A comic archive browser and reader.
- Codex is a web server, not a desktop or mobile app.
- Full text search of metadata and bookmarks.
- Filter and sort on all comic metadata and unread status per user.
- Browse a tree of publishers, imprints, series, volumes, or your own folder hierarchy.
- Read comics in a variety of aspect ratios that fit your screen.
- Per user bookmarking. You get per browser bookmarks even before you make an account.
- Watches the filesystem and automatically imports new or changed comics.
- Private Libraries accessible only to certain groups of users.
You may browse a live demo server to get a feel for Codex.
Codex has a NEWS file to summarize changes that affect users.
Run the official Docker Image. Instructions for running the docker image are on the Docker Hub README. This is the recommended way to run Codex.
You'll then want to read the Administration section of this document.
You can also run Codex as a natively installed python application with pip.
You'll need to install these system dependencies before installing Codex.
brew install jpeg libffi libyaml libzip openssl python unrar xapianapt install build-essential libffi-dev libjpeg-dev libssl-dev libxapian30 libyaml-dev python3-pip python3-xapian zlib1g-devapk add bsd-compat-headers build-base jpeg-dev libffi-dev openssl-dev xapian-bindings-python3 xapian-core yaml-dev zlib-devCodex requires unrar to read cbr formatted comic archives. Unrar is often not packaged for Linux, but here are some instructions: How to install unrar in Linux
Unrar as packaged for Alpine Linux v3.14 seems to work on Alpine v3.15
Codex should work on Windows, but I do not understand the binary requirements. I suggest using the other operating system package lists as a guide. If you get it working, please help me replace this section with something useful.
In the mean time, Windows users will have the easiest experience relying on Docker.
You may now install Codex with pip
pip3 install codexpip should install the codex binary on your path. Run
codexand then navigate to http://localhost:9810/
The first thing you should do is log in as the admin user and change the admin password.
- Click the hamburger menu ☰ to open the browser settings drawer.
- Log in as the 'admin' user. The default administator password is also 'admin'.
- Navigate to the Admin Panel by clicking on its link in the browser settings drawer after you have logged in.
- Navigate to the AUTHENTICATION AND AUTHORIZATION Users panel.
- Select the
adminuser. - Change the admin password using the small "this form" link in the password section.
- You may also change the admin user's name or anything else.
- You may grant other users admin privileges by making them staff.
The second thing you will want to do is log in as an Administrator and add one or more comic libraries.
- Navigate to the CODEX Libraries Panel in the Admin Panel
- Add a Library with the "ADD LIBRARY +" button in the upper right.
If you forget all your superuser passwords, you may restore the original default admin account by running codex with the CODEX_RESET_ADMIN environment variable set.
CODEX_RESET_ADMIN=1 codexor, if using Docker:
docker run -e CODEX_RESET_ADMIN=1 -v <host path to config>/config:/config ajslater/codexIn the Admin Panel you may configure private libraries that are only accessible to specific groups.
A library with no groups is accessible to every user including anonymous users.
A library with any groups is accessible only to users who are in those groups.
Use the Groups admin panel to create groups and the Users admin panel to add and remove users to groups.
The default config directory is config/ directly under the working directory you run codex from. You may specify an alternate config directory with the environment variable CODEX_CONFIG_DIR.
The config directory contains a file named hypercorn.toml where you can specify ports and bind addresses. If no hypercorn.toml is present Codex copies a default one to that directory on startup.
The default values for the config options are:
bind = ["0.0.0.0:9810"]
quick_bind = ["0.0.0.0:9810"]
root_path = "/codex"
max_db_ops = 100000
The config directory also holds the main sqlite database, the Xapian search index, a Django cache and comic book cover thumbnails.
LOGLEVELwill change how verbose codex's logging is. Valid values areERROR,WARNING,INFO,VERBOSE,DEBUG. The default isINFO.TIMEZONEorTZwill explicitly the timezone in long format (e.g."America/Los Angeles"). This is useful inside Docker because codex cannot automatically detect the host machine's timezone.CODEX_CONFIG_DIRwill set the path to codex config directory. Defaults to$CWD/configCODEX_RESET_ADMIN=1will reset the admin user and its password to defaults when codex starts.CODEX_SKIP_INTEGRITY_CHECKwill skip the database integrity repair that runs when codex starts.
nginx is often used as a TLS terminator and subpath proxy.
