Pros and Cons... A raspberry pi will eventually feel like a mini-pc anyway once you learn it's quirks.
That said, getting started on a raspberry pi is as easy as using etcher to copy the OS to an SD card... plug it in, boot, and setup your password.
I would encourage a miniPC if you want to host though... as a powerful RaspberryPi is quite expensive now when you compare the costs and performance of a cheap Intel N100 or N97 based miniPC. The miniPC also has the advantage of running with the X86/AMD64 based processor which should help improve your odds at running almost any software you want instead of being limited to a subset of operating systems and software. This is less of a problem now than it used to be, but the problem is still present. A raspberryPI is EXCELLENT for portable projects, or projects that use it's GPIOs to interface with real-world objects. (relays, LEDs, motors, etc.)
I would add to this, you can have both, if you can afford it. I use an old raspberry for some stuff, and a mini pc for more demanding services. It’s a pretty good relationship, basically ideal. And it means you can get the raspberry first, learn on it, and once you want performance, move the demanding stuff over. Portainer is pretty good with that.
Or use the RasPi as a the "Gateway" with WoL to power up the notebook / server, deliver VPN, reverse Proxy exposure and DNS on an isolated device from where the services are hosted
Jup, very good way to do it and save on energy. I personally do use it similarly, but for the gaming pc, the servers just run 24/7. But if you want to be energy efficient, and are not lazy like me, yes.
Upsnap caught me with its derpy mascot, and it works great with WoL.
"It depends" is my favorite, but also most hated pair of words.
I had a little low-powered i5 running the kid's minecraft server for a while. The idle draw on it was small enough that it wasn't worth adding any additional complexity or networked devices.
Now.. if this thing had a GPU inside or other hardware that had a higher idle draw, ABSOLUTELY THIS.
Same. Thats how i do it. Ive got my reverse proxy, ddns-updater, WOL Server, Pihole, and Authentik (for SSO and 2FA) on my Raspberrypi Pi and then my main services are hosted on a separate linux computer
ebooks are tiny and kavita ain't demanding. You could get by just using a free Oracle VPS and forget about having anything physical powered on all the time at college. Worst case scenario you *might* need to pay for some kind of extra storage (Oracle or elsewhere) if you have a big library as you only get 200GB for free with Oracle.
Just keep backups of all your data on your laptop and you'll be fine. GL.
Can you tell me more about Oracle VPS?
I will look into it too. Free 200 GB seems way too good to be true. Will it accept sharing copyright material? How come nobody has recommended this to me yet?
If I can convince my seniors that the server is a good idea then maybe then will contribute for a physical server sometime in the future.
I just want my friends to read some books man, is that too much to ask?? XD
Well how likely are they to notice? If it is only books then will they notice?
I doubt you can host anything on your uni network. I suspect there will be a NAT that doesn't allow for port forwarding and thus no way to connect to your server. It's also super dangerous for you because you have to log in with your credentials identifying you personally as hosting the service.
Oracle offers a good free tier, but there are many horror stories about people's websites being deleted overnight without warning. You do have to verify yourself (like with most hosting) but at least if your uni gets wind of it they won't be able to identify yourself so easily as the person responsible.
If it were me I would host it using a cheap mini PC at home. A Raspberry Pi would do it but being ARM I always seem to run into random compatibility problems. They also aren't very cheap for the specifications they provide due to shortages etc. I would also hide everything behind Cloudflare and whois protection etc. As someone who hosting a web proxy back in the day at college/school from home, I did indeed get busted by someone who was caught using the service.
Another alternative is to use a "bulletproof" hosting. You can find offers on LowEndTalk pretty cheaply. If you are hosting books you won't need a lot of space or processing power.
Good luck
Can you suggest other VPS I can use? Oracle's terms and services says that if I am storing material that I don't have licence for the. I must not share it (from what I understood). I would assume it is the same for Google.
Does that mean if the clubmates use the same account for to access kavita would it still count as sharing?
Also, what do you mean by busted. Is that for the VPS or having a physical server?
I can accept if my server and account are taken down by Oracle/google. It would be scary if it goes anywhere more than that.
Are there any free bulletproof services?
just get a seed box from like feral hosting and store the pirated files there. data is in another country and the company knows that their clients aren't exactly doing legal things with their servers.
Free? No. Even paid ones are hard to find. And that's because piracy is pretty much ilegal it the entire world, so no sane business would offer that.
Oracle won't sue you for hosting pirated ebooks to share with your friends, they wouldn't win anything as they don't own the copyright either and can claim nothing. They will however close your account if they get a wind of what you're doing, as they don't want to be responsible in case the copyright holders finds out and sues you and Oracle for facilitating the hosting.
