Installation is simple:

 $ docker pull comixed/comixed:latest

This pulls the latest version. Or you can replace latest with a specific version if you wish.

It's recommended that you select a subdirectory that's decided solely to your comic library. This directory will hold both the comic files as well as the location where you will place new comics in order to import them into your library.

For this document, we will assume that directory is /Users/reader/comics.

In this subdirectory you'll need to create the following subdirectories:

1. library - where your managed comic files will live,
2. config - where you will place your application.properties file (see below), and
3. imports - the directory where you'll place comics to be imported.

The heart of your configuration is the application.properties file. This is where you will define things like what type of database is used and how to connect to it, batch processing details, etc. You can download a copy of the file here.

In this file, change:

comixed.images.cache.location=${user.home}/.comixed/image-cache

to:

comixed.images.cache.location=/config/image-cache

Also, configure the external database to be used. See this file for details on how to setup a database.

To create the Docker image using the above directories, we'll use the following command lines. First we need to pull the latest version:

  $ docker pull comixed/comixed:latest

Then create the container:

  $ docker create --name comixed \
      -it -p 7171:7171/tcp \
      -v /Users/reader/comixed/library:/library \
      -v /Users/reader/comixed/imports:/imports \
      -v /Users/reader/comixed/config:/config \
      comixed/comixed:latest

NOTE: On Linux, if using SELinux, you'll need to use the slightly different command below:

  $ docker create --name comixed \
      -it -p 7171:7171/tcp \
      -v /Users/reader/comixed/library:/library:z \
      -v /Users/reader/comixed/imports:/imports:z \
      -v /Users/reader/comixed/config:/config:z \
      comixed/comixed:latest

This command line:

1. creates a runnable container named "comixed" in Docker,
2. redirects port 7171 from the host to the container,
3. uses /Users/reader/comixed/library on the host as the library directory,
4. uses /Users/reader/comixed/imports as the directory for importing comics, and
5. uses /Users/reader/comixed/database for the configuration files, plugins, and extensions.

Change the library, imports, and config paths to what is appropriate for your environment.

The project maintains a Docker compose files to make it easy to use ComiXed.

To give administrators greater control over files created and controlled by ComiXed, please visit this page for more details.

By default, ComiXed uses an embedded H2 database. However, this is not a supported database for long term us. It's highly recommended to use an external database.

To use a different database, you need to setup an external configuration file that can be edited to provide the container with the JDBC URL, username and password to log into that database. There are example blocks for the currently supported set of databases.

Currently, ComiXed ships with support for the following databases:

To do this, after creating your container, execute the following command:

docker cp containername:/app/comixed-release/config/appplication.properties-example /Users/reader/comixed/config

NOTE: Replace containername with the name of your container, and /Users/reader/comixed/config with the path you used when creating your container.

Now rename the file to application.properties, and you can then follow the configuration documentation to customize your container.

NOTE: Setting up the database is beyond the scope of this page. However, you'll need to ensure that, whatever type of dataase you choose, the server needs to allow access from the container's IP network.

To start the container running, use:

$ docker start comixed

To import new comics using your Docker image, place the files into the directory used for the container's /config directory.

Next, from the Import Comics page, you enter as the import directory /imports and click the search button. This will return all of the comics you just copied into that directory, and allow you to import them into your library.

After selecting the comics to be imported, clicking the import button begins the process.

The container, by default, generates the log file (named comixed.log) in the root directory of the library directory.