AnkiServer 2.0.6

Description:

AnkiServer 2.0.6

Anki is a powerful Open Source flashcard
application, which helps you quickly and easily memorize facts over
the long term utilizing a spaced repetition algorithm.
Anki’s main form is a desktop application (for Windows, Linux and
MacOS) which can sync to a web version (AnkiWeb) and mobile versions
for Android and iOS.
This is a personal Anki Server, which you can sync against instead of
AnkiWeb.
It also includes a RESTful API, so that you could implement your
own AnkiWeb-like site if you wanted.
It was originally developed to support the flashcard functionality on
Bibliobird, a web application for
language learning.

Installing the easy way!
If you have easy_install or pip on your system, you can
simply run:
$ easy_install AnkiServer
Or using pip:
$ pip install AnkiServer
This will give you the latest released version!
However, if you want to try the latest bleeding edge version OR you
want to help with development, you’ll need to install from source.
In that case, follow the instructions in the next two sections.


Setting up a virtualenv
If you want to install your Anki Server in an isolated Python
environment using
virtualenv, please
follow these instructions before going on to the next section. If
not, just skip to the “Installing” section below.
There are many reasons for installing into a virtualenv, rather
than globally on your system:

You can keep the Anki Server’s dependencies seperate from other
Python applications.
You don’t have permission to install globally on your system
(like on a shared host).

Here are step-by-step instruction for setting up your virtualenv:

First, you need to install “virtualenv”. If your system has
easy_install or pip, this is just a matter of:
$ easy_install virtualenv
Or using pip:
$ pip install virtualenv
Or you can use your the package manager provided by your OS.

Next, create your a Python environment for running AnkiServer:
$ virtualenv AnkiServer.env

(Optional) Enter the virtualenv to save you on typing:
$ . AnkiServer.env/bin/activate


If you skip step 3, you’ll have to type
AnkiServer.env/bin/python instead of python and
AnkiServer.env/bin/paster instead of paster in the following
sections.
Also, remember that the environment change in step 3 only lasts as
long as your current terminal session. You’ll have to re-enter the
environment if you enter that terminal and come back later.


Installing your Anki Server from source

Install all the dependencies we need using easy_install or
pip:
$ easy_install webob PasteDeploy PasteScript sqlalchemy simplejson
Or using pip:
$ pip install webob PasteDeploy PasteScript sqlalchemy simplejson
Or you can use your the package manager provided by your OS.

Download and install libanki. You can find the latest release of
Anki here:
http://code.google.com/p/anki/downloads/list
Look for a *.tgz file with a Summary of “Anki Source”. At the time
of this writing that is anki-2.0.11.tgz.
Download this file and extract.
Then either:

Run the ‘make install’, or
Copy the entire directory to /usr/share/anki


Make the egg info files (so paster can see our app):
$ python setup.py egg_info




Configuring and running your Anki Server

Copy the example.ini to production.ini in your current directory
and edit for your needs.

If you installed from source, it’ll be at the top-level.
If you installed via ‘easy_install’ or ‘pip’, you’ll find all
the example configuration at
python_prefix/lib/python2.X/site-packages/AnkiServer-2.X.X-py2.X.egg/examples
(replacing python_prefix with the root of your Python and
all the X with the correct versions). For example, it could
be:
/usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/AnkiServer-2.0.0a6-py2.7.egg/examples/example.ini





Create user:
$ ./ankiserverctl.py adduser <username>

Test the server by starting it debug mode:
$ ./ankiserverctl.py debug
If the output looks good, you can stop the server by pressing Ctrl-C and start it again in normal mode:
$ ./ankiserverctl.py start
To stop AnkiServer, run:
$ ./ankiserverctl.py stop




Point the Anki desktop program at it
Unfortunately, there isn’t currently any user interface in the Anki
destop program to point it at your personal sync server instead of
AnkiWeb, so you’ll have to write a short “addon”.
Create a file like this in your Anki/addons folder called
“mysyncserver.py”:
import anki.sync
anki.sync.SYNC_BASE = 'http://127.0.0.1:27701/'
anki.sync.SYNC_MEDIA_BASE = 'http://127.0.0.1:27701/msync/'
Be sure to change the SYNC_URL to point at your sync server. The
address 127.0.0.1 refers to the local computer.
Restart Anki for your plugin to take effect. Now, everytime you sync,
it will be to your personal sync server rather than AnkiWeb.
However, if you just want to switch temporarily, rather than creating
an addon, you can set the SYNC_URL environment variable when
running from the command-line (on Linux):
export SYNC_URL=http://127.0.0.1:27701/sync/
./runanki &


Point the mobile apps at it
At the moment, there isn’t any way to get AnkiDroid or the Anki iOS
app to point at your personal sync server. :-/
However, there are an issue open on AnkiDroid about it:

Option to sync with personal sync server · Issue #1057

If you’re interested in seeing this feature, please go to this link
and let the maintainers know!


Running with Supervisor
If you want to run your Anki server persistantly on a Linux (or
other UNIX-y) server, Supervisor is a
great tool to monitor and manage it. It will allow you to start it
when your server boots, restart it if it crashes and easily access
it’s logs.

Install Supervisor on your system. If it’s Debian or Ubuntu this
will work:
$ sudo apt-get install supervisor
If you’re using a different OS, please try
these instructions.

Copy supervisor-anki-server.conf to /etc/supervisor/conf.d/anki-server.conf:
$ sudo cp supervisor-anki-server.conf /etc/supervisor/conf.d/anki-server.conf

Modify /etc/supervisor/conf.d/anki-server.conf to match your
system and how you setup your Anki Server in the section above.
Reload Supervisor’s configuration:
$ sudo supervisorctl reload

Check the logs from the Anki Server to make sure everything is
fine:
$ sudo supervisorctl tail anki-server
If it’s empty - then everything’s fine! Otherwise, you’ll see an
error message.


Later if you manually want to stop, start or restart it, you can
use:
$ sudo supervisorctl stop anki-server

$ sudo supervisorctl start anki-server

$ sudo supervisorctl restart anki-server
See the Supervisor documentation for
more info!


Using with Apache
If you’re already serving your website via Apache (on port 80) and
want to also allow users to sync against a URL on port 80, you can
forward requests from Apache to the Anki server.
On Bibliobird.com, I have a special anki.bibliobird.com virtual host
which users can synch against. Here is an excerpt from my Apache
conf:
<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin [email protected]
ServerName anki.bibliobird.com

# The Anki server handles gzip itself!
SetEnv no-gzip 1

<Location />
ProxyPass http://localhost:27701/
ProxyPassReverse http://localhost:27701/
</Location>
</VirtualHost>
It may also be possible to use mod_wsgi, however, I have no experience
with that.


How to get help
If you’re having any problems installing or using Anki Server, please
post a message on our Google Group:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/anki-sync-server
Be sure to let us know which operating system and version you’re using
and how you intend to use the Anki Server!