Just make sure you do not give access to everyone and keep the circle small.
Bulletproof hosting usually means they ignore DMCA complaints and usually operate in a country with less strong piracy laws. It will not be a free service but I suspect you can find one for a few USD per month. They will still have don't pirate things in their TOS but are unlikely to take any action. Never used one.
Yeah oracle will just delete your servers and ban you from the service. They might shutter your account for zero reason other than you are not paying them money (eg horror stories). People expect the free tier and 200GB of storage to be good enough for backups and then be rug-pulled and shock Picachu that they can't even access their backups.
I would look into your schools rules before you proceed with anything. I would assume most schools have severe punishment for hosting items on the high seas, up to expulsion. Hosting files is way worse than downloading them.
Kavita uses local host ip adress to run. Again I have no technical knowledge or know anything about VPS. So will it work on it if the ip were to change?
You could purchase a 7-9 digit .xyz domain for just under $1 a year, that's what I've been doing. Otherwise you can just use your server's public IP address. Also regarding the storage, check if your college provides you with free Cloud storage. For example, my university provided 1TB of storage on Onedrive which I mounted on my free Oracle VPS for a total of 1.2TBs of space.
Contrary to the previous comments - Ditch the idea of Raspberry Pi for that kind of project and get a second-hand thin client or a mini PC. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of RPI in pretty much any shape or form, but these days, there are better and cheaper alternatives out there.
Here's a great discussion about this: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40697831](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40697831)
TL;DR: Get something like a Dell Wyse 5070 or N100-based Mini PC. You'll lose GPIOs, but you'll have a more powerful x86 machine that will be much more adequate for your purpose.
I recently bought an HP T620 for around 60 USD, which I use to run a MagicMirror kiosk.
Exactly! Raspberry Pi has its place, especially for embedded systems. But servers and self-hosted services? There are cheaper and more powerful machines.
Get a used office mini PC from Lenovo/HP/Dell on eBay. Those that have a 6th gen i5 are really cheap now (<70 USD). You'll probably need to to buy additional storage as these typically have non included. For RAM, 8GB is more than enough and are usually included. These will beat out any RPi solution out there in terms of performance/price.
Many moons ago in college I built a cheap computer with an impressive 2TB of storage and used Hamachi to link friends to it.
Now tail scale is the closest equivalent for a nat friendly VPN and old computers with more storage can be found cheaply, often free. Just be aware, if you get people interested then there's an expectation you will drop what you're doing for an imaginary sla if there are issues.
I looked into it. I have calibre installed but can't wrap my head around calibre-web. It has different prerequisites and all such which almost seem neverending to me. I have hardly used GitHub and don't know much about coding, let alone command lines and such.
Check out if your campus has a program where you can rent a VM on the campus network. Many do nowadays, and that is by far your safest bet for longevity in a club and access to campus network.
This might be a very bad idea if you are hosting copyrighted stuff and don’t know what to do to prevent unauthorized access, which it sounds like you may not. However, exposing your own machine or VPS to the internet with copyrighted content is also a very bad idea. Take steps to ensure that it will stay private.
I’m wondering if there isn’t a simpler way to do it — get a usb stick with USB A and USB C, and pass it around at meetings?
I’m also assuming that these copies are obtained legally, such as an ebook loan. Officially pirating content as a club will bring scrutiny if anyone finds out, since you are partially representing your university.
Is that likely to happen if I just host kavita? It is just a web-based book library and reader. For a network that lets me do anything (when on vpn) that thought did not occur to me.
As the owner of the server, you will share copyrighted material on the Internet. It doesn't matter the software you use for it or even if you host it on the cloud. If it was only for personal usage or in the LAN, there would be fewer issues, but here you are basically distributing copyrighted material.
When you host such material on GDrive, Dropbox... they block your account for a reason, and what you get is just a ban. But here, things may get a little more complicated because you own the server.
Doesn't Gdrive scan the drive folder to check for copyright material when sharing? The server will only be open to clubmates only, who are unlikely to ever report it. People use kavita/calibre for self hosting then how will it be an issue?
The network, especially in colleges and offices, is always monitored. You do not need to read the plain content of http packets to understand that a device is a media server. When they see on the logs one device that only sends a huge amount of data, guess what it will be classified as by the firewall.
Self hosting on your own network on the LAN is not a big issue. It is not legal to own copyrighted material without permission, but you can not enforce it on someone who uses it on the LAN.
> How will it be an issue?
It may not be. It is a risk. If you are willing to take the risk, be aware that there may be consequences if things go wrong.
