Automatic startup of calibre-server on Windows

[ProNetGuru]

As an IT guy, I couldn't believe that it was impossible to get Calibre running as a service on system start-up. And while the scheduled task or registry Run key hack were ok, I really preferred it to be running as a service on my home server. After a few weeks of research and lots of trial and error, I now have a working solution. It's been up and running on my home server for a few weeks now with no issues.

I'm running Windows Server 2008 R2 at home, so this solution should also work with Windows 7, although I haven't tested it on any other operating system so if you have success, please let everyone know.

While this has worked fine for me, there are no guarantees that it will work well for you and I accept no responsibility for anything that goes wrong.

Please read this entire post before trying to complete the steps below!

Here's how I made it run as a service:

1. Ensure that you have Calibre installed and know both the path to calibre-server.exe and the path to your library.
   The path to the Calibre executable can be found by right-clicking the Calibre icon (on either the start menu or desktop) and selecting properties (the path is in the target box). You can find the path to your library by opening the Calibre application and clicking the Calibre button in the toolbar.
2. Download WinServ from this location: http://www.sw4me.com/wiki/Winserv and extract all files in the archive onto your hard drive.
   WinServ is an open-source, command-line utility which enables you to run standard executables as services in a Windows OS.
3. Open a command prompt (hold the Windows key and press R to open the run box, then type CMD and click OK)
4. Change the current directory to the location where you extracted WinServ.
5. Type the following command:

   winserv.exe install CalibreServer -displayname "Calibre Server Service" -description "Calibre2 Web Server for hosting ebooks to tablets and other portable reading devices." -start auto <type full path to calibre-server.exe surrounded by double quotes> <enter any arguments here>

   As an example, the command I used to install the service looked like this:

   winserv.exe install CalibreTest -displayname "Calibre Test" -description "Calibre2 Web Server for hosting ebooks to tablets and other portable reading devices." -start auto "C:\Program Files (x86)\Calibre2\calibre-server.exe" --port 8080 --username <omitted> --password <omitted> --with-library="E:\Shares\Calibre"

6. Make sure that you include the --with-library argument unless you specify that the service should run/start under your user account. By default, the service will run using the Local System account, which will not know where your Calibre library is located.
7. Start your new service by typing "net start CalibreServer" in the command prompt window and pressing return (omit the quotes).

You can find documentation on the calibre-server.exe arguments here: http://manual.calibre-ebook.com/cli/...erver--version

Hopefully this works for everyone else. If you run into issues, I'll try to help as best as I can as time allows.

[mathia]

Sounds like another good solution. I like the solution I posted using serviceex because it is ini based and a bit easier on the command line. Your solution seems like a very good one, too. Congrats on another method of getting this to work.

[Dreameriz]

So I have read through this forum and wanted to share a easier way. Because windows will let you do this with out adding more software to your server as I really don't like junking up my server as much as possible. (helps with stability) 3 year in the running with out restart!
Do the following
1. Go to Control panel
2.Administrative Tools
3.Task Scheduler ( what ever way is easit to get to this service)
4. on the right side Create Task
5.Put in a name you want to call it
5a.security options (select Run whether useris logged on or not{will ask for your password to be saved})
5a.1. Select configure for: select your system
5b. Select Triggers on the top the click new
5b.1.begin the task: select at start up ( I dont have any thing selcted in advanced settings other then enabled) Then hit save
5C. Then select Actions go to new (Action:Start a Program) Settigs: browse your way where you have calibre folder once there find (calibre-server.exe) Select it and hit ok
5D. go to conditions the only thing i have here selected is: Wake the computer to run this task
5E. Go to Settings: select (if the task fails,restart every: 1min,attempt to restart up to 3 times.

Once you have saved and restarted ( I normaly have to give my server 8 mintues of loading everthing before accessing anyting) type in your addresses to your calibre libary and should work. Work great for me I just wanted to share sorry for the step by step or any spelling errors.