BicBucStriim

BicBucStriim streams books, digital books. It fills a gap in the functionality of current NAS devices that provide access to music, videos and photos -- but not books. BicBucStriim fills this gap and provides web-based access to your e-book collection.

BicBucStriim was created when I bought a NAS device (Synology DS 512+) to store my media on it. NAS devices like the Synology DS typically include media servers that publish audio, video, photos, so that you can access your media from all kinds of devices (TV, smart phone, laptop ...) inside the house, which is very convenient. Unfortunately there is nothing like that for e-books. So BicBucStriim was created.

BicBucStriim is a simple PHP application that runs in the Apache/PHP environment provided by the NAS. It assumes that you manage your e-book collection with Calibre. The application reads the Calibre data and publishes it in HTML form. To access the e-book catalog you simply point your ebook reader to your NAS, select one of your e-books and download it.

Features & Issues

shows the most recent titles on the index page
provides listing/filtering/searching of book titles, authors, tags and series
shows detail pages (including download links) for authors and books
speaks Dutch, English, French, German
is ready for mobile clients (tested with Kindle, iPhone, iPad)
provides a download protection for books (optional, think "parental control")
provides OPDS book catalogs for reading apps like Stanza
has an admin GUI for configuration
book download for OPDS is only possible when download protection is off

Install

The easy way assumes that BicBucStriim lives right below the web root of your device and can be addressed like http://<your ip>/bbs/:

Download an installation archive.
Unarchive the downloaded archive below the web server root of your NAS (e.g. "/volume1/web" on a Synology device).
Rename the newly created directory (e.g. BicBucStriim-0.8.0.zip) to "bbs".
NOTE: If you don't want to use the directory name bbs simply change the included .htaccess file accordingly
The "data" directory and its contents must be writeable for all. Depending on your method of unarchiving this might be already the case. However, in case you experience access error just use a terminal to correct this: chmod -R ga+w data.
BicBucStriim should now be working, start your web browser and navigate to http://<address of your NAS>/bbs/
A freshly installed BicBucStriim app will show you the admin section, where you will have tell the app where your Calibre library is located. Everything else is optional. Just have a look.
OPDS catalogs are availabe at http://.../bbs/opds/

NOTE (for developers): the installation archives contain generated files, which are not immediately available in the source tree, git tarballs. This will hopefully change in the future.

Upgrading

If you are already using BicBucStriim and don't want to lose your configuration and thumbnails:

Backup your old BicBucStriim installation, eg. mv bbs bbs.old
Install the new version
Remove the data directory, eg. rm -rf bbs/data
Copy our old data directory, eg. cp -R bbs.old/data bbs
Use chmod -R ga+w bbs/data to correct the permissions after copying

After that BicBucStriim should work again.

Troubleshooting

If you encounter problems, use the installation test to check your environment. Invoke this test by navigating to http://<NAS address>/bbs/installcheck.php. This test checks for problems that users experienced in the past.

Requirements

Apache web server with PHP 5.2+ and sqlite3 support
Optional: if mcrypt is available cookies will be encrypted

License

BicBucStriim itself is licensed under the MIT license, for the licenses of the libraries used see the file NOTICE.

(The MIT License)

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the 'Software'), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED 'AS IS', WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

Fizcus / BicBucStriim