Tag: library

This article is about setting up you own ebook library with support for the OPDS catalog format . The COPS ebook catalog can read a Calibre library and expose it as a website. It is developed on PHP.

Prerequisites

• Prepare a Linux system. In this guide we are using Ubuntu 14.04.4.
• Have a cops.example.com DNS A record pointing to the IP of your server.

Install necessary packages

$ sudo apt-get -y samba nginx php5-fpm php5-gd php5-sqlite php5-json php5-intl git

Setup a SAMBA share

Samba is needed for sharing the Calibre library directory with the library administrator. Alternatively you could use NFS or even OwnCloud.

Note

It is a security risk to expose Samba on a public server. Restrict it through firewall or use OwnCloud instead.

• Tweak the Samba configuration file (/etc/samba/smb.conf):

  #  unix password sync = yes
     unix password sync = no
  
  #  pam password change = yes
     pam password change = no
  

• Add a Samba share for calibre (/etc/samba/smb.conf):

  [calibre$]
  path = /srv/calibre
  valid users = calibre
  write list = calibre
  read only = no
  

• Restart Samba services:

  $ sudo service smbd restart ; sudo service nmbd restart
  

• Add the calibre user:

  $ useradd -m -d /srv/calibre -s /usr/sbin/nologin calibre
  $ smbpasswd -a calibre
  

Setup Calibre

• Now you should setup Calibre on your PC. On Debian/Ubuntu:

  $ sudo apt-get -y install calibre
  

  Windows users can download it from here:

  http://calibre-ebook.com/download_windows

• Configure Calibre to use the calibre share as its catalog:

  • You can "mount" the calibre share on Linux or "map" the share on Windows.
  • Create an ebook Directory under the calibre share.
  • Create a new Calibre library inside the ebook directory. From the Calibre menu:
    • Callibre Library –> Switch/create library -> Create an empty Library at the new location and fill the path in the "New Location" text field.
  • If you get an error about "Corrupted database" just click ‘Yes" to rebuilt it.
  • Start adding books

Setup COPS OPDS

• Download the software:

  $ mkdir /var/www
  $ cd /var/www
  $ git clone https://github.com/seblucas/cops.git
  

• Setup COPS:

  Under the /var/www/cops/ directory, copy the config_default.php.example to config_default.php:

  $ cp config_local.php.example config_local.php
  

  Make the following changes in config_default.php:

  < ?php
      if (!isset($config))
          $config = array();
  
      /*
       * The directory containing calibre's metadata.db file, with sub-directories
       * containing all the formats.
       * BEWARE : it has to end with a /
       */
      $config['calibre_directory'] = '/srv/calibre/ebooks/';
  
      /*
       * Catalog's title
       */
      $config['cops_title_default'] = 'My Ebook Portal';
  
      $config['calibre_internal_directory'] = '/ebooks/';
  
      $config['cops_full_url'] = 'cops.example.com';
  
      $config['cops_x_accel_redirect'] = 'X-Accel-Redirect';
  
      /*
       * use URL rewriting for downloading of ebook in HTML catalog
       * See README for more information
       *  1 : enable
       *  0 : disable
       */
      $config['cops_use_url_rewriting'] = '1';
  

Setup nginx

• Create an /etc/nginx/sites-available/cops.example.com

  server {
  
      listen 80 default_server;
      listen [::]:80 default_server ipv6only=on;
  
      server_name cops.example.com;
  
      access_log  /var/log/nginx/cops.access.log;
      error_log /var/log/nginx/cops.error.log;
      root   /var/www/cops;
      #index feed.php;
      index index.php;
  
      #Useful only for Kobo reader
      location /download/ {
            rewrite ^/download/(\d+)/(\d+)/.*\.(.*)$ /fetch.php?data=$1&db=$2&type=$3 last;
            rewrite ^/download/(\d+)/.*\.(.*)$ /fetch.php?data=$1&type=$2 last;
            break;
          }
  
          #Can break loading the images - if you don't see anything, comment
          location ~ ^/images.*\.(gif|png|ico|jpg)$ {
                  expires 31d;
          }
          #Can also break loading the images, comment if it happens
          location ~ .(js|css|eot|svg|woff|ttf)$ {
                  expires 31d;
          }
  
      #Not necessarily correct, it depends on distro.
      location ~ \.php$ {
         try_files $uri =404;
         include /etc/nginx/fastcgi_params;
         fastcgi_param   SCRIPT_FILENAME  $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
         fastcgi_pass    unix:/run/php5-fpm.sock;
      }
  
      location /ebooks {
          root /srv/calibre;
          internal;
      }
  }
  

  Note:

  The feed.php setting was redirecting me to an XML site with this error: This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it. The document tree is shown below. So I am using index.php instead, as the index file.

• Enable the cops.example.com site and disable the default:

  $ cd /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
  $ sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/cops.example.com
  $ sudo unlink default
  

• Restart nginx and php5-fpm:

  $ sudo service php5-fpm restart ; sudo service nginx restart
  

• Change permissions to let nginx write to the library:

  $ usermod -a -G calibre www-data
  $ chmod -R g+w /srv/calibre/ebooks/
  

Now you can navigate to http://cops.example.com and enjoy your newly created ebook library!

References

• https://github.com/seblucas/cops
• http://blog.slucas.fr/en/oss/calibre-opds-php-server
• https://github.com/seblucas/cops/wiki/Full-example-with-Nginx