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A comic archive web server.

Project description

Codex

Codex is a comic archive browser and reader.

Notable Features

  • A web server, not a desktop or mobile app.
  • Per user bookmarking. Bookmarks even if you don't make an account.
  • Filter and sort on comic metadata and unread status per user.
  • Watches the filesystem and automatically imports new or changed comics.

State of Development

Codex is in alpha test. It has not received widespread testing. Please file bug reports on GitHub. It is still possible that the data model might change enough that subsequent versions might require a database reset.

Demonstration

You may browse a live demo server on a very small VPS, with no CDN. Caching is likely unsufficient for heavy load at this time. It would probably crash if it got swarmed right now.

Install Codex

Docker

All dependancies bundled in the official Docker Image.

Install with pip

Wheel Build Dependencies

You'll need to install these system dependencies before installing codex.

MacOS
brew install jpeg libffi libyaml libzip openssl python
Linux
Debian based (e.g. Ubuntu)
apt install build-essential libffi-dev libjpeg-dev libssl-dev libyaml-dev python3-pip zlib1g-dev
Alpine
apk add bsd-compat-headers build-base jpeg-dev libffi-dev openssl-dev yaml-dev zlib-dev

Install unrar Runtime Dependancy

Codex requires unrar to read cbr formatted comic archives.

Linux

How to install unrar in Linux

MacOS
brew install unrar

Install Codex with pip

Finally, you may install codex with pip

pip3 install codex

Run Codex

pip should install the codex binary on your path. Run

codex

and then navigate to http://localhost:9810/

Administration

Change the Admin password

The first thing you need to do is to log in as an Administrator and change the admin password.

  • Log in with the menu in the upper right of the browse view. The default administator username/password is admin/admin.
  • Navigate to the Admin Panel by selecting it from under the three dots menu after you have logged in.
  • Navigate to the Users panel.
  • Select the admin user.
  • Change the admin password using the tiny "this form" link in the password section.
  • You may also change the admin user's name or anything else.

Adding Comic Libraries

The second thing you should do is log in as an Administrator and add one or more comic libraries.

  • Log in with any superuser (such as the default adimin account) using the menu in the upper right of the browse view.
  • Navigate to the Admin Panel by selecting it from under the three dots menu after you have logged in.
  • Navigate to the Codex API Librarys (sic) on the Admin Panel
  • Add a Library with the "ADD LIBRARY +" button in the upper right.
Reset the admin password.

If you forget all your superuser passwords, you may restore the original default admin account by running codex with the CODEX_RESET_ADMIN environment variable set.

CODEX_RESET_ADMIN=1 codex

or, if using Docker:

docker run -e CODEX_RESET_ADMIN=1 -v <host path to config>/config:/config ajslater/codex

Configure Codex

Config Dir

The default config directory is named config/ directly under the working directory you run codex from. You may specificy an alternate config directory with the environment variable CODEX_CONFIG_DIR.

The config directory contains a hypercorn config hypercorn.toml where you can specify ports and bind addresses. If no hypercorn.toml is present a default one is copied to that directory on startup. The default port is 9810.

The config directory also holds the main sqlite database, a django cache and comic book cover thumbnails generated when comics are imported. Reimport a comic or an entire library to regenereate these cover thumbnails.

Reverse Proxy

nginx is often used as a TLS terminator and subpath proxy.

Here's an example nginx config with a subpath named '/codex'.

    # HTTP
proxy_set_header  Host              $http_host;
    proxy_set_header  X-Forwarded-For   $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
    proxy_set_header  X-Forwarded-Host  $server_name;
    proxy_set_header  X-Forwarded-Port  $server_port;
    proxy_set_header  X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
    proxy_set_header  X-Real-IP         $remote_addr;
    proxy_set_header  X-Scheme          $scheme;

    # Websockets
    proxy_http_version 1.1;
    proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
    proxy_set_header Connection "Upgrade"

    # This example uses a docker container named 'codex' at sub-path /codex
    # Use a valid IP or resolvable host name for other configurations.
    location /codex {
        proxy_pass  http://codex:9810;
    }

Specify a reverse proxy sub path (if you have one) in the config/hypercorn.toml

root_path = "/codex"

Nginx Reverse Proxy 502 when container is refreshed.

Nginx requires a special trick to refresh dns when linked Docker containers are recreated. See this nginx with dynamix upstreams article.

Using Codex

Sessions & Accounts

Once your administrator has added some comic libraries, you may browse and read comics. Codex will remember your preferences, bookmarks and progress in the browser session. Sessions last 60 days at which point they are destroyed. To preserve these settings across browsers and after sessions expire, you may register an account with a username and password. You will have to contact your administrator to reset your password if you forget it.

Codex Roadmap

Next Up

  1. Edit & write metadata for comics
  2. Investigate the feasibility of full text search
  3. OPDS API
  4. Dark Admin Panel Styling

Out of Scope

  • No intention of making this an eBook reader like Ubooquity.
  • Not interested in this becoming a sophisticated comic manager like Mylar

Alternatives to Codex

  • Komga has light metadata editing and full text search of metadata.
  • Ubooquity is a good looking comic webserver. It also reads eBooks.

Develop Codex

Codex is a Django Python webserver with a VueJS front end. This is my first ever Javascript frontend. In retrospect I wish I'd known about FastAPI when I started, that looks nice. But I'm pretty satisfied with VueJS.

/codex/codex/ is the main django app which provides the webserver and database.

/codex/frontend/ is where the vuejs frontend lives.

/codex/setup-dev.sh will install development dependancies.

/codex/dev-server-ttabs.sh will run the three or four different servers reccomended for development in terminal tabs.

/codex/run.sh runs the main Django server. Set the DEBUG environment variable to activate development and debug mode: DEBUG=1 ./run.sh. This also lets you run the server without collecting static files for production and with a hot reloading frontend.

Links

Special Thanks

Thanks to Aurélien Mazurie for allowing me to use the PyPi name 'codex'.

Enjoy!

These simple people have managed to tap into the spiritual forces that mystics and yogis spend literal lifetimes seeking. I feel... ...I feel...

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