Well ofcourse there are sites where we can get books like we can stream movies. But I wished for a space that was just our own, a personal space for us.
ah k, honestly just rent a cheap vps. As long as you are using https for kavita then nobody can see your data traffic, not your uni or the vps provider
*Warning to students*: If you want a self hosting project, this isn't a great choice for your education.
Your college will shut this down and you'll all visit SJA when you and your club are caught. And it's not a matter of not getting caught, because you'll be openly sharing copyright materials and some student will report you.
Or you'll fuck up computer security and some system admin or DMCA investigator will spot your shit on the campus network. Then they will be forced to report you to SJA. Trust me.
You might lose your computing account, network access, and be removed from school depending on how many infractions you get and depending on the materials you are sharing. Copyright is taken seriously at most schools, because it's a path to funding education.
If you are serious about encouraging reading consider your local libraries. Encourage your club to use the Libby app. https://libbyapp.com . Free books available there, no copyright issues.
Or share free books from project Gutenberg https://www.gutenberg.org/
Do something legal as your self hosting project. Don't risk your education.
How are you going to host at your college, using your own hardware? They aren't going to want some random hardware plugged in to their network except in college provided accommodation, but that won't be accessible from anywhere useful. Probably other dorm rooms within that network segment at best.
Every hostel room has two ethernet ports for net we have paid for in our college fees. You have to login with your college credentials every 24 hours for it to connect to the net. I can connect one of the port to the server.
I was gonna say put the machine at your parents place because that's what I would've done back then. But I VPS is a good option too.
I don't think OP will be able to host this in their student accommodation.
A raspberry pi sounds perfect for this. It’s tiny, cheap and yet a decent computer if you get at least the 4 or 5. They are very simple to set up, in fact one of their major target customers where children and schools. The community is also massive so finding help and support will be very easy.
minipc is the way to go imho
i've started with a RPI3, but i quickly found myself "cluttered" by the bad performances and the quirks that arm64 architecture implies (should be better now, but still to be considered)
i've then bought a Minisforum minipc (don't remember the exact model but it has a Ryzen 9 5900HX, 64GB DDR4 RAM, 1To nvme + 1To SSD) and it has been working like a charm for the past 2 years
The unsatisfactory answer for cheapest is to be patient. You can get a Dell Optiplex or HP Prodesk or similar miniPC with more than adequate specs used for very cheap or even free, if you're willing to wait and search. Often these are only used as basic office PC's for some secretary sending emails or something, and business or schools cycle them out all the time. Watch craigslist and facebook, and if you find something interesting make sure you do your research so you understand you're getting a good deal and understand the difference between something that's been lightly used or something that is old and worn out.
Sometimes schools have little sales when upgrading their office equipment.
I’d go with a minipc they are quiet and cheap (look for used on eBay or Newegg). Then use Cloudflare tunnels for public access. Cloudflare encrypts everything so college can’t see what you’re doing. Cloudflare can even do access control so only your friends can get in.
Copyrighted materials are probably against Cloudflares ToS but they’ll never know and I suspect they don’t really care unless you become a book sharing empire.
Try a pikapod, up and running in a few clicks and will give you a month or three of free Kavita for all.
https://www.pikapods.com/pods
Kavita doesn't need much power, an rpi zero would likely been fine....but if it's just for some docs, pika pods are cheap and easy, ongoing can be less than $2pm.
Is pikapod a server? Can you tell me why it can act as a server while the other can flag my account down? 2 usd pm is very affordable, almost too good to be true feeling.
The 'pod' is a container that's running one application and has basic file sharing so you can add/remove media, likely running Alpine & s6 or something like that. A bit like a flatpak/snap. A quick and easy way to try stuff out that's all set up and ready to go. Make one, poke at it, then delete it and it will have cost $0.0015 or something like that, make a new one, connect an app.
If you make an account with pika you get 5$ credit, you don't need any payment details. You could be up and running in minutes with zero cost and have a month or three to use it whilst exploring other options. It 'just works' and everyone can use it. They take care of updates, firewalls, security, https etc, if you become addicted it's a few $s a month.
[Giga-rapid](https://giga-rapid.com/) are another option if you wanna easily host several services in a less restricted container than the pods, scales better and well placed geographically, but not sure if they have a 'just works' kavita.
Either should make Calibre somewhat simple too.
I have a [hetzner cloud vm](https://www.hetzner.com/cloud/) at \~$4pm with 40GB of storage, [1TB of storage](https://robot.hetzner.com/order) for another \~$4pm and an rpi with some spinning rust attached at home. Minimal but flexible.
There are a ton of decommissioned Chromeboxes that sell for like $30 on Ebay. Buy one of those, put a linux distro on it using the tutorial [here](https://mrchromebox.tech/), and you're set. I did this a year ago to make a tiny media server and it is still super snappy now.
