COPS : Calibre OPDS PHP Server

[Jarulf]

It is fun to have a little project once in a while, one you don't absolutely have to get right at once. Dare I take the plunge?

Since I've only a vague idea of what I need to do, it's time to google tutorials...
I did set up an ftp server on linux over ten years ago. I'm sure that will be immensely helpful

[mariosipad]

Almost all questions you might have about setting up software on your Raspberry Pi are answered somewhere on the WorldWideWeb. Search and Ye shall find!

Setting up an Apache webserver with PHP and COPS really is a good way to start. Just serch for "raspberry pi webserver" and there are more useful hits than you could possibly need.

Good luck!

[At_Libitum]

Originally Posted by Jarulf

...I'm a little unclear on how COPS differs from calibre2opds.

If you haven't already found out, in which case it may serve others...

They differ like dynamic differs from static. With calibre2opds you will need to generate the catalog each time you change your library, with COPS there is no need since it directly reads from your library. Every change is directly visible in COPS, in fact it even supports multiple libraries where calibre2opds only supports one. Of course you can create a c2o catalog for each library, but that also means different urls for each.

[Jarulf]

@mariosipad
Google is always your friend. apache is up and running and visible from the outside, so that's a start. OwnCloud doesn't work, the tutorial I was following lists a number of packages that aren't available.
I'll try COPS first, then return to OC.

@At_Libitum.
I did figure it out after a while, but thanks.

This is getting seriously off topic however, so any further questions from me wil only deal with COPS.

[Jarulf]

After some tribulations and thinning hair, I seem to have COPs running as intended.

I wanted to have the libraries on a separate drive /media/cloud/caliber/various libraries but couldn't get this to work as I kept getting an error that metadata.db couldn't be found or read. The path was correct. When I moved the library to /var/www/cops/ it worked.

Now, since I don't want it there I just created a symlink in var that pointet to the original location. This is obviously a cheat since there must be some configuration detail I've got wrong somwhere.

Next is setting up multiple libraries and password protect the stuff, the last of which will probably make my hair even thinner.

[le_]

Originally Posted by Jarulf

OwnCloud doesn't work, the tutorial I was following lists a number of packages that aren't available.
I'll try COPS first, then return to OC.

I was using OwnCloud for a while, but it was a bit too much only for keeping my Calibre library updated, so I changed to FreeFileSync.

I can replace my Calibre shortcut with a batch that open Calibre, waits until it's closed then calls FreeFileSync to do an automatic sync via smb, or add a shortcut to a batch that just force an automatic sync.

[Jarulf]

@le Thanks for the tip. I'll probably take a look at that when I've failed to get OC working one time too many

And my last post was hasty, COPS doesn't work as I want it.

I have COPS under /var/www/cops and my libraries in /media/cloud/calibe/[different-sub-directories].
Everything was fine when I tested with a library placed in /var/www/cops/books, I even got it password protected.
But when I try the other configuration I just get to checkconfig screen, which says everything is fine exept it can't access metadata.db. The symlinks were no help, that was due to a dumb mistake on my part.

I tried reading up on open_basedir but can't say I really understood much...

open_basedir = /media/cloud

didn't help. So what am I doing wrong?

[mariosipad]

1 - COPS is in /var/www/cops

2 - Calibre data is in /media/cloud/calibre/books -> this worked (?)

3 - multiple directories are in /media/cloud/calibre/[different-sub-directories] -> this did not work

In /var/www/cops/config_local.php did you set it up like this?

    $config['calibre_directory'] = array (
        "Books 1" => "/media/cloud/calibre/books_1/",
        "Books 2" => "/media/cloud/calibre/books_2/",
        "Books 3" => "/media/cloud/calibre/books_3/",
        "Books 4" => "/media/cloud/calibre/books_4/"
                                         );

Pay attention to the comma's and the trailing "/"'s.

If you set it up like this, do you still get the error in checkconfig.php?

I have more or less the same setup, so it should and will work.

[Jarulf]

Yes, I seem to have gone with the AE spelling, still I've been consistent so it shouldn't matter.

The only set up that worked had a single library in /var/www/cops/book, I haven't tried multiple libraries except in /media/cloud/calibre/books1 books2 etc. (which was a bit pointless, since I couldn't even get one library to work- but I got the syntax right)

However! My pi isn't feeling well, the USB port is wonky (though this is probably not related to this) so I'll be getting a new one today and do a clean install of everything. I've probably messed something up somewhere with my tinkering (the danger of taking a few days off work) and the initial tutorial I tried to follow had some issues.
I'll probably use this with Nginx, sq3lite and Opencloud.

