibre doesn’t seem to be available in the repos. TODO should try building newer version from source

sudo apt install calibre

Create a calibre library.

mkdir /mnt/elements/media/ebooks/
cd /mnt/elements/media/ebooks/
wget http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1342.kindle.noimages -O pride.mobi
calibredb add /mnt/elements/media/ebooks/* --library-path /mnt/elements/media/ebooks/

Make sure everything works

calibre-server /mnt/elements/media/ebooks/

Try loading up http://127.0.0.1:8080

(Optional) Create a systemd service unit file to manage the server. Create file at /etc/systemd/system/calibre-server.service with the following

[Unit]
Description=calibre content server
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
User=pi
Group=pi
ExecStart=/usr/bin/calibre-server "/mnt/elements/media/ebooks/"

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Try starting up the server

systemctl enable calibre-server
systemctl start calibre-server

Nginx configuration
We want to be able to access the Calibre server via something like http://ebooks.myserver.com. Assuming DNS is already set up properly. TODO maybe a separate post on Google Domains + Nginx + LetsEncrypt

Add a new site to Nginx by creating a new file at /etc/nginx/sites-available/ebooks.myserver.com

upstream calibre_backend {
  server    127.0.0.1:8080;
  keepalive 32;
}

server {
  listen 80;
  server_name         ebooks.myserver.com;
  location / {
    proxy_pass http://calibre_backend;
  }
}

Enable site

cd /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
ln -s ../sites-available/ebooks.myserver.com
systemctl restart nginx

Enable HTTPS
Get certs from LetsEncrypt. The app should ask you if you want to change the configuration to force HTTPS. That’ll update the Nginx config and enable HTTPS.

sudo certbot --nginx -d ebooks.myserver.com

Are you willing to help maintaining the software installation, e.g. in case of needed setup changes due to updates etc.? This is not needed, but could speed up our decision to implement it, as man power is always a topic 😉.