Here's an example nginx config with a subpath named '/codex'.
# HTTP
proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Host $server_name;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Port $server_port;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header X-Scheme $scheme;
# Websockets
proxy_http_version 1.1;
proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
proxy_set_header Connection "Upgrade"
# This example uses a docker container named 'codex' at sub-path /codex
# Use a valid IP or resolvable host name for other configurations.
location /codex {
proxy_pass http://codex:9810;
}Specify a reverse proxy sub path (if you have one) in config/hypercorn.toml
root_path = "/codex"
Nginx requires a special trick to refresh dns when linked Docker containers recreate. See this nginx with dynamix upstreams article.
Once your administrator has added some comic libraries, you may browse and read comics. Codex will remember your preferences, bookmarks and progress in the browser session. Codex destroys anonymous sessions and bookmarks after 60 days. To preserve these settings across browsers and after sessions expire, you may register an account with a username and password. You will have to contact your administrator to reset your password if you forget it.
Codex's metadata search engine has it's own help page.
Codex collects its logs in the config/logs directory. Take a look to see what th e server is doing.
You can change how much codex logs by setting the LOGLEVEL environment variable. By default this level is INFO. To see more messages run codex like:
LOGLEVEL=VERBOSE codexTo see a great deal of noisy messages from dependencies try:
LOGLEVEL=DEBUG codexCodex tries to watch for filesystem events to instantly update your comic libraries when they change on disk. But these native filesystem events are not translated between macOS & Windows Docker hosts and the Docker Linux container. If you find that your installation is not updating to filesystem changes instantly, you might try enabling polling for the affected libraries and decreasing the poll_every value in the Admin console to a frequency that suits you.
If the database becomes corrupt, Codex includes a facitlity to rebuild the database.
Place a file named rebuild_db in your Codex config directory like so:
touch config/rebuild_dbShut down and restart Codex.
The next time Codex starts it will back up the existing database and try to rebuild it.
The database lives in the config directory as the file config/db.sqlite3.
If this procedure goes kablooey, you may recover the original database at config/db.sqlite3.backup.
I've tested Codex's bulk database updater to batch 100,000 filesystem events at a time. With enough RAM Codex could probably batch much more. But if you find that updating large batches of comics are failing, consider setting a the max_db_ops value in hypercorn.toml to a lower value. 1000 will probably still be pretty fast, for instance.
Issues are best filed here on github.
I and other Codex users often lurk on the Mylar support channels. It would be polite to use the #anything-other-than-mylar Discord channel to ask for help with Codex.
- I have no intention of making this an eBook reader.
- I think metadata editing would be better placed in a comic manager than a reader.
- Komga has light metadata editing.
- Kavita has light metadata filtering/editing and supports comics and eBooks.
- Ubooquity reads both comics and eBooks.
- Mylar is the best comic book manager which also has a built in reader.
- Comictagger seems to be the best comic metadata editor. It comes with a powerful command line and useful desktop GUI.
Codex is a Django Python webserver with a VueJS front end.
/codex/codex/ is the main django app which provides the webserver and database.
/codex/frontend/ is where the vuejs frontend lives.
/codex/dev-env-setup.sh will install development dependencies.
/codex/dev-ttabs.sh will run the three or four different servers recommended for development in terminal tabs.
/codex/dev-codex.sh runs the main Django server. Set the DEBUG environment variable to activate debug mode: DEBUG=1 ./run.sh. This also lets you run the server without collecting static files for production and with a hot reloading frontend. I recommend setting LOGLEVEL=VERBOSE for development as well.
- Thanks to Aurélien Mazurie for allowing me to use the PyPi name 'codex'.
- Thanks to the good people of #mylar for continuous feedback and comic ecosystem education.
