Author: Christopher Tarry
Last Updated: Thu, Dec 3, 2020Calibre is a popular free, open-source eBook management software. Calibre offers a local client but also provides a server for access on other devices. This tutorial explains how to create a Calibre eBook server on a Vultr Debian 10 cloud server instance. A cloud server instance is sometimes called a Virtual Private Server or VPS.
Deploy a new Vultr Debian 10 cloud server instance.
Follow the best practices guide for Debian to update the server.
Create a sudo user named calibre. Use the calibre user for the rest of the steps in this tutorial.
Install Calibre with the following command:
$ sudo apt install calibre
Make a folder for the new Calibre library in the home directory.
$ cd ~
$ mkdir calibre
Download Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet from Project Gutenberg.
$ wget "http://gutenberg.org/ebooks/1112.kindle.noimages" -O book.mobi
Add it to the Calibre library.
$ calibredb add book.mobi --with-library calibre
Get a list of all the books in the library.
$ calibredb list --with-library calibre
id title authors
1 The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet William Shakespeare
calibredb
requires the ID number to remove a book. For example, to remove book ID 1:
$ calibredb remove 1 --with-library calibre
To add the book again:
$ calibredb add book.mobi --with-library calibre
Start the server. Your IP address is different than the example shown.
$ calibre-server calibre
calibre server listening on 0.0.0.0:8080
OPDS feeds advertised via BonJour at: 192.0.2.123 port: 8080
In your web browser, navigate to the server at the IP address and port reported by calibre-server. For example:
http://192.0.2.123:8080
Select "calibre" as the library, and the server displays a list of books.
From the terminal, press CTRL-C to exit the server.
Create a systemd service for Calibre, so that it can automatically start.
Use nano to create a new service file.
$ sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/calibre-server.service
Add the following contents to the calibre-server.service.
[Unit]
Description=Calibre Server
After=network.target
[Service]
Type=simple
User=calibre
Group=calibre
ExecStart=/usr/bin/calibre-server --enable-local-write /home/calibre/calibre
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
Start the service and enable it to run when the server boots.
$ sudo systemctl enable calibre-server
$ sudo systemctl start calibre-server
Add authentication to prevent unauthorized access to the eBook library.
Stop the server.
$ sudo systemctl stop calibre-server
Run the user management script:
$ calibre-server --manage-users
Follow the prompts to make a new user named calibreuser and choose a secure password. Verify you see the confirmation message:
User calibreuser added successfully!
Edit the Calibre service file to enable authentication.
$ sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/calibre-server.service
Replace this line:
ExecStart=/usr/bin/calibre-server --enable-local-write /home/calibre/calibre
With:
ExecStart=/usr/bin/calibre-server --enable-auth --enable-local-write /home/calibre/calibre
Reload the service files with systemd and restart the service.
$ sudo systemctl daemon-reload
$ sudo systemctl start calibre-server
Authentication is now required to access the server.
This completes the Calibre eBook server installation on a Vultr Debian 10 cloud server instance. Use the Calibre companion apps for Android or iOS to access the server.