E-Reader Sync

The purpose is quite simple: a linux server serving Calibre-server, and I don't want to have to manually ( 🤮 ) transfer my ebooks to it

This script takes care of, after plugging the e-reader :

1. Mounting it on a specific mount point
2. Fetching and transferring all new e-books since last sync
3. Unmounting the e-reader
4. Playing a sound

A calibre-server service running is actually not required, just the metadata.dbof calibre is good enough.

Some manual ( 🤮 ) setting-up

I promise, doing it once is enough

This stuff is needed

sqlite3 --version

Otherwise sudo apt install sqlite3 (I don't use Arch btw)

aplay --version

Mount the device

Identify the device

Plug the device, then run lsusb, if it's impossible to know which is which, unplug it, rerun the command and compare.

The output should look like this:

Bus 001 Device 007: ID 2237:4228 Kobo Inc.

Take note of the vendor (here, 2237) and product (here, 4228) number

The /dev/disk needs to be identified.

Method 1 Either by-label, the name is explicit enough to guest which one is it (often a device from the same manufacturer will have the same label) ls /dev/disk/by-label

Method 2 Or by-id In this case, run (with your own vendor & product numbers) lsusb -d 2237:4228 -v | grep iSerial

Example : iSerial 5 N249850080827

Then ls /dev/disk/by-id | grep N249850080827 with your own output of the previous command instead of N...

Example: usb-Linux_File-Stor_Gadget_N249850080827-0:0

Create the mount point

mkdir /mnt/ereader

Or whatever the path you want the device to be mounted on

Mount

Edit the fstab (use nano instead of vim if you don't know what vim is)

sudo vim /etc/fstab

And add a line at the end, adapt the beginning to the method used to identify the device and the mount point

/dev/disk/by-label/KOBOeReader /mnt/ereader auto user,rw,nofail 0 0

Test it

Mount it first

mount /mnt/ereader

Excepting no output

Check the content

ls /mnt/ereader

In my case, all the e-books are store directly there and will be recognized up by the reader even if I don't respect the folder hierarchy

Set the script to auto-launch at plugged-in

This is a good time to download the script autosync.sh and put it somewhere (it will be in ~/ereadersync/ in the examples)

Edit it, to set some variables.

Make it executable:

chmod +x ~/ereadersync/autosync.sh

Copy the service ereader.service to the systemctl after editing the User, Group and ExecStart lines with the proper path to the script

vim ereader.service

mv ereader.service /etc/systemd/system/ereader.service

Reload systemctl sudo systemctl daemon-reload

Create a udev rule (named ereader, can be changed)

sudo vim /etc/udev/rules.d/ereader.rules

With the vendor and product numbers you grabbed with lsubs

ACTION=="add", ENV{DEVTYPE}=="usb_device", ATTRS{idVendor}=="2237", ATTRS{idProduct}=="4228", RUN+="/bin/systemctl start ereader.service --no-block"

Update the udevs rules

sudo udevadm control --reload-rules

sudo systemctl restart udev.service

Done \o/