Baïkal is an open-source, lightweight CalDAV and CardDAV server that can be used to host calendars and contacts. Fedora CoreOS is an operating system designed for running containerized workloads, reliably and at scale. Combining Baïkal with Fedora CoreOS can give you a robust and scalable solution for your calendar and contact needs.
Baïkal requires a web server to function properly. We'll use nginx, which is a popular and lightweight web server with excellent performance. To install nginx, run the following command:
sudo rpm-ostree install nginx
This command will install the nginx package and its dependencies.
Baïkal is written in PHP, so we'll need to install PHP and a few extensions. Run the following command to install PHP:
sudo rpm-ostree install php php-fpm php-mysqlnd
This command will install PHP, the PHP FastCGI Process Manager (php-fpm), and the PHP MySQLnd extension (php-mysqlnd). These extensions are required by Baïkal.
Baïkal requires a MySQL or MariaDB database server to store its data. We'll use MariaDB, which is a drop-in replacement for MySQL and is fully compatible with it. To install MariaDB, run the following command:
sudo rpm-ostree install mariadb-server
This command will install MariaDB and its dependencies.
Once MariaDB is installed, we need to configure it. We'll do this by running the mysql_secure_installation script, which will guide us through the configuration process. Run the following command to start the script:
sudo mysql_secure_installation
Follow the instructions to set a root password, remove anonymous users, disallow root login remotely, remove test databases, and reload the privilege tables.
Now that MariaDB is properly configured, we can create a database and user for Baïkal. First, log in to the MariaDB server as the root user:
sudo mysql -u root -p
Enter the root password when prompted. Once you're logged in, create a new database and user by running the following commands (replace dbname, username, and password with your desired values):
CREATE DATABASE dbname;
CREATE USER 'username'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON dbname.* TO 'username'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
These commands will create a new database, a new user with the specified password, and assign all privileges for the database to the user.
Go to the Baïkal website (https://sabre.io/baikal/) and download the latest release. Once the download is complete, extract the contents of the archive to the /usr/share/nginx/html/baikal directory:
sudo tar -xzvf baikal-<version>.tar.gz -C /usr/share/nginx/html/
sudo mv /usr/share/nginx/html/baikal-<version> /usr/share/nginx/html/baikal
Replace <version> with the actual release version you downloaded.
Baïkal needs to be configured to connect to the database we created in step 5. Open the config.php file in your favorite text editor and modify the following settings (replace dbname, username, and password with your actual values):
'db' => [
'driver' => 'pdo_mysql',
'host' => 'localhost',
'port' => 3306,
'dbname' => 'dbname',
'username' => 'username',
'password' => 'password',
'options' => [
PDO::MYSQL_ATTR_INIT_COMMAND => 'SET NAMES utf8mb4',
],
],
Save the file and close the editor.
We need to configure nginx to serve the Baïkal web interface. Create a new virtual host file by running the following command:
sudo vi /etc/nginx/conf.d/baikal.conf
Paste the following configuration into the empty file (replace example.com with your actual domain name):
server {
listen 80;
server_name example.com;
root /usr/share/nginx/html/baikal;
index index.php;
location / {
try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$args;
}
location ~ \.php$ {
fastcgi_pass unix:/run/php-fpm/www.sock;
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
include fastcgi_params;
}
access_log /var/log/nginx/baikal.access.log;
error_log /var/log/nginx/baikal.error.log;
}
Save the file and close the editor.
We need to restart both nginx and php-fpm to apply the changes we made. Run the following command to restart both services:
sudo systemctl restart nginx php-fpm
Now that Baïkal is installed and configured, you can access it by navigating to http://example.com in your web browser (replace example.com with your actual domain name). You should see the Baïkal login page. Use the default username and password (admin/admin) to log in, and change the password when prompted.
Congratulations! You have successfully installed Baïkal on Fedora CoreOS Latest.
If you want to self-host in an easy, hands free way, need an external IP address, or simply want your data in your own hands, give IPv6.rs a try!
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