Productivity Applications

Reference information for client/server productivity applications

Bookstack
Mealie
NextCloud
Vaultwarden

Bookstack

BookStack is a simple, self-hosted, easy-to-use platform for organising and storing information.

I rebranded my Bookstack instance to MyWiki and originally intended to use it only for my personal reference and possibly some journalling. I still use it for referencing but I am building it out as a "knowledge-base library" so others may benefit. If you're here, you probably figured that out already 🙂

Screenshot from 2023-03-29 02-08-15.png

Installation

To install Bookstack, you will need Docker installed at a minimum and optimally Docker Compose as well. This installation guide assumes you are installing Bookstack on Ubuntu 22.04 and you have both Docker and Docker Compose installed.

If you do not have Docker and Docker Compose installed, you can follow my guides for doing so by clicking these links:

You don't have to install Bookstack using containers. It's just my preference. You can see all the installation methods by going to Bookstack's official installation web page.

I am using a pre-built container from LinuxServer.io.

You gain access to the relevant container images via a Docker Compose YAML file. You will need to edit various parameters to configure Bookstack and your Bookstack database.

Container images are configured using parameters passed at runtime. These parameters are separated by a colon and indicate <external>:<internal> respectively. For example, -p 8080:80 would expose port 80 from inside the container to be accessible from the host's IP on port 8080 outside the container.

Step 1 - Create a directory to store your docker-compose.yml file.

sudo mkdir /docker/bookstack

Step 2 - Create and open your docker-compose.yml for editing

cd /docker/bookstack
touch docker-compose.yml
nano docker-compose.yml

Step 3 - Copy and paste the following Docker Compose file template into your docker-compose.yml file.

---
version: "2"
services:
  bookstack:
    image: lscr.io/linuxserver/bookstack
    container_name: bookstack
    environment:
      - PUID=1000
      - PGID=1000
      - APP_URL=
      - DB_HOST=bookstack_db
      - DB_PORT=3306
      - DB_USER=bookstack
      - DB_PASS=<yourdbpass>
      - DB_DATABASE=bookstackapp
    volumes:
      - /path/to/data:/config
    ports:
      - 6875:80
    restart: unless-stopped
    depends_on:
      - bookstack_db
  bookstack_db:
    image: lscr.io/linuxserver/mariadb
    container_name: bookstack_db
    environment:
      - PUID=1000
      - PGID=1000
      - MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=<yourdbpass>
      - TZ=Europe/London
      - MYSQL_DATABASE=bookstackapp
      - MYSQL_USER=bookstack
      - MYSQL_PASSWORD=<yourdbpass>
    volumes:
      - /path/to/data:/config
    restart: unless-stopped

Step 4 - Edit the file, changing the relevant portions of the template as outlined below:

Change the PUID & GUID if you want another user or group to manage Bookstack. Leave it as it is in the template to use your current username and group.
The APP_URL variable is for specifying the IP:port or URL your application will be accessed on (ie. http://192.168.1.1:6875 or https://bookstack.mydomain.com ). If nothing is specified, the installation computer's IP address will be the default.
Change the TZ environment variable to reflect your timezone.

Go HERE to find your timezone

Change DB_USER and MYSQL_USER to whatever you want, but both need to be the same user OR you can leave both as 'bookstack'.
Change DB_PASS and MYSQL_PASSWORD to a long, strong password. Both variables need to match one another.
Under the volumes section, change '/path/to/data' to the path of the directory where you will store your Bookstack configuration data.

Make sure the user and group you specified in your PUID & GUID has read and write permissions to the path and directory you specify.

You can also change the port you will use to access Bookstack. The default port is 6875. You really only need to change this if that port is already in use on the computer on which you are installing Bookstack.

Once you have your docker-compose.yml configured and saved, you can start your Bookstack instance by typing:

docker compose up -d

or, if using an older version of Docker Compose:

docker-compose up -d

You must run the command from the directory where you saved your docker-compose.yml file.

Access to Bookstack

From a web browser on the computer where you installed Bookstack, enter the following URL:

http://localhost:6875

If you changed the default port from 6875 to something else, you will need to specify it in your URL

If you are on a different computer than the one where you installed bookstack. change localhost to reflect the IP address or domain name of the computer where Bookstack is installed.

