AnkiServer 2.0.0a4

A personal Anki sync server (so you can sync against your own server rather than AnkiWeb)

A personal Anki Server (so you can sync against your own server rather than AnkiWeb).

It also includes a RESTful API, so that you could implement your own AnkiWeb if you wanted.

Installing the easy way!

If you have easy_install or pip on your system, you can simply run:

$ easy_install AnkiSyncServer

Or using pip:

$ pip install AnkiSyncServer

This will give you the latest released version!

However, if you want to try the latest bleeding edge version OR you want to help with development, you’ll need to install from source. In that case, follow the instructions in the next two sections.

Setting up a virtualenv

If you want to install your Anki Server in an isolated Python environment using virtualenv, please follow these instructions before going on to the next section. If not, just skip to the “Installing” section below.

There are many reasons for installing into a virtualenv, rather than globally on your system:

• You can keep the Anki Server’s dependencies seperate from other Python applications.

• You don’t have permission to install globally on your system (like on a shared host).

Here are step-by-step instruction for setting up your virtualenv:

1. First, you need to install “virtualenv”. If your system has easy_install or pip, this is just a matter of:

   $ easy_install virtualenv

   Or using pip:

   $ pip install virtualenv

   Or you can use your the package manager provided by your OS.

2. Next, create your a Python environment for running AnkiServer:

   $ virtualenv AnkiServer.env

3. (Optional) Enter the virtualenv to save you on typing:

   $ . AnkiServer.env/bin/activate

If you skip step 3, you’ll have to type AnkiServer.env/bin/python instead of python and AnkiServer.env/bin/paster instead of paster in the next section.

Also, remember that the environment change in step 3 only lasts as long as your current terminal session. You’ll have to re-enter the environment if you enter that terminal and come back later.

Installing your Anki Server from source

1. Install all the dependencies we need using easy_install or pip:

   $ easy_install webob PasteDeploy PasteScript sqlalchemy simplejson

   Or using pip:

   $ pip install webob PasteDeploy PasteScript sqlalchemy simplejson

   Or you can use your the package manager provided by your OS.

2. Download and install libanki. You can find the latest release of Anki here:

   http://code.google.com/p/anki/downloads/list

   Look for a *.tgz file with a Summary of “Anki Source”. At the time of this writing that is anki-2.0.11.tgz.

   Download this file and extract.

   Then either:

   1. Run the ‘make install’, or

   2. Copy the entire directory to /usr/share/anki

3. Make the egg info files (so paster can see our app):

   $ python setup.py egg_info

4. Copy the example.ini to production.ini and edit for your needs.

5. Create authentication database:

   $ sqlite3 auth.db 'CREATE TABLE auth (user VARCHAR PRIMARY KEY, hash VARCHAR)'

6. Create user:

   # Enter username and password when prompted.
   
   $ read -p "Username: " USER && read -sp "Password: " PASS
   
   $ SALT=$(openssl rand -hex 8)
   
   $ HASH=$(echo -n "$USER$PASS$SALT" | sha256sum | sed 's/[ ]*-$//')$SALT
   
   $ sqlite3 auth.db "INSERT INTO auth VALUES ('$USER', '$HASH')"
   
   $ mkdir -p "collections/$USER"
   
   $ unset USER PASS SALT HASH

7. Then we can run AnkiServer like so:

   $ paster serve production.ini

Running with Supervisor

If you want to run your Anki server persistantly on a Linux (or other UNIX-y) server, Supervisor is a great tool to monitor and manage it. It will allow you to start it when your server boots, restart it if it crashes and easily access it’s logs.

1. Install Supervisor on your system. If it’s Debian or Ubuntu this will work:

   $ sudo apt-get install supervisor

   If you’re using a different OS, please try these instructions.

2. Copy supervisor-anki-server.conf to /etc/supervisor/conf.d/anki-server.conf:

   $ sudo cp supervisor-anki-server.conf /etc/supervisor/conf.d/anki-server.conf

3. Modify /etc/supervisor/conf.d/anki-server.conf to match your system and how you setup your Anki Server in the section above.

4. Reload Supervisor’s configuration:

   $ sudo supervisorctl reload

5. Check the logs from the Anki Server to make sure everything is fine:

   $ sudo supervisorctl tail anki-server

   If it’s empty - then everything’s fine! Otherwise, you’ll see an error message.

Later if you manually want to stop, start or restart it, you can use:

$ sudo supervisorctl stop anki-server

$ sudo supervisorctl start anki-server

$ sudo supervisorctl restart anki-server

See the Supervisor documentation for more info!