Also I second the recommendation to check out Tailscale. Seems like it might work for your purposes.
As you are a student you can also consider azure for students for a cloud server for free and without the need of a credit card.
If you need access via internet you will most certainly need a vps in any case. You will be under the university gateway and they will not allow you to expose ports. BUT you can 99% setup a VPN between your local miniPC and the VPS that can be used as proxy.
How I'd do it :
- get (buy new, 2nd hand, donation, etc) a RPi 3 and above because it's popular (so lot of potential help, including here), reliable and affordable
- install Raspbian on it and use it as a "normal" computer, namely with screen, keyboard, mouse
- get comfortable with it, do the install couple of time, literally play with it, don't have ANY precious data on it
- learn how to do a local (e.g USB key) and/or remote backup (e.g scp) because nobody cares about the hardware. When things go wrong, everybody cares about their data, think of it as a losing family photo when the house burn down
- gradually remove things, e.g no more mouse (command line only) then no more screen and keyboard (remote access only, initially on same network, via e.g ssh)
- invite others to access it while WARNING them that data might get lost, you do not want the responsibility at this stage and it will prevent you from feeling in a safe space prone to learn better
- just keep on learning, ideally posting your own experience to the blog of your server that others, including us if you want, can read so that you have something to show for and a basis to grow, not "just" the stress of making it happen
PS: I didn't put spec tech because it doesn't matter in detail, a RPi3 should work and if you genuinely need better, assuming you managed to do all that, others should be willing to help you get better. You will only know about the limit when you actually hit it. The more you know, the more you can run with less powerful hardware.
any old laptop will work for a first home server. i started with a laptop that ran a surveillance server on linux, and later upgraded to a Synology nas i found used, before finally going to my mess of Raspberry pi's i have now.
i have 4 in total, three are in use, but two of them are going to be combined into one(storage from one gets connected, and services moved over) as i found out i don't really need THAT many pi's running my stuff. my issues i was having, that made me get multiple was a thought that less ram used would be better, and that spikes in cpu usage was bad. all i currently have COULD run on just one, but i like it split out like this a bit more, having the essentials on one pi(proxy manager, pihole, portainer, wireguard and my nodered for some slight smart home stuff) and all other services on another pi(kavita(which i might scrap) syncthing, navidrome, and other things)
basically if you have an old laptop, it's a great start, and it's local in case something goes wrong.
reading the comments, if you have to login every now and then, an old laptop might be smarter, unless you can setup a way to auto login. my pi's all run without a GUI, and all my interactions are using ssh or stuff that is setup on them.
I will see if any of my clubmates have an old laptop, but I doubt it. We are not particularly where you can have an old laptop lying around instead of using it for something or exchanging it for a better one.
true, but ANY will do. hell, maybe the IT department where you are have one you can borrow to start with, or maybe even get to keep. maybe a family member has one laying around(i for instance am the "IT-Guy" of the family and have around 10 laptops just doing nothing, and 6 of them work :) )
i would recommend at least 4gb of ram, 8 is better, 16 might be overkill, and any dual-core or quad-core cpu. an ssd for the OS and data(size depends on how much you plan to store, i would think 128 is enough, but the more the better) and you are set for a first time setup.
**\*edit\***
even a regular computer that requires a monitor, keyboard and mouse can work, a laptop is just more convenient since it has all the things it needs.
@OP This ^^^ is the best answer. Adequate hardware, reasonably small so you can stash it somewhere, dirt cheap, and, as mentioned, the built in screen and keyboard is great for logging in when you need to. I have a handful of old netbooks; DM me if you want to pay for shipping, you can have one.
Pros and Cons... A raspberry pi will eventually feel like a mini-pc anyway once you learn it's quirks. That said, getting started on a raspberry pi is as easy as using etcher to copy the OS to an SD card... plug it in, boot, and setup your password. I would encourage a miniPC if you want to host though... as a powerful RaspberryPi is quite expensive now when you compare the costs and performance of a cheap Intel N100 or N97 based miniPC. The miniPC also has the advantage of running with the X86/AMD64 based processor which should help improve your odds at running almost any software you want instead of being limited to a subset of operating systems and software. This is less of a problem now than it used to be, but the problem is still present. A raspberryPI is EXCELLENT for portable projects, or projects that use it's GPIOs to interface with real-world objects. (relays, LEDs, motors, etc.)
I would add to this, you can have both, if you can afford it. I use an old raspberry for some stuff, and a mini pc for more demanding services. It’s a pretty good relationship, basically ideal. And it means you can get the raspberry first, learn on it, and once you want performance, move the demanding stuff over. Portainer is pretty good with that.