Mealie

Screenshot 2023-03-29 at 01-45-43 Mealie.io.png

Mealie is a self hosted recipe manager and meal planner with a RestAPI backend and a reactive frontend application built in Vue for a pleasant user experience for the whole family. Easily add recipes into your database by providing the url and Mealie will automatically import the relevant data or add a family recipe with the UI editor. Mealie also provides an API for interactions from 3rd party applications.

Key Features

🔍 Fuzzy search
🏷️ Tag recipes with categories or tags to flexible sorting
🕸 Import recipes from around the web by URL
📱 Progressive Web App
📆 Create Meal Plans
🛒 Generate shopping lists
🐳 Easy setup with Docker
🎨 Customize your interface with color themes layouts
💾 Export all your data in any format with Jinja2 Templates, with easy data restoration from the user interface.
🌍 localized in many languages
➕ Plus tons more!
- Flexible API
  - Custom key/value pairs for recipes
  - Webhook support
  - Interactive API Documentation
- Raw JSON Recipe Editor
- Migration from other platforms
  - Chowdown
  - Nextcloud Cookbook
- Random meal plan generation

NextCloud

Screenshot from 2023-03-29 01-56-17.png

Nextcloud is the industry-leading, fully open-source, on-premises (self-hosted) content collaboration platform. Teams access, share and edit their documents, chat and participate in video calls and manage their mail and calendar and projects across mobile, desktop and web interfaces.

Hub integrates the four key Nextcloud products Files, Talk, Groupware and Office into a single platform, optimizing the flow of collaboration. Eliminate the confusing hodgepodge of different SaaS tools and the compliance, security, cost and productivity issues that come with it and standardize on a single solution with Nextcloud Hub.

Vaultwarden

Vaultwarden is an alternative self-hosted implementation of Bitwarden. It is compatible with all upstream Bitwarden clients

Bitwarden is an open-source password management service that stores sensitive information such as website credentials in an encrypted vault. The platform offers a variety of client applications including a web interface, desktop applications, browser extensions, mobile apps, and a command-line interface.

Installation

Pull the docker image and mount a volume from the host for persistent storage:

docker pull vaultwarden/server:latest
docker run -d --name vaultwarden -v /vw-data/:/data/ -p 80:80 vaultwarden/server:latest

Change /vw-data/ to the path where you will store your vaultwarden data locally.

Change the port if you are already using port 80 for another service on the installation computer. For example, from 80:80 to 8181:80

If you are installing on a Linux server, you can verify what ports are in use by using this command

sudo ss -ltn

It is highly recommended to secure your Vaultwarden server using a TLS certificate. If you have an available domain name, you can get HTTPS certificates with Let's Encrypt, or you can generate self-signed certificates with utilities like mkcert. Some proxies automate getting certificates, like NGINX Proxy Manager.

Accessing Vaultwarden

Browser

To access your Vaultwarden server from a web browser, locally

http://localhost:port where 'localhost' is the IP address of your Vaultwarden server and 'port' is the port number you defined in your docker container if it is any port other than port 80.

You should see a screen similar to this:

Screenshot from 2023-04-09 08-04-46.png

You will need to create an account to use it. Just click the 'Create account' link on the page.

It is also worth noting that you can export your current Bitwarden data (if you already had a Bitwarden account) directly into Vaultwarden by using any Bitwarden client's 'Export Vault' function while logged with your Bitwarden account. You can export into .json or csv formats. You then log out of your Bitwarden account and and login using your Vaultwarden account on that same client and import your data using the 'Import Vault' function. Your data will then automatically sync to any other Bitwarden client where you have your Vaultwarden account set up.

Clients

You can access you Vaultwarden server using any of the clients supported by Bitwarden. To set your Bitwarden clients to point to your Vaultwarden server, follow these instructions:

Browser Extension or Mobile App

To connect a browser extension or mobile app to your Vaultwarden server:

Log out of your Bitwarden browser extension or mobile app.
On the login screen, select the Settings icon.
In the Server URL field, enter the domain name for your server with https:// (for example, https://my.bitwarden.domain.com).
Select Save.

You must have your Vaultwarden server setup with a domain name and a TLS or self-signed certificate for this to work

Desktop Client

Each account that's logged in to your desktop app can be connected to a different server. For example, you can have one account that connects to a Bitwarden server in the cloud and another account that connects to a private Vaultwarden server.

To connect your desktop client to point to your Vaultwarden server:

Log out of your account in your Bitwarden desktop app OR select + Add Account.
On the login screen, select the Settings icon.
In the Server URL field, enter the domain name for your server with https:// (for example, https://my.bitwarden.domain.com).
Select Save.