Calibre Web with Docker and NGINX

I couldn’t find a guide on how to set up Calibre web step-by-step as a Docker container. Especially not one that used Nginx as a reverse proxy.

The good news is that it is really fast and simple. You’ll need a few tools to get this done:

  • A server with a public IP address
  • A DNS Provider (I use CloudFlare)
  • Docker
  • Nginx
  • A Calibre Library
  • Certbot
  • Rsync

First, sync your local Calibre library to a folder on your server:

rsync -avuP your-library-dir root@example.org:/opt/calibre/

Install Docker

sudo apt update  
sudo apt install docker.io

Create a Docker network

sudo docker network create calibre_network

Create a Docker volume to store Calibre Web data

sudo docker volume create calibre_data

Pull the Calibre Web Docker image

sudo docker pull linuxserver/calibre-web

Start the Calibre Web Docker container

sudo docker run -d \   
--name=calibre-web \   
--restart=unless-stopped \   
-p 8083:8083 \   
-e PUID=$(id -u) \   
-e PGID=$(id -g) \   
-v calibre_data:/config \   
-v /opt/calibre/Calibre:/books \   
--network calibre_network \   
linuxserver/calibre-web

Configure Nginx to act as a reverse proxy for Calibre Web

Create the site file

sudo vim /etc/nginx/sites-available/calibre-web

Add the following to the file

server { listen 80;   
server_name example.com; # Replace with your domain or server IP location /   
{   
proxy_pass http://localhost:8083;   
proxy_set_header Host $host;   
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;   
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;   
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;   
} }

Enable the site

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/calibre-web /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

Restart Nginx

sudo service nginx restart

DNS CNAME Record

Make sure to set up a cname record for your site with your DNS provider such as: calibre.example.com

SSL Certificate

Install ssl cert using certbot

certbot --nginx

Site Setup

Head to the site at https://calibre.example.com and log in with default credentials:

username: admin password: admin123

Select /books as the library directory. Go into admin settings and change your password.

Adding new books

Whenever you add new books to your server via the rsync command from earlier, you will need to restart the Calibre Web Docker container. Then restart Nginx.

sudo docker restart calibre-web  
systemctl restart nginx

That’s all there is to it. Feel free to reach out if you have issues.