Assitance with creating a Proxmox LXC version of this awesome project

[Tooelite]

Hey guys,

I hope this is okay to put in this pretty raw and unformatted request for help in here :-)

Please see here:
community-scripts/ProxmoxVE#125

There are quite a few people hoping there will be a Proxmox LXC version of calibre-web-automated one day.

A regular installer for "calibre-web" already exists, so may idea was to patch/update the regular installer with the "calibre-web-automated" files.

Since this is not a simple process of copiing over some files I would like to ask you guys for a little help to get things going for Proxmox.

See the upper link, if you are interested in helping out in some way.

Thank you for this awesome project!

[anaxmedia]

I would love to see this as well!

[vhsdream]

Hey, I have a good first approximation of an install script in this gist.

Only for people who installed vanilla Calibre-Web in a Proxmox LXC using the helper script.

Please note that the script does not download CWA from this repo, it downloads it from my dev fork because a great many files had to be modified and in a few cases, shell scripts had to be adapted.

I've tested this a few times on a fresh installation of Calibre-Web from the Proxmox Helper Scripts repo; here's a summary of what I've (not extensively) tested:

'Working'

• Auto-ingest
• Auto-enforcement of covers & metadata
• Light mode/dark mode switching
• Automated backup service (I think?)
• EPUB Fixer service
• Library Autodetect
• Stats page
• Manual library refresh (I think?)

Not working or not tested

• Enabling/disabling CWA features via the UI
• Update notifications
• Nightly automatic backups with compression
• Bulk editing
• Probably other things

Feel free to try the script, but it goes without saying, don't test with your real ebook library! You could irrevocably corrupt your db!

As is, I don't think this is something the Proxmox Helper Script folks should condone or support since it relies on a customized fork that I have no intention of maintaining. Perhaps a better way to modify all the files could be found (the install scripts normally seem to use sed for that, although in this case it would be pretty excessive).

[vhsdream]

Agreed! I put the word out but did not tag any of them for that very reason. If they respond I'll let them know that you are willing to collaborate 👍🏻

[crocodilestick]

Hey @vhsdream ! Love your passion on this topic :) I'm not a Proxmox user and have too many features in development right now to be able to commit to specifically working on Proxmox related features but I'll be happy to merge any pull requests that would help in the mission without disrupting the main project or to assist where I can :)

[Tooelite]

@crocodilestick
Awesome! This would make it possible to add LXC compatibility right from the main repository. This is the best option to think about.

Thank you for your awesome project once more :-)

@vhsdream
Do you think it is difficult to add LXC compatibility via code to the main repo?

Maybe if you use a global configuration variable for switching to LXC mode or some sort of auto detection inside the code?

[vhsdream]

@crocodilestick Thank you so much for creating this project! I've only started using Calibre-Web for a few weeks but immediately wanted it to be as hands-off as my other media management platforms, so this project is a godsend. I really appreciate your willingness to help with this!

@Tooelite Seeing as the current (mostly working) method of converting a Calibre-Web LXC to Calibre-Web Automated involves modifying several files, I think that simply a .patch file to the main repo with the changes (and the conversion bash script) might be one valid option. Or instead there could be a separate branch that would consist only of the files necessary to create the conversion, since with the LXC version there are a number of files that are not used in their current form.

Regarding your idea of a global config var, I'm not sure where that would come in with either of the above options, could you elaborate? Perhaps I'm thinking too small!

[Tooelite]

@vhsdream
I will look at the code shortly and will provide an example how to get rid of the need for patched files. But this is just an idea I am not completely sure if this is an successful approach and I might fail on this :-)

What I have in mind is a all-in-one repository that can be configured for docker or proxmox LXC mode, but I have not looked into this in all details.

[vhsdream]

Hey, a little update. I've since been given permission to create and test Proxmox install scripts, and I have what I think to be a working version of Calibre-Web installation with a Proxmox helper script in this fork in the dev repo.

I created a new function script which contains all the work that transforms the paths and creates/modifies some scripts, and the install and update scripts call the functions after being sourced.

I want to add that this is not an official script yet as it's in testing, and that you really shouldn't trust a stranger on the internet with some random scripts; so first have a look at the functions before doing anything else. The function script has 3 parts:

1. Setting up the path variables.
2. The replacer function; this uses a lot of sed commands to modify everything that (I think) needs to be modified to have a fully-functioning CWA install, aside from the worker scripts. I had to do a lot of trial and error to complete this function, and it will probably break whenever CWA is updated here.
3. The script generator. It recreates and slightly modifies the scripts from the Docker installation, so that they are called by systemd service and/or timer files.

But still have a look at the file yourself, before running the one-liner below in your Proxmox host:

bash -c "$(wget -qLO - https://github.com/community-scripts/ProxmoxVED/raw/main/ct/calibre-web-automated.sh)"

[Tooelite]

This is just awesome. Sorry for not reporting any progress in a way to handle patched files, but I am running out of spare time at the moment :-(

I will check out your repo now :-)

[Tooelite]

It installes without any issues :-) 👍
I love the speed compared to a docker installation. The container is much faster now compared to my docker desktop install (which has various reasons of course, but the performance in general is great!).

Will check more in detail the next days - keep up the great work :-)

[IReclaimer]

Would love to know if this ever got completed.

[vhsdream]

Unfortunately it was removed from the Proxmox Script Dev repo as it was deemed too difficult to maintain in it's current state. The fact that it would have required an additional script with the functions seemed to bother them, as they are trying to streamline things while also seemingly adding more and more bloat to the backend.

I've decided to just do it myself, but I've been distracted by other things lately. Thanks for the reminder! Hopefully I'll have something in the next couple of weeks.

[Tooelite]

@vhsdream
I feel sorry for you it was removed :-(

Your results are awesome and it works like a charm.

I will support your scripts the best way I can.

It is a great idea to build your own setup script now to act more freely and without restrictions.

I am really looking forward to your very own project version!

If there is something I can help you out with some concepts of bash scripting for example, please let me know.

[Tooelite]

Have you checked out gum for scripting and menus ?

https://github.com/charmbracelet/gum

There are readymade packages for Debian as well.

[vhsdream]

OK so I said it'd be a couple of weeks, but I'm a liar and I made the script today. @Tooelite I've heard of gum and I chew it, but I don't want to have additional dependencies for my little shell script, so I've rolled my own, based on what I've learned from the Proxmox Scripts.

It's in it's own repo, here, and at the moment only does the installation part. But it looks nice 🥇

[Tooelite]

This is absolutely awesome. Thank you for your work!

[Tooelite]

I just wanted to report back that the latest patch script 1.1 from vhsdream for proxmox for calibre web automated works very well!

I am really happy with it now as the container is low on resources inside proxmox and the speed of the container is just awesome 😎

Compared to my Docker install this feels 3 times faster now with Proxmox :-)

[IReclaimer]

Works great.

Will there be an update process eventually?

Anticipating the 3.1.0 release with the separated Calibre database and book repository and I'd like to be able to update smoothly to that once it comes.

[vhsdream]

@IReclaimer Yes that is a high priority ✅ It's difficult to be proactive about it though, since there might be changes to files and I'll have to adapt the script to accommodate. Basically, it's gonna be a bit of a wait and see approach before the update process will be ready.

[Tooelite]

I have been thinking about this:

This really depends on the changes made, but I think there is a great chance the script will work on future updates of CWA without any adjustments. Of course this will not work if any services or the internal structure is modified, but it might even work pretty well on future releases aswell. Let's wait and see :-)

Maybe it is a good idea to implement any feedback on patching operations to see if all patches are successful. If you want me to I can try a PR on this :-)