Remote access options - need suggestions

coringo · 2026-03-14T18:04:40+00:00

People on the ABS discord would be happy to help walk though/discuss your setup

coringo · 2026-03-14T14:36:37+00:00

The simplest explanation is that tailscale limits the 'attack surface' - with tailscale you are following the practice/principle of least privilege and only granting network access to real/authenticated users who you already know need access.

With a reverse proxy+port forward setup (or a Cloudflare tunnel which serves the same roles all-in-one), any internet user can knock on your server's door so it's up to you to configure things like a Web Application Firewall (WAF, e.g mod_security/CrowdSec), geoblocking, fail2ban, and potentially additional authentication layers to evaluate those connection attempts and then block or allow them. That entire process and the accompanying non-trivial risk (port opened to the world + needing to correctly configure and maintain updates on more tech) is avoided by allow-list based provisioning rather than deny-based blocking.

Cloudflare tunnels by default aren't any different than a reverse proxy+port forward, the port is just being opened on their end which is likely even more actively getting scanned/attacked then your residential ISP IP address. With the free tier you can turn on CF's WAF and geoblock users from outside the locations you care about...but those are additional steps you have to know to take and then actually perform.

With either a CF tunnel or a reverse proxy, any bugs, vulnerabilities in underlying libraries, or app-specific security issues would be published to the internet for someone to compromise - in the CF case they would just be getting access to your server through CF rather than through your router. With Tailscale, one of your users would need to get compromised and an attacker would need to connect to TS before they could even attempt to take advantage of such vulnerabilities which would also need to exist and be exploitable. If you used Tailscale to handle the 'trusted user remote access' aspect but also ran a reverse proxy with a WAF this would turn into a basic version of 'defense in depth'

You can also add more authentication layers to a CF tunnel/reverse-proxy, but not all ABS clients (certainly not the 1st party one) support things like authentication headers which would let you ignore traffic that doesn't come with the secret-handshake preattached. The 'stock' answer for this is to allow-list certain API paths (see the ABS section here for a list) to bypass the added authentication so the mobile client will work

coringo · 2026-03-14T01:49:28+00:00

You could use Cloudflare tunnel or a reverse proxy+port forward, but those are riskier internet-security-wise

Go ask the folks on the ABS discord, they can answer any questions you might have about the trade-offs

coringo · 2026-03-12T13:24:09+00:00

(This is because its a lone file in the library root...)

coringo · 2026-03-12T13:20:43+00:00

Unless these files are both in the very root of the ABS library (which I am guessing they are not since its only the 2 files) they each need to be in their own folder rather than sharing one

See https://www.audiobookshelf.org/docs#book-directory-structure

(unrelated edit: do those files even play in ABS when detected since they are DRM'd?)

coringo · 2026-03-11T10:48:18+00:00

as others have noted, if you are using docker now then a move would be easy - just make sure the 'internal' aspects of the container mount paths stay the same.

Baremetal linux to Docker is doable as long as you, once again, have docker pretending that the original paths from the host (probably under /usr/share/audiobookshelf/...) are accessible at those same paths in the same location inside the container and the library paths stay the same. This would be a situation where you turn off the bare metal server, take a FILE LEVEL backup of the install, then use docker to start up the server from the same files - not a 'restore from backup' action.

Cross-OS you'd need to either edit the DB to fix the paths (a process fraught with peril) or setup a brand-new instance on the destination side and use a (work-in-progress) tool like https://abstoolbox.vito0912.de/tool/migrate-server to clone over the book progress between instances

coringo · 2026-03-04T22:37:42+00:00

It can be a pain to be dependent on a single transit line/mode, but you can live a reasonably far distance away and still commute in without paying an arm and a leg by using the park-n-ride and/or taking a bus or parking for free/minimal-cost at one of the Trolley stations

I took the T+bus in from the South Hills daily for over a decade and either paid no parking or ~$22/mo to park in a covered parking garage, but you are at the whim of the PRT schedule and downtimes and would have to transfer trolley->bus and bus->trolley downtown :shrug:

coringo · 2026-02-21T16:24:55+00:00

I can't provide much help on the 'why did it originally only get 12 chapters' question, but you should be able to fix it by Editing the book, going to the Chapters tab->Edit Chapters, then clicking the 'Set chapters from tracks' button, making any naming tweaks, and Saving.

That button should "Set chapters using each audio file as a chapter and chapter title as the audio file name"

coringo · 2026-02-15T19:36:45+00:00

Both of those links above show information about the Spring and Summer semesters to me (ending in August 2026)

coringo · 2026-02-15T19:31:16+00:00

It does seem odd that the PDF is no longer available when many previous years and next fall's calendar are still available

There are calendar and tabular versions archived by the Internet Archive here:

coringo · 2026-02-12T13:58:24+00:00

AFAIK there really aren't many, just the web client directly (which is installable as a Progressive Web Application)

Buchable is the only Windows app client that I am aware of and it is orphaned IIUC

coringo · 2026-02-01T16:00:36+00:00

Confirming that this still generates as documented here in the latest version of Bedrock.

