Calibre Server

Calibre is a comprehensive book library package.

I had the server running on my Ubuntu 14.04 system about 5 years ago. From memory the Calibre web interface was a bit unpolished, however some of my phone apps could access the library for easier book access.

I recently looked at my local library again because I wanted to reread some of my favorite books. I spent some time to clean the library up, but still need to spend more time.

The best solution is on the Calibre website Download for Linux
I took the advise and loaded the recommended dependencies from How To Create a Calibre Ebook Server on Ubuntu 20.04 first: sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y libfontconfig libgl1-mesa-glx
After this I ran the command as recommended by Calibre Download for Linux : sudo -v && wget -nv -O- https://download.calibre-ebook.com/linux-installer.sh | sudo sh /dev/stdin. As expected the installer came up with:

• *Setting up completion failed with error:
• *Setting up desktop integration failed with error:

As the installation was on a server that does not have the desktop installed.

I tested the installation with the terminal command: calibre-server '/mnt/disk1/KarlData/Karl Data 2/Calibre_library' Testing with http://your_server_ip:8080 in a browser on my LAN.

Next setup the systemd service as follows sudo vim sudo vim /etc/systemd/system/calibre-server.service :

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

[Service]
Type=simple
User= user
Group= group
ExecStart=/opt/calibre/calibre-server '/mnt/disk1/KarlData/Karl Data 2/Calibre_library' --enable-local-write

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Where for user and group I just used my normal user and group values.
Run sudo systemctl daemon-reload to configure the new systemd service. After this the usual systemctl commands on the new sservice can be used, e.g.:

• sudo systemctl enable calibre-server
• sudo systemctl start calibre-server

Since I got Wireguard running to allow secure remote access to my LAN I can not be bothered trying to put my Calibre library on my public access web. This is just for my personal use. I access it using the command noted earlier: http://your_server_ip:8080.

In any case some links to setup as a Linux server are as follows:

• From Calibre: The calibre Content server
• A bit dated from DigitalOcean: How To Create a Calibre Ebook Server on Ubuntu 20.04
• A personal source on Github: Calibre Server on Linux, based upon Nginx, but still OK.

When installing a Calbre server a key point seems to be that you install the full software package and ignore the warning / errors related to the client interface aspects of the install.