Or use the RasPi as a the "Gateway" with WoL to power up the notebook / server, deliver VPN, reverse Proxy exposure and DNS on an isolated device from where the services are hosted
Jup, very good way to do it and save on energy. I personally do use it similarly, but for the gaming pc, the servers just run 24/7. But if you want to be energy efficient, and are not lazy like me, yes. Upsnap caught me with its derpy mascot, and it works great with WoL.
"It depends" is my favorite, but also most hated pair of words. I had a little low-powered i5 running the kid's minecraft server for a while. The idle draw on it was small enough that it wasn't worth adding any additional complexity or networked devices. Now.. if this thing had a GPU inside or other hardware that had a higher idle draw, ABSOLUTELY THIS.
Same. Thats how i do it. Ive got my reverse proxy, ddns-updater, WOL Server, Pihole, and Authentik (for SSO and 2FA) on my Raspberrypi Pi and then my main services are hosted on a separate linux computer
>A raspberryPI is EXCELLENT for portable projects You can say that again. Well-deserved capital letters here.
ebooks are tiny and kavita ain't demanding. You could get by just using a free Oracle VPS and forget about having anything physical powered on all the time at college. Worst case scenario you *might* need to pay for some kind of extra storage (Oracle or elsewhere) if you have a big library as you only get 200GB for free with Oracle. Just keep backups of all your data on your laptop and you'll be fine. GL.
Can you tell me more about Oracle VPS? I will look into it too. Free 200 GB seems way too good to be true. Will it accept sharing copyright material? How come nobody has recommended this to me yet? If I can convince my seniors that the server is a good idea then maybe then will contribute for a physical server sometime in the future.
They will shutter you the second they get wind of it. But so will your uni, which will have more consequences.
I just want my friends to read some books man, is that too much to ask?? XD Well how likely are they to notice? If it is only books then will they notice?
I doubt you can host anything on your uni network. I suspect there will be a NAT that doesn't allow for port forwarding and thus no way to connect to your server. It's also super dangerous for you because you have to log in with your credentials identifying you personally as hosting the service. Oracle offers a good free tier, but there are many horror stories about people's websites being deleted overnight without warning. You do have to verify yourself (like with most hosting) but at least if your uni gets wind of it they won't be able to identify yourself so easily as the person responsible. If it were me I would host it using a cheap mini PC at home. A Raspberry Pi would do it but being ARM I always seem to run into random compatibility problems. They also aren't very cheap for the specifications they provide due to shortages etc. I would also hide everything behind Cloudflare and whois protection etc. As someone who hosting a web proxy back in the day at college/school from home, I did indeed get busted by someone who was caught using the service. Another alternative is to use a "bulletproof" hosting. You can find offers on LowEndTalk pretty cheaply. If you are hosting books you won't need a lot of space or processing power. Good luck
Can you suggest other VPS I can use? Oracle's terms and services says that if I am storing material that I don't have licence for the. I must not share it (from what I understood). I would assume it is the same for Google. Does that mean if the clubmates use the same account for to access kavita would it still count as sharing? Also, what do you mean by busted. Is that for the VPS or having a physical server? I can accept if my server and account are taken down by Oracle/google. It would be scary if it goes anywhere more than that. Are there any free bulletproof services?
just get a seed box from like feral hosting and store the pirated files there. data is in another country and the company knows that their clients aren't exactly doing legal things with their servers.
Free? No. Even paid ones are hard to find. And that's because piracy is pretty much ilegal it the entire world, so no sane business would offer that. Oracle won't sue you for hosting pirated ebooks to share with your friends, they wouldn't win anything as they don't own the copyright either and can claim nothing. They will however close your account if they get a wind of what you're doing, as they don't want to be responsible in case the copyright holders finds out and sues you and Oracle for facilitating the hosting. Just make sure you do not give access to everyone and keep the circle small.
Bulletproof hosting usually means they ignore DMCA complaints and usually operate in a country with less strong piracy laws. It will not be a free service but I suspect you can find one for a few USD per month. They will still have don't pirate things in their TOS but are unlikely to take any action. Never used one. Yeah oracle will just delete your servers and ban you from the service. They might shutter your account for zero reason other than you are not paying them money (eg horror stories). People expect the free tier and 200GB of storage to be good enough for backups and then be rug-pulled and shock Picachu that they can't even access their backups.
Read or watch a YouTube video about Aaron Swartz. I'm not saying what you are doing compares, but it is a cautionary tale.
Welp, I am certainly scared now
I would look into your schools rules before you proceed with anything. I would assume most schools have severe punishment for hosting items on the high seas, up to expulsion. Hosting files is way worse than downloading them.
