{"id":1865,"date":"2014-08-22T06:37:47","date_gmt":"2014-08-22T04:37:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/possiblelossofprecision.net\/?p=1865"},"modified":"2021-05-15T11:46:37","modified_gmt":"2021-05-15T09:46:37","slug":"baikal-a-lightweight-caldavcarddav-server","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/possiblelossofprecision.net\/?p=1865","title":{"rendered":"Baikal: A lightweight CalDAV\/CardDAV server"},"content":{"rendered":"

Baikal<\/a> is a lightweight, free and open-source CalDAV and CardDAV server implementation that allows you to synchronize your address book and appointments with multiple clients such as mobile devices or a desktop application like Thunderbird<\/a>. It lacks a couple of important features for enterprise use cases, such as address book and calendar sharing between multiple users, but it’s very suitable for a small office or home installations. Since it’s very lightweight and only depending on php and mysql, it’s also quite fast and stable.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

0. Prerequisites<\/h2>\n

Both MySQL<\/a> and SQLite<\/a> can be used as database backends for Baikal. For simplicity, I’ll use SQLite in this example. The only other software you’ll need is a webserver with php support, e.g. apache or nginx:<\/p>\n

\r\n# yum install httpd php php-pdo php-sabre-dav\r\n<\/pre>\n
1. Getting Baikal<\/h2>\n
Unfortunately, there’s currently no prepackaged rpm package available for Baikal, so you’ll have to download it manually. There are three different versions available: The flat package<\/a> (suitable for hosts you only have ftp access to), the regular package<\/a> and bleeding-edge<\/a> (which will point you to the git repository). The best fit for servers that you have full access to is probably the regular package<\/strong>:<\/p>\n
\r\n$ wget http:\/\/baikal-server.com\/get\/baikal-regular-0.2.7.tgz\r\n<\/pre>\n
2. Installing Baikal<\/h2>\n
After extracting the tarball<\/strong> to \/var\/www\/html\/<\/code> (i.e. the apache document root), fixing the access rights<\/strong> and enabling\/starting the webserver<\/strong>, point your browser to http:\/\/server\/baikal-regular\/html\/<\/code> to start the installation<\/p>\n
\r\n# cd \/var\/www\/html\/\r\n# tar xvfz <path-to-tarball>\/baikal-regular-0.2.7.tgz\r\n[...]\r\n# chown -R apache:apache \/var\/www\/html\/baikal-regular\/\r\n# systemctl enable httpd.service\r\n# systemctl start httpd.service\r\n<\/pre>\n
You should see a page similar to this:<\/p>\n
\"The<\/a>
The ‘Baikal Install Tool’ is locked per default<\/p><\/div>\n
3. Running the initialization wizard<\/h2>\n
After creating the ENABLE_INSTALL<\/code> file and refreshing your browser<\/strong>,<\/p>\n
\r\n# touch \/var\/www\/html\/baikal-regular\/Specific\/ENABLE_INSTALL\r\n<\/pre>\n
you should see the Baikal initialization wizard:<\/p>\n
\"The<\/a>
The ‘Baikal Installation wizard’ guides you through the setup<\/p><\/div>\n
Follow the instructions on the screen:<\/p>\n
\"Baikal<\/a>
Baikal can use a SQLite or a MySQL database backend<\/p><\/div>\n
\"After<\/a>
After setting up the database, Baikal is ready to use<\/p><\/div>\n
4. Configuring your client<\/h2>\n
Baikal is now up and running. You can use the web-interface to create users, additional calendars and address books etc. CalDAV\/CardDAV will be reachable through:<\/p>\n
\r\nhttp:\/\/<baikal-server>\/baikal-regular\/html\/cal.php\/calendars\/<username>\/default\/\r\n<\/pre>\n
\r\nhttp:\/\/<baikal-server>\/baikal-regular\/html\/baikal\/card.php\/addressbooks\/<username>\/default\/\r\n<\/pre>\n
5. Optional: Setting up a vhost<\/h2>\n
You might want to reach your CalDAV\/CardDAV service through a subdomain, like dav.mydomain.com<\/code>. This is usually done with vhosts and Baikal conveniently already comes with a proper vhost file for apache as well as nginx.
\nIt’s good practise to keep the files that belong to a specific subdomain in a folder with the same name. So let’s rename the baikal-regular<\/code> directory to match our vhost:<\/p>\n
\r\n# mv \/var\/www\/html\/baikal-regular \/var\/www\/dav.mydomain.com\r\n<\/pre>\n
We can then use the supplied vhost configuration file:<\/p>\n
\r\n# cp -a \/var\/www\/dav.mydomain.com\/Specific\/virtualhosts\/baikal.apache2 \\\r\n\/etc\/httpd\/conf.d\/dav.mydomain.com.conf\r\n<\/pre>\n
\r\n<VirtualHost *:80>\r\n\r\n        DocumentRoot \/var\/www\/dav.mydomain.com\/html\r\n        ServerName dav.mydomain.com\r\n        \r\n        RewriteEngine On\r\n        RewriteRule \/.well-known\/carddav \/card.php [R,L]\r\n        RewriteRule \/.well-known\/caldav \/cal.php [R,L]\r\n\r\n        <Directory "\/var\/www\/dav.mydomain.com\/html">\r\n                Options None\r\n                Options +FollowSymlinks\r\n                AllowOverride All\r\n        <\/Directory>\r\n\r\n<\/VirtualHost>\r\n<\/pre>\n
After restarting the webserver<\/strong> your CalDAV\/CardDAV server will be available through<\/p>\n
\r\nhttp:\/\/dav.mydomain.com\/cal.php\/calendars\/<username>\/default\/\r\n<\/pre>\n
\r\nhttp:\/\/dav.mydomain.com\/card.php\/calendars\/<username>\/default\/\r\n<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Baikal is a lightweight, free and open-source CalDAV and CardDAV server implementation that allows you to synchronize your address book and appointments with multiple clients such as mobile devices or a desktop application like Thunderbird. It lacks a couple of important features for enterprise use cases, such as address book and calendar sharing between multiple users, but it’s very suitable… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[7],"class_list":["post-1865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-fedora"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/possiblelossofprecision.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/possiblelossofprecision.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/possiblelossofprecision.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/possiblelossofprecision.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/possiblelossofprecision.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1865"}],"version-history":[{"count":41,"href":"https:\/\/possiblelossofprecision.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1865\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2188,"href":"https:\/\/possiblelossofprecision.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1865\/revisions\/2188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/possiblelossofprecision.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/possiblelossofprecision.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/possiblelossofprecision.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}