MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Managing multiples users and devices, ideas?

nickdma · 01-14-2011, 09:54 AM

I've currently got 4 users, 4 computers, 4+ ereaders, and I'm trying to maintain 1 library across them.

I'm the "librarian", the rest of the family just uses the library to find what they want and put it on their readers. So I'm in search of ways to manage this.

One of the 4 computers is my "server", which runs the content server. My original goal was to put the main library on that computer, and share it out via the content server and NAS.

With 4K+ books, using the content server makes it a little tedious to browse the library looking for something. So the full client has become the preferred front end, especially for managing titles on the readers.

Calibre won't run in a "read-only" mode, if it doesn't have write access to the db, it fails to start. I don't want other clients to have write access to the db, since there's no db sharing built into calibre. I also don't want others mucking with the metadata, or deleting books. So I can't just point the calibre clients to the NAS share.

My initial solution, was to put a library on each PC, make it available on the LAN, and use the "copy to library" functionality. That worked, when it was just 2 libraries. Now the whole family is hooked on ereaders, and it's become a hassle. It's even worse if I change a bunch of metadata, there's no way to get that back to the other libraries.

I've thought about Dropbox, but it's two-way sync means at some point, two people will run calibre at the same time and trash the db. I'm looking at LiveMesh, which seems to have controls for who can make changes, but I suspect if I say it's read-only to members of the family, I'll be back to calibre not starting again.

Ideally, I think I'd like something like Dropbox, that syncs from the server to the clients, but not back. That puts all the data locally, so it performs better than the NAS. I don't need a "cloud" solution, but it has to be "drop box" simple. I'm still looking for solutions, some sort of rsync tool may suffice, if the simplicity is there.

If calibre supported a read-only mode (wink wink), that would help. NAS performance is getting better, but I had horrible issues with "folder device" performance. I'm not sure if we'd see the same with Nooks, I'd have to test that. Even if the NAS is too slow, a read-only mode may allow something like a read-only Live Mesh to work.

I know it would be a fair bit of work, but it would be nice if someday Calibre's content server could expand to act as a full calibre server, turning calibre into a client/server capable system. I'm not sure there's enough demand for such capability yet, but based on searches, I don't seem to be the only one trying to manage this.

Anyone have any creative solutions to sharing 1 master library to multiple PC's?

01-14-2011, 09:54 AM	#1
nickdma Enthusiast Posts: 41 Karma: 12 Join Date: Oct 2010 Device: Tablet PC	Managing multiples users and devices, ideas? I've currently got 4 users, 4 computers, 4+ ereaders, and I'm trying to maintain 1 library across them. I'm the "librarian", the rest of the family just uses the library to find what they want and put it on their readers. So I'm in search of ways to manage this. One of the 4 computers is my "server", which runs the content server. My original goal was to put the main library on that computer, and share it out via the content server and NAS. With 4K+ books, using the content server makes it a little tedious to browse the library looking for something. So the full client has become the preferred front end, especially for managing titles on the readers. Calibre won't run in a "read-only" mode, if it doesn't have write access to the db, it fails to start. I don't want other clients to have write access to the db, since there's no db sharing built into calibre. I also don't want others mucking with the metadata, or deleting books. So I can't just point the calibre clients to the NAS share. My initial solution, was to put a library on each PC, make it available on the LAN, and use the "copy to library" functionality. That worked, when it was just 2 libraries. Now the whole family is hooked on ereaders, and it's become a hassle. It's even worse if I change a bunch of metadata, there's no way to get that back to the other libraries. I've thought about Dropbox, but it's two-way sync means at some point, two people will run calibre at the same time and trash the db. I'm looking at LiveMesh, which seems to have controls for who can make changes, but I suspect if I say it's read-only to members of the family, I'll be back to calibre not starting again. Ideally, I think I'd like something like Dropbox, that syncs from the server to the clients, but not back. That puts all the data locally, so it performs better than the NAS. I don't need a "cloud" solution, but it has to be "drop box" simple. I'm still looking for solutions, some sort of rsync tool may suffice, if the simplicity is there. If calibre supported a read-only mode (wink wink), that would help. NAS performance is getting better, but I had horrible issues with "folder device" performance. I'm not sure if we'd see the same with Nooks, I'd have to test that. Even if the NAS is too slow, a read-only mode may allow something like a read-only Live Mesh to work. I know it would be a fair bit of work, but it would be nice if someday Calibre's content server could expand to act as a full calibre server, turning calibre into a client/server capable system. I'm not sure there's enough demand for such capability yet, but based on searches, I don't seem to be the only one trying to manage this. Anyone have any creative solutions to sharing 1 master library to multiple PC's?