Solved Calibre (& Calibre web?)
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Calibre is a popular self-hosted ebook manager. Github page.
Now, Calibre is a desktop application, not a web application. But there is also Calibre-web, which is a web front end for the Calibre backend.
Should Calibre and Calibre-web be hosted through a single Cloudron application, or 2 separate applications?
Either way, I think these 2 applications could be very powerful on Cloudron.
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Agreed, would love to see
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A Cloudron app hosting a desktop app? I don’t understand.
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@yusf Calibre itself is quite a lot of things as I understand it. The important part here would be the server component. With Calibre installed locally, then Calibre-web would be the web interface to the server.
I've done some research on open source ebook software out there, and Calibre is the one that always comes up with the most community support. Open to other suggestions!
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@thetomester13 I see. So is it possible to isolate the server component and bundle it with Calibre Web without involving the desktop app?
I’ve tried to look into this before but I’ve always come up short because of confusion around dependency on the desktop app, which I don’t want to involve in my setup.
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@yusf Unfortunately, I believe the installation will include the many different components of Calibre, but you can start only the server component.
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Hi all,
I have packaged this for Cloudron. I could use some more people to test functionality, conversion of books etc. You can clone, build and install from this repo.EDIT: I should mention it is quite a hefty build it may take some time to build the image. I may need to tidy up any installs too but would like to get some feedback from the community first.
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@ultraviolet Wow! If this works and packages both Calibre and Calibre-web then I will be one happy camper! I'm installing it now and will give it a whirl. I'm not a super active user of these services but I do have a bit of a library and use it every so often to download some books to my reader. I'll leave any notes. Thanks for tackling this!
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@ultraviolet unfortunately I didn't get very far yet... I'm not able to login on my fresh install of your Cloudron package. It looks as if you're trying to set up LDAP, however, I'm not able to login with my main Cloudron user and not sure if there's another default login to get past the original Calibre-web login form.
Another question for you: Is the Calibre server port exposed as well as the calibre-web application? For example, I like having access to Calibre-web as a GUI for managing the Calibre library, but I have an e-reader that can plug into Calibre's OPDS catalog in order to download books.
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@thetomester13 LDAP can't be done during install because there is no API or config file. It may need to be thrown in via a SQL import but I will get to that later. you can login with admin and admin123. If you want to configure LDAP I have pushed a new commit to the repo that fixed a few bugs in creating a script to add the LDAP and email envs to a text file in the /app/data dir.
The connection to Calibre desktop app is not something I am sure I can do. The database file (metadata.db) is empty but I am not sure how Calibre can talk to the DB on the backend in Cloudron. If you have any info how it interacts I can have a look.
There is an e-reader build into the web app too.
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On the desktop app side, I cannot find an option to connect its library to a remote server
I don't think it's possible. -
@ultraviolet Ok, I'm starting to find my way here.
Theadmin:admin123credentials worked great! Eventually it'd be cool to tie into Cloudron's LDAP, but I know I'm asking for a lot
Also, it turns out that Calibre-web offers its own OPDS catalog atcalibre.cloudron.com/opds, so I was able to connect my e-reader to that endpoint and download a book, meaning that exposing the real Calibre's endpoint to the www might not be necessary after all!
Very good work, thanks again! I'll be migrating my exiting Calibre library over during the next few days! -
@ultraviolet This is super! I thought I saw a few lines of how to clone, build and install this app. Was it here on this forum, or was it in the README.md at Github? Could you post those again please?
Do you ever get teased about Star Wars or trainspotting or riding a motorbike across Central Asia (if you are the own of the gh repository)?
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@thetomester13 awesome glad it is of use to you I will look at the LDAP integration soon just finishing off a few other packages just now.
@scooke you will need to install the cloudron cli there is stuff in the docs telling you how. Login to your instance using cloudron login then cloudron build then cloudron install. You will docker either installed locally or using the build service app from the store. Also need a repo on docker hub . Failing that you can use my build which I can get the tag for you.
Also how do you know I am not the one in those movies?
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@thetomester13 @ultraviolet So is the conclusion that we don't actually need the calibre server and that calibre-web can be used standalone? @mehdi 's comment led me to believe that it's not possible to connect but I think @thetomester13 is saying this is possible.
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@girish I may not have come across well (I tend to do that
). As far as I know, Calibre-web uses the Calibre application as a database/backend. I thought that Calibre proper was also the only way to get an OPDS catalog available to e-readers, but it turns out that Calibre-web offers this as well. What this means is that Calibre doesn't need to be accessible to the www, but still needs to be part of the package as that is the actual book database behind Calibre-web. Hope that helps! -
Calibre web operates completely standalone. It just uses the calibre database to store and order the books.