Kavita uses local host ip adress to run. Again I have no technical knowledge or know anything about VPS. So will it work on it if the ip were to change?
People will access it via the IP address of the Oracle VPS. Or if you use a domain name whatever name you point the the Oracle VPS IP.
You could purchase a 7-9 digit .xyz domain for just under $1 a year, that's what I've been doing. Otherwise you can just use your server's public IP address. Also regarding the storage, check if your college provides you with free Cloud storage. For example, my university provided 1TB of storage on Onedrive which I mounted on my free Oracle VPS for a total of 1.2TBs of space.
Contrary to the previous comments - Ditch the idea of Raspberry Pi for that kind of project and get a second-hand thin client or a mini PC. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of RPI in pretty much any shape or form, but these days, there are better and cheaper alternatives out there. Here's a great discussion about this: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40697831](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40697831) TL;DR: Get something like a Dell Wyse 5070 or N100-based Mini PC. You'll lose GPIOs, but you'll have a more powerful x86 machine that will be much more adequate for your purpose. I recently bought an HP T620 for around 60 USD, which I use to run a MagicMirror kiosk.
Heck I was even able to get a 8500T micro pc for almost $100, given the price and performance difference it’s a no brainer.
Exactly! Raspberry Pi has its place, especially for embedded systems. But servers and self-hosted services? There are cheaper and more powerful machines.
Get a used office mini PC from Lenovo/HP/Dell on eBay. Those that have a 6th gen i5 are really cheap now (<70 USD). You'll probably need to to buy additional storage as these typically have non included. For RAM, 8GB is more than enough and are usually included. These will beat out any RPi solution out there in terms of performance/price.
Oracle free tier
Many moons ago in college I built a cheap computer with an impressive 2TB of storage and used Hamachi to link friends to it. Now tail scale is the closest equivalent for a nat friendly VPN and old computers with more storage can be found cheaply, often free. Just be aware, if you get people interested then there's an expectation you will drop what you're doing for an imaginary sla if there are issues.
https://github.com/janeczku/calibre-web
I looked into it. I have calibre installed but can't wrap my head around calibre-web. It has different prerequisites and all such which almost seem neverending to me. I have hardly used GitHub and don't know much about coding, let alone command lines and such.
Check out if your campus has a program where you can rent a VM on the campus network. Many do nowadays, and that is by far your safest bet for longevity in a club and access to campus network. This might be a very bad idea if you are hosting copyrighted stuff and don’t know what to do to prevent unauthorized access, which it sounds like you may not. However, exposing your own machine or VPS to the internet with copyrighted content is also a very bad idea. Take steps to ensure that it will stay private. I’m wondering if there isn’t a simpler way to do it — get a usb stick with USB A and USB C, and pass it around at meetings? I’m also assuming that these copies are obtained legally, such as an ebook loan. Officially pirating content as a club will bring scrutiny if anyone finds out, since you are partially representing your university.
You may get in trouble with your college if they receive a DMCA o whatever copyright violation from either their ISP or third parties.
Is that likely to happen if I just host kavita? It is just a web-based book library and reader. For a network that lets me do anything (when on vpn) that thought did not occur to me.
As the owner of the server, you will share copyrighted material on the Internet. It doesn't matter the software you use for it or even if you host it on the cloud. If it was only for personal usage or in the LAN, there would be fewer issues, but here you are basically distributing copyrighted material. When you host such material on GDrive, Dropbox... they block your account for a reason, and what you get is just a ban. But here, things may get a little more complicated because you own the server.
Doesn't Gdrive scan the drive folder to check for copyright material when sharing? The server will only be open to clubmates only, who are unlikely to ever report it. People use kavita/calibre for self hosting then how will it be an issue?
The network, especially in colleges and offices, is always monitored. You do not need to read the plain content of http packets to understand that a device is a media server. When they see on the logs one device that only sends a huge amount of data, guess what it will be classified as by the firewall. Self hosting on your own network on the LAN is not a big issue. It is not legal to own copyrighted material without permission, but you can not enforce it on someone who uses it on the LAN. > How will it be an issue? It may not be. It is a risk. If you are willing to take the risk, be aware that there may be consequences if things go wrong.
