Here is COPS : Calibre OPDS (and HTML) PHP Server

Why ?

In my opinion Calibre is a marvelous tool but is too big and has too much dependencies to be used only for its content server.

That’s the main reason why I coded this OPDS / HTML content server. I needed a simple tool to be installed on a small server (Seagate Dockstar in my case).

I initially thought of Calibre2OPDS but as it generate static file no search was possible.

So COPS’s main advantages are :

No need for many dependencies.
No need for a lot of CPU or RAM.
Not much code.
Search is available.
100% OPDS valid code (checked with http://opds-validator.appspot.com/).
It was my first PHP experiment and so fun to code.

If you want to use the OPDS feed don’t forget to specify feed.php at the end of your URL.

You just have to sync your Calibre directory to your COPS server the way you prefer (Dropbox, Bt Sync, Syncthing, use a directory shared with Nextcloud, …).

Disclaimer

It’s been reported as working on most web servers (Nginx, Apache, Cherokee, Lighttpd, IIS) and is used a lot on NAS (Synology, QNap, ReadyNas).

I personally protect my COPS catalog with Basic HTTP auth and HTTPS. It’s secure enough for my needs.

On the OPDS client side I mainly tested with FBReader Mantano Reader and Aldiko on Android (these 3 also ask for user/password if you have protected your COPS catalog). I also used Ibis Reader with success but there is no support for password. Other users have reported COPS working with Stanza, Megareader, Shubook and Bluefire.

As I already said, I had never coded in PHP before so I’m not proud at all about the code quality. I’ll probably start it again in the future ;).

Features

HTML5 / CSS3 interface with responsive design.
Multiple Calibre database support in a single COPS install.
Epub metadata update like Calibre Content Server (enable it with $config[‘cops_update_epub-metadata’]) : If you fixed the author name / a tag / the serie name of a book in Calibre, then the epub you’ll download with COPS will contain the fix.
Calibre custom columns.
Facets in the OPDS feed to filter book list (the only OPDS clients supporting it are Mantano Reader and Bluefire for now).
Multilanguage : Catalan, Czech, German, English, Spanish, Basque, French, Haitian (Creole), Hungarian, Italian, Norwegian Bokmål, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Swedish, Ukrainian, Chinese.
Certainly many other.

Demo

If you want to try it, you can use this URL in your favourite OPDS client :

http://cops-demo.slucas.fr/feed.php

You can also use any browser :

http://cops-demo.slucas.fr/index.php

Prerequisites for installation

PHP 5.3, 5.4, 5.5, 5.6 or hhvm with GD image processing, Libxml, Intl, Json & SQLite3 support.
A web server with PHP support (Nginx, Apache, Cherokee, Lighttpd, IIS).
The path to a Calibre library (metadata.db, format, & cover files).

On any Debian base Linux you can use :

aptitude install php5-gd php5-sqlite php5-json php5-intl

Install

Extract the zip file to a folder in web space (visible to the web server).
If a first-time install, copy config_local.php.example to config_local.php
Edit config_local.php to match your config. The most important config item to edit are :
- $config[‘calibre_directory’] : Path to your Calibre directory.
- $config[‘cops_use_url_rewriting’] : If you want to enable URL rewriting.
Add some other config item from config_default.php

Known problems

None for now. Please add an issue on Github if you find one ;).

Any problem / question

Read the Wiki.

I’ll check this MobileRead thread frequently. You can also send me an email (on the bottom of this page).

Want to help me ?

You like COPS or you simply want to support me, you can offer me a drink. I promise it will only be used for good and never for evil.

My main objective would be to buy a used Kindle Paperwhite to fix the HTML rendering of COPS with this eReader.

Download

This project is open source (GPL v2) and available through GitHub. If you have any code modification you can use merge request or send your patches to my email (on the bottom of this page).

You can download it here (Changelog) :

cops-1.0.1.zip

You can download older releases here

If you prefer a more automatic way, COPS is also available with Docker for x86 or Arm thanks to linuxserver.io.

Technology and Me