Anyway, thank you for trying to help. Really appreciated.

[eXistenZ]

Hi
Just manually installed 0.9 on my synology server.
It works great! thank you for this amazing piece of software.

I just have a problem, I don't think it's directly related to COPS, but maybe someone could add to COPS some function to bypass the problem.
Long story short:
I have a kobo GLo, I use to convert all my ebooks in kepub format by the Calibre conversion plug-in.
It generates .kepub files.
In the COPS config_local file I added kepub as a preferred format, so when I enter in COPS i can download the kepub easily.

To be recognized by kobo readers kepubs need to have .kepub.epub extension, not only .kepub
I think that adding to COPS the function to change the extension of kepub files should be easy.

The real problem is that (at least on my Glo with FW 3.1.1) the kobo browser only downloads compatible files (.epub, .txt, .kepub.epub etc.), .kepub files are not accepted.
There is any chance to make COPS change the extension of kepubs on the fly before the browser checks and reject them?

Hope my post is clear

Thank you

[mariosipad]

@eXistenZ

Did you notice the "kepub" option in config_local.php?

    /*
     * Rename .epub to .kepub.epub if downloaded from a Kobo eReader
     * The ebook will then be recognized a Kepub so with chaptered paging, stat$
     * You have to enable URL rewriting if you want to enable kepup.epub downlo$
     * 1 : Yes (enable)
     * 0 : No
     */
    $config['cops_provide_kepub'] = "0";

Is this what you mean?

[eXistenZ]

Not exactly the same, that option "Rename .epub to .kepub.epub if downloaded from a Kobo eReader"

What I need ia a similar option, that renames .kepub to .kepub.epub if downloaded from a Kobo eReader.

And because kobo browser refuses to download .kepub files, the rename has to be made in a way so the browser will not refuse the download.


The difference is that a .kepub.epub made only by changing file extension as COPS does is not a good kepub file.
The Calibre conversion plug-in instead applies also a lot of changes in the epub structure and code, to create a good working kepub that only needs a rename.

[vlad59]

Originally Posted by eXistenZ

Not exactly the same, that option "Rename .epub to .kepub.epub if downloaded from a Kobo eReader"

What I need ia a similar option, that renames .kepub to .kepub.epub if downloaded from a Kobo eReader.

And because kobo browser refuses to download .kepub files, the rename has to be made in a way so the browser will not refuse the download.


The difference is that a .kepub.epub made only by changing file extension as COPS does is not a good kepub file.
The Calibre conversion plug-in instead applies also a lot of changes in the epub structure and code, to create a good working kepub that only needs a rename.

You're right. I'll extend the rename to kepub.epub to kepub also.

About the Calibre plugin for kepub, I'll tell all the story : I contacted jgoguen to check if he was OK if I was to port his plugin to COPS and he was.

So I started to work on it and I still have an uncompleted patch somewhere. I had to test again kepub on my Aura and I was not amazed by the difference with the normal epub handling. For more philosophical reason I'm a strong advocate to the only real standard ebook format : Epub. In addition I read that there was some problem with the Calibre Kepub plugin and latest Kobo firmware.

So for those 3 reasons, the patch will likely stay a patch (unless someone want to complete it). Can you tell me why you like Kepub better ?

EDIT @eXistenZ : I just spend half an hour on the rename and it would help if you could send me a Calibre library with at least one book in both format (epub and kepub) I have to check something. Thanks

[vlad59]

Synology package is out (as usual with http://www.synocommunity.com). The direct download link is here http://packages.synocommunity.com/co...ch_0.9.0-1.spk.

[eXistenZ]

Originally Posted by vlad59

You're right. I'll extend the rename to kepub.epub to kepub also.
@eXistenZ : I just spend half an hour on the rename and it would help if you could send me a Calibre library with at least one book in both format (epub and kepub) I have to check something. Thanks

It's really strange, I find how to patch the Kobo browser to allow the download of every file, and tried to download a .kepub and it worked so well that the downloaded file was yet renamed to .kepub.epub.
So seems Cops yet does what I need, but if you want to investigate I can send a library anyway.

Originally Posted by vlad59

Can you tell me why you like Kepub better ?

Access engine (the one used to read kepubs) has a better rendering of some fonts, than Adobe, has a different way to count pages (per chapter instead than total book) which I prefer, and has a different way to handle linked notes (shows a pop-up), in some cases permits to zoom images in the kepub and it seems to handle more precisely notes and higlights.

Regarding the support of standards, I agree ad never buy kepus, always buy standard epub and then convert them