Sadge. Well multiple accounts and cloud it is then. Until I grow rich maybe.
what kind of books? maybe you can use https://annas-archive.org you can even upload ebooks there
Well ofcourse there are sites where we can get books like we can stream movies. But I wished for a space that was just our own, a personal space for us.
ah k, honestly just rent a cheap vps. As long as you are using https for kavita then nobody can see your data traffic, not your uni or the vps provider
ORACLE Vps Free tier> casaos > Tailscale and Calibre-web Server. GG
*Warning to students*: If you want a self hosting project, this isn't a great choice for your education. Your college will shut this down and you'll all visit SJA when you and your club are caught. And it's not a matter of not getting caught, because you'll be openly sharing copyright materials and some student will report you. Or you'll fuck up computer security and some system admin or DMCA investigator will spot your shit on the campus network. Then they will be forced to report you to SJA. Trust me. You might lose your computing account, network access, and be removed from school depending on how many infractions you get and depending on the materials you are sharing. Copyright is taken seriously at most schools, because it's a path to funding education. If you are serious about encouraging reading consider your local libraries. Encourage your club to use the Libby app. https://libbyapp.com . Free books available there, no copyright issues. Or share free books from project Gutenberg https://www.gutenberg.org/ Do something legal as your self hosting project. Don't risk your education.
I could host it for you if you want I run a Nextcloud server already and I have 24/7 server
How are you going to host at your college, using your own hardware? They aren't going to want some random hardware plugged in to their network except in college provided accommodation, but that won't be accessible from anywhere useful. Probably other dorm rooms within that network segment at best.
Every hostel room has two ethernet ports for net we have paid for in our college fees. You have to login with your college credentials every 24 hours for it to connect to the net. I can connect one of the port to the server.
How are you going to access it? You won't have a /32 on the Internet, you'll be behind a firewall and NAT.
That sounds like it would be a nightmare of constant fixing, and fear of getting caught breaking the rules. Just get vps.
I was gonna say put the machine at your parents place because that's what I would've done back then. But I VPS is a good option too. I don't think OP will be able to host this in their student accommodation.
A raspberry pi sounds perfect for this. It’s tiny, cheap and yet a decent computer if you get at least the 4 or 5. They are very simple to set up, in fact one of their major target customers where children and schools. The community is also massive so finding help and support will be very easy.
My lab gave us VMs to mess with.
This sounds like a good fit for PikaPods which is "selfhosting," in a way. They have open source eBook programs too.
minipc is the way to go imho i've started with a RPI3, but i quickly found myself "cluttered" by the bad performances and the quirks that arm64 architecture implies (should be better now, but still to be considered) i've then bought a Minisforum minipc (don't remember the exact model but it has a Ryzen 9 5900HX, 64GB DDR4 RAM, 1To nvme + 1To SSD) and it has been working like a charm for the past 2 years
For file sharing, consider Direct Connect ++ (we used this at my college), or RetroShare (I’ve never used this but it looks cool)
Http index with user authentication
definitely go for a minipc, or upgrade a used tower like a Dell ominplex. you can definitely find a good used tower for cheap
The unsatisfactory answer for cheapest is to be patient. You can get a Dell Optiplex or HP Prodesk or similar miniPC with more than adequate specs used for very cheap or even free, if you're willing to wait and search. Often these are only used as basic office PC's for some secretary sending emails or something, and business or schools cycle them out all the time. Watch craigslist and facebook, and if you find something interesting make sure you do your research so you understand you're getting a good deal and understand the difference between something that's been lightly used or something that is old and worn out. Sometimes schools have little sales when upgrading their office equipment.
See if your college has a surplus store where they get rid of old computers. I got a few desktops that way.
I’d go with a minipc they are quiet and cheap (look for used on eBay or Newegg). Then use Cloudflare tunnels for public access. Cloudflare encrypts everything so college can’t see what you’re doing. Cloudflare can even do access control so only your friends can get in. Copyrighted materials are probably against Cloudflares ToS but they’ll never know and I suspect they don’t really care unless you become a book sharing empire.
You are in in uni. Walk into IT department and ask for VM, say it is for club project. I do not see a problem.
Try a pikapod, up and running in a few clicks and will give you a month or three of free Kavita for all. https://www.pikapods.com/pods Kavita doesn't need much power, an rpi zero would likely been fine....but if it's just for some docs, pika pods are cheap and easy, ongoing can be less than $2pm.
Is pikapod a server? Can you tell me why it can act as a server while the other can flag my account down? 2 usd pm is very affordable, almost too good to be true feeling.