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@ultraviolet Do you think you can add a license to https://github.com/euanmcgregor/calibre-web-cloudron as well? Thanks
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@girish all done!
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Oh! Gonna take it for a spin.
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Works pretty good! LDAP integration will ace it!
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I've read this thread but wanted to ask - is there a procedure to follow for this installation? I'd like to try it.
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@ultraviolet I tried to move the app package forward. Can you tell me how those database files are created (and why are they needed?). Meaning the files here - https://github.com/euanmcgregor/calibre-web-cloudron/tree/master/Library
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@ei8fdb I put a small tutorial here - https://forum.cloudron.io/topic/3102/building-custom-packages . Feel free to ask questions there.
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@girish Yes they are needed that is the base database for calibre, they are copied to the app/data on build (if I recall correctly)
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@ultraviolet I see but how did you generate them or create them? Are they provided by the upstream project?
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@girish ah with you. No it needs to be generated by the calibre project it is an empty database created that the web app uses to connect to. I created it as I would then need to install calibre into the app container then use the api to generate the empty db then remove calibre. Seemed a waste of time so I created a blank one for the purpose of ease.
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Got to hack on the app this weekend. Still have to figure how to automate the settings but I wanted to ask how this integrates with mobile apps. It seems to me that this is done via the calibre content server (and not calibre web). I think it would not be very useful if we just had calibre web but no way to access the books from the mobile apps. I think what this means is that I have to set up the app so that the content server is also running (and authenticates via LDAP or something).
Am I correct about this?
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@girish I don't know, but I'd still find it useful even if I couldn't use mobile apps (my phone is full up and has no space for any more apps anyway - it's so annoying I can't delete all the Google apps I never user, once this phone dies I'm definitely going to get a 2nd hand phone that will run https://e.foundation/ or https://lineageos.org/ )
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@girish the combination of Calibre and Calibre-web is quite tricky. That being said, there are plenty of apps that can read from Calibre-web's OPDS server. I personally use MapleRead SE on iOS, but any app that supports OPDS can plug into Calibre-web's server.
Also, I could be wrong here, but I believe Calibre doesn't support LDAP whereas Calibre-web does.
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@thetomester13 said in Calibre (& Calibre web?):
OPDS
Ah, thanks for this note. This is what I was missing. I was wondering how to get books out of the app for mobile use and this seems to be it.
@jdaviescoates I also managed to figure out how to automate the LDAP parts, so I will get it published soonish.
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@girish said in Calibre (& Calibre web?):
@jdaviescoates I also managed to figure out how to automate the LDAP parts, so I will get it published soonish.
Woohoo!
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So, anyone know if the desktop apps can synchronize with the web app ? I have a quite large Calibre library locally, I'd appreciate uploading it and keeping it in sync
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@mehdi Yes, Calibre is the 'backend' for Calibre-web. If you manage to upload your local Calibre to this Calibre, then Calibre-web should have it all synced up for you. I managed to do this upgrade before (with a relatively small library). I wonder if I can dig up the instructions somewhere...
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@mehdi from a quick search around it also seems one possible option (which I think I might try once we've got Calibre-web in Cloudron) is to store your Calibre library in a Nextcloud folder and then connect/ sync both the desktop Calibre and Calibre-web to that.
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Alright, almost there. There's a few bugs I have to report upstream and learn some python along the way to get those fixed.
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I hope there's a dark mode!
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I have opened https://github.com/janeczku/calibre-web/issues/1656 for a start.
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I have pushed this to unstable now. Still some work to be done, hopefully should get done next week.
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@girish
thanks! This is definitely something I've been wanting for a while. I'll play around with this soon and try and post instructions on migrating from a manual installation (@ultraviolet 's package) to this one. -
@thetomester13 yes, I want to move in all my books as well. The app itself works well , just the integration points need to be ironed out. Also, let me know if the OPDS works for you.
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@girish Ok, got it up and running! I'm not seeing LDAP working, I'm only able to logon using the admin/admin123 credentials, but I know you mentioned this as an issue. I am able to get the OPDS link to work though. I'm using the MapleRead SE iOS app, and the link should look like
https://calibre.my.cloudron/opds.In the way of migrating things over from a manual instance to this instance:
- I went to the Terminal of the old instance and hit 'Download' and downloaded the
/app/data/Librarydirectory - In your new instance, go to the File Manager. Upload this Library folder. Change permissions to the folder from 'root' to 'cloudron'.
- In your new Calibre instance, go to the 'Admin' view page. Under 'Basic Configuration' => 'Library Configuration' put
/app/data/Libraryand hit 'save'. - Back in the Admin view page, hit 'Reconnect to Calibre DB'.
- If you go to your Calibre-web home you should now see your library!
- I went to the Terminal of the old instance and hit 'Download' and downloaded the
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