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Cloud over ocean

Installing Booksonic Air in the cloud for cheap

Posted on September 23, 2020December 25, 2021 by Patrik "Popeen" Johansson

If you prefer video format tutorials this is also available as a youtube video here

Before we get too deep into this guide I just want to clarify what I mean with cloud in this instance as the term can be kind of vague.

The cloud we are talking about here is not Google Drive, Dropbox etc, it is simply a Linux machine that you don’t have to host at home, what I am talking about here is a VPS, aka a Virtual Private Server.

Getting a server

Ok, with that out of the way lets get started.
Since I started Booksonic I have been on the lookout for VPS providers that can give you the amount of storage needed for audiobooks without having to pay hundreds of dollars and let me tell you, they are few and far between.

I am currently using two different providers that I can recommend, Interserver and Contabo
On Interserver use the code BOOKSONIC to get the first month for $0.01

If you went with Contabo then here comes the hard part, the wait. As far as I can tell they setup your server manually the first time, in my case this has usually taken about 2 hours but it can probably vary. In the meantime go grab a coffee and watch a good movie. Interserver will automatically set up the server for you and it will be ready in a few minutes.

Installing dependencies

Once the Contabo installation is done you will receive and email that contains something like this. This is your server info. For Interserver you can see the info on the control panel.

If you are on a Windows computer open up Powershell from the start menu, if you are on Linux or Mac you open up the terminal instead, the commands should be the same.

In Powershell enter the following command, this will give you access to your new Ubuntu server. Replace IPADDRESS with the address from your email.

ssh root@IPADDRESS

It will ask you if your trust the fingerprint, answer yes

You will be asked to enter your password, enter the one that is just called password in your email. Something that can be a bit weird for Windows users is that it won’t show you when you type your password but don’t worry just type it anyway and press enter.

The first thing we want to do is change the default password on your box, you do that by typing the command and follow the instructions

passwd

Now that the password is changed to something of your own we can get started with preparing the dependencies and folders. The first thing we need is to install something called docker. We do this by typing the following command

apt install docker.io

Next we need to create a few folders where we are going to put our files. We do this by typing

mkdir /booksonic
mkdir /booksonic/config
mkdir /audiobooks
mkdir /podcasts

That’s it, easy huh. Now lets do what you came here for, install Booksonic Air.

Installing Booksonic

docker create --name=booksonic-air -p 80:4040 -v /booksonic/config:/config -v /audiobooks:/audiobooks -v /podcasts:/podcasts --restart unless-stopped linuxserver/booksonic-air

That’s it, now you have installed Booksonic, but you still need to start it. You can start it by running the command

docker start booksonic-air

Configuring Booksonic

I won’t be doing a full configuration guide here but there are a few things you need to change in the server to get it working.

Open your browser and in the address field enter the IP address of your server. Sign in with the admin account. Both the username and password is admin.

The first thing you need to do is change your admin password, you can do so from settings -> users

Once you have changed your password you will be signed out and have to sign in again with your new password

Head back to settings, change the folder to /audiobooks
Then hit save

Securing your server

Yeah, I know this is a bit boring but it is really really important, right now your server is not using a firewall, that is a really really bad thing. So lets enable the firewall.

ufw allow 22
ufw allow 80
ufw enable

What did we just do? We just created two rules for ports that should be open and then we enabled the firewall. Port 22 is used by SSH, the tool you are using to control your server, if you had not allowed this you would have lost the connection as soon as the firewall was turned on. Port 80 is the standard port on the web, it is allowed so you can connect to the Booksonic server.

And now at last we are done!

But, how do I upload my audiobooks to the server?

Ah, good question. You do it over sftp, you can use any sftp client you want but if you don’t already have one I can recommend FileZilla.

The Host is the server address, Username is root, Password is the one you set before and Port is 22.

If you are using FileZilla, on the right side, set “Remote site:” to /audiobooks and press enter, then you can drag and drop your audiobook library in the window.

That’s it folks! Should you need any more help or think that something important is missing from the guide, feel free to reach out to me at support@booksonic.org, in the comments below or at the Booksonic Subreddit


Obs, if you click the Interserver or Contabo links in this guide and rent a server I will receive a small commission at no extra cost to you, this has not influenced my decision to recommend them in any way, they are what I use personally and what the Booksonic demo is hosted on.

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About

Patrik Johansson
Senior System Administrator

Working with a wide flora of systems but with a focus on Configuration Manager (MEMCM/SCCM).

This blog is mainly for “home IT” and selfhosting, you can find my more Sysadmin related posts over at my other blog Scriptingnerd.com

Passionate about Powershell and building tools that are easy to use for everyone.
In my spare time I work on other coding projects as well, mainly Booksonic

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My Hobby Projects

Booksonic Stream audiobooks to your phone.
 
Luncha i Mjärdevi See what is served for lunch at Mjardevi Science Park today
 
ScriptingNerd My blog for everything windows sysadmin

Recent Posts

  • How I fixed a bootloop when flashing magisk after upgrading Lineage OS
  • How I upgraded the Lenovo 4 10 Plus to Android 11 and passed SafetyNet
  • Installing Booksonic Air in the cloud for cheap
  • Migrating users and settings from Bookonic Legacy Server to Booksonic Air
  • How to install Booksonic Air on Windows 10

Affiliates

These are affiliate links, if you click on them and buy something I may earn a small amount of money without any additional cost to you. Any links found here are for products I am using myself and can stand by.
 

InterServer
Very cheap SSD/HDD based virtual servers (VPS). Starting at $6/month for 1TB. Use coupon code BOOKSONIC and get the first month for just 1 cent. I have recently started using intersever for personal projects and so far I am very happy with them.

 

Contabo
Cheap HDD/SSD/NVMe based Virtual servers (VPS)
I have used Contabo for years both for my private needs as well as to host the booksonic demo server

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