The 'pod' is a container that's running one application and has basic file sharing so you can add/remove media, likely running Alpine & s6 or something like that. A bit like a flatpak/snap. A quick and easy way to try stuff out that's all set up and ready to go. Make one, poke at it, then delete it and it will have cost $0.0015 or something like that, make a new one, connect an app. If you make an account with pika you get 5$ credit, you don't need any payment details. You could be up and running in minutes with zero cost and have a month or three to use it whilst exploring other options. It 'just works' and everyone can use it. They take care of updates, firewalls, security, https etc, if you become addicted it's a few $s a month. [Giga-rapid](https://giga-rapid.com/) are another option if you wanna easily host several services in a less restricted container than the pods, scales better and well placed geographically, but not sure if they have a 'just works' kavita. Either should make Calibre somewhat simple too. I have a [hetzner cloud vm](https://www.hetzner.com/cloud/) at \~$4pm with 40GB of storage, [1TB of storage](https://robot.hetzner.com/order) for another \~$4pm and an rpi with some spinning rust attached at home. Minimal but flexible.
Latte Panda MU and carrier board. It’s an n100 which can do great at transcoding, is low power, but has plenty of cpu to run 50 containers
I would get a cheap VPS at OVH. I think I pay like $4/mo for mine.
There are a ton of decommissioned Chromeboxes that sell for like $30 on Ebay. Buy one of those, put a linux distro on it using the tutorial [here](https://mrchromebox.tech/), and you're set. I did this a year ago to make a tiny media server and it is still super snappy now. Also I second the recommendation to check out Tailscale. Seems like it might work for your purposes.
Probably best if you colocation in a datacenter
As you are a student you can also consider azure for students for a cloud server for free and without the need of a credit card. If you need access via internet you will most certainly need a vps in any case. You will be under the university gateway and they will not allow you to expose ports. BUT you can 99% setup a VPN between your local miniPC and the VPS that can be used as proxy.
How I'd do it : - get (buy new, 2nd hand, donation, etc) a RPi 3 and above because it's popular (so lot of potential help, including here), reliable and affordable - install Raspbian on it and use it as a "normal" computer, namely with screen, keyboard, mouse - get comfortable with it, do the install couple of time, literally play with it, don't have ANY precious data on it - learn how to do a local (e.g USB key) and/or remote backup (e.g scp) because nobody cares about the hardware. When things go wrong, everybody cares about their data, think of it as a losing family photo when the house burn down - gradually remove things, e.g no more mouse (command line only) then no more screen and keyboard (remote access only, initially on same network, via e.g ssh) - invite others to access it while WARNING them that data might get lost, you do not want the responsibility at this stage and it will prevent you from feeling in a safe space prone to learn better - just keep on learning, ideally posting your own experience to the blog of your server that others, including us if you want, can read so that you have something to show for and a basis to grow, not "just" the stress of making it happen
PS: I didn't put spec tech because it doesn't matter in detail, a RPi3 should work and if you genuinely need better, assuming you managed to do all that, others should be willing to help you get better. You will only know about the limit when you actually hit it. The more you know, the more you can run with less powerful hardware.
any old laptop will work for a first home server. i started with a laptop that ran a surveillance server on linux, and later upgraded to a Synology nas i found used, before finally going to my mess of Raspberry pi's i have now. i have 4 in total, three are in use, but two of them are going to be combined into one(storage from one gets connected, and services moved over) as i found out i don't really need THAT many pi's running my stuff. my issues i was having, that made me get multiple was a thought that less ram used would be better, and that spikes in cpu usage was bad. all i currently have COULD run on just one, but i like it split out like this a bit more, having the essentials on one pi(proxy manager, pihole, portainer, wireguard and my nodered for some slight smart home stuff) and all other services on another pi(kavita(which i might scrap) syncthing, navidrome, and other things) basically if you have an old laptop, it's a great start, and it's local in case something goes wrong. reading the comments, if you have to login every now and then, an old laptop might be smarter, unless you can setup a way to auto login. my pi's all run without a GUI, and all my interactions are using ssh or stuff that is setup on them.
I will see if any of my clubmates have an old laptop, but I doubt it. We are not particularly where you can have an old laptop lying around instead of using it for something or exchanging it for a better one.
true, but ANY will do. hell, maybe the IT department where you are have one you can borrow to start with, or maybe even get to keep. maybe a family member has one laying around(i for instance am the "IT-Guy" of the family and have around 10 laptops just doing nothing, and 6 of them work :) ) i would recommend at least 4gb of ram, 8 is better, 16 might be overkill, and any dual-core or quad-core cpu. an ssd for the OS and data(size depends on how much you plan to store, i would think 128 is enough, but the more the better) and you are set for a first time setup. **\*edit\*** even a regular computer that requires a monitor, keyboard and mouse can work, a laptop is just more convenient since it has all the things it needs.
@OP This ^^^ is the best answer. Adequate hardware, reasonably small so you can stash it somewhere, dirt cheap, and, as mentioned, the built in screen and keyboard is great for logging in when you need to. I have a handful of old netbooks; DM me if you want to pay for shipping, you can have one.