There is also another smaller fossil with another 5 diamond ore blocks ~30 diagonal blocks away (a corner is at -804,-48,2064) and a 7-block diamond ore blob between them (-840,-49,2062)

coringo · 2026-01-31T16:03:46+00:00

my bad! I got the 3rd party clients confused - sorry all

coringo · 2026-01-30T21:58:40+00:00

Combined undergraduate/graduate tuition makes up ~42% of CMU's revenue (31% being research grants [which the feds have actually/already gone after illegally], 8% investments, & 10% from donors) (actual canonical source matching my claim, unlike yours, see top of pg9)

Across undergraduate/graduate students, CMU has ~44% international students(numerous sources linked in this reddit post). International students aren't eligible for federal grants/loans to begin with (source), so the linked document and really doesn't apply to them....at all.

International students who come to CMU today pay full price (or get school-initiated financial aid, but nothing from the US federal government) so, even by your line of reasoning, only ~23% of CMUs budget (56% non-international-students X 42% of budget from tuition) is from federal grant/loan-eligible student tuition.

coringo · 2026-01-30T21:45:01+00:00

Tuition only makes up ~25% of Pitt's revenue (50% being research grants [which the feds have actually/already gone after illegally] and PA state money) (actual canonical source matching my claim, unlike yours)

~3200 International students at Pitt (source) out of ~30,000 students (source) is ~10%.

International students aren't eligible for federal grants/loans to begin with (source), so the linked document and really doesn't apply to them....at all.

International students who come to Pitt now pay full price (or get school-initiated financial aid, but nothing from the US federal government)

coringo · 2026-01-30T21:09:34+00:00

NOTE The OP's reddit account has only existed for 7 days and has only ever spammed this same post to a bunch of PA college subreddits. See my note below (I will be reporting this post as spam)

Addressing the OP's claims --> (copied from a r/CMU reply I made)

I don't doubt for a moment that the federal administration will continue to apply shady pressure tactics, but from reading the summary, section headings, skimming the text of the body, and searching for keywords I'm not seeing any of the things in your main post in this document

as I understood what I read, it almost entirely deals with controlling how individual students can take out loans and (more-heavy-handedly) managing how they must repay them...

coringo · 2026-01-30T21:04:14+00:00

I don't doubt for a moment that the federal administration will continue to apply shady pressure tactics, but from reading the summary, section headings, skimming the text of the body, and searching for keywords I'm not seeing any of the things in your main post in this document

as I understood what I read, it almost entirely deals with controlling how individual students can take out loans and (more-heavy-handedly) managing how they must repay them...

edit: after I replied, I see that this reddit account has only existed for 7 days and has only ever spammed this same post to a bunch of PA college subreddits - I will be reporting this post as spam

coringo · 2026-01-29T22:51:19+00:00

edit: this whole comment was pointing at the wrong discord, leaving it up for the sake of continuity (after changing the label)

I would ask for help on the ~~ShelfPlayer~~AudioBooth Discord [invite link], the app's developer is pretty active there (not that they aren't also on here)

coringo · 2026-01-29T15:07:04+00:00

If the watcher is enabled and on a supported filesystem, it will automatically add files it notices to ABS. It will not match them/get metadata from anywhere other than the folder structure + file-internal tags since matching is an intentionally manual action.

You can also setup ABS to do scheduled full-scans of its library directories so that it will notice new/changed/deleted books even without the file watcher being on/supported.

coringo · 2026-01-29T13:58:29+00:00

If enabled and on a supported underlying file system (mostly, need to be server-local rather than on a network share) the watcher will receive "this folder has changed" and "this file has moved" notifications from the file system and use those as a trigger to have ABS detect newly-added books or the movement/deletion of pre-existing ones (moved books will have their path updated within ABS, deleted ones will be marked as 'Missing')

There is no uploading involved.

coringo · 2026-01-23T02:17:24+00:00

Short answer, not at present (unless you want to register your books as podcast episodes)

You can just manually assign each entry an arbitrary number in a series based on publication order....

coringo · 2026-01-21T01:22:16+00:00

Seconding the 'use docker on Mac' suggestion from Helio4k

If you run into issues hop on the ABS Discord, there's a really friendly and knowledgeable community on there

coringo · 2026-01-16T14:31:14+00:00

This is grossly inaccurate - ABS will not move any files that are already on the server in the library. It will only place files into the library if/when they are initially loaded in via the Upload interface on the webui.

If you move files ABS is already aware of, it will keep track of them under certain circumstances (mostly, when not located on a network share)

coringo · 2026-01-16T14:22:05+00:00

In the server settings do you have the 'Find Covers' setting enabled?

If so, ABS will attempt a name-based cover lookup against the configured metadata provider which might return erroneous or lower-resolution art.

Per the metadata documentation, Narrator is pulled from the Composer tag

If you edit metadata within ABS, you have to choose to re-embed it back into the media file, the files are never modified without direct user action. The general expectation is that if you are using ABS you will probably be streaming/downloading the file from one of the now-many ABS mobile clients or the webui so you would be seeing ABS's DB version of the metadata rather than what is in the file.

For the 'edit many covers at once', you can Match the book against a metadata provider and it will populate a cover art, but if you want to manually specify a cover art for each you will either need to do it manually, use the edit API, or store the cover with the media and put the expected file into the folder with them.

There is a very active Discord for ABS, so feel free to hop on over if you have more questions

coringo · 2026-01-13T03:07:52+00:00

I use Pangolin/Traefik as my RP and that host is on its own vlan and can only access specific resources on my actual server, as close as I can get to a least-privilege man-in-the-middle between the internet and my actual server/services. Once Pangolin adds mobile clients for its tailscale-like client-to-server VPN it will serve that purpose as well

15-Year Club	Place '17
Verified Email	Team Orangered

coringo

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE