Install the server

Chek server is one process with one SQLite database. To install it, you run one container with one data volume.

Choose an image tag

CI publishes the image ghcr.io/readchek/chek for amd64 and arm64.

Tag	Contents
latest	The newest release
A version, such as 0.3.0	That release
edge	The newest commit on main
Any tag above with -browser added, such as latest-browser	The same server with Chromium, for extensions that need a browser

Use the plain image unless an extension you run needs a browser. The -browser images turn off Chromium’s own sandbox, so use them only with extensions you trust. For details, read Let extensions get past site challenges.

In every image, the server listens on 0.0.0.0:8080 and keeps its data in /data. It runs as the user chek, with uid 10001.

Run it with Docker

Mount each folder that you want to read under /library:

docker run -d --name chek --restart unless-stopped -p 8080:8080 \
  -e CHEK_SETUP_TOKEN=<32 or more random characters> \
  -v chek-data:/data \
  -v /srv/books:/library/books:ro \
  -v /srv/comics:/library/comics:ro \
  ghcr.io/readchek/chek:latest

CHEK_SETUP_TOKEN sets the token that creates the first admin account, so you don’t need to read it from the log. Mount a folder read-write, without :ro, only if admins upload files to it.

Run it with Docker Compose

Create compose.yaml:

compose.yaml

services:
  chek:
    image: ghcr.io/readchek/chek:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports: ["8080:8080"]
    environment:
      CHEK_SETUP_TOKEN: ${CHEK_SETUP_TOKEN:?set CHEK_SETUP_TOKEN}
    volumes:
      - chek-data:/data
      - /srv/books:/library/books:ro
      - /srv/comics:/library/comics:ro

volumes:
  chek-data:

Then start it with a random setup token:

CHEK_SETUP_TOKEN=$(openssl rand -hex 24) docker compose up -d

If a reverse proxy runs on the same Docker network, replace ports with expose: ["8080"]. Then set CHEK_TRUSTED_PROXIES, as Serve Chek over HTTPS describes.

If an extension needs a browser, use a -browser tag and give Chromium 1 GB of shared memory:

    image: ghcr.io/readchek/chek:latest-browser
    shm_size: 1gb

Run it on Dokploy

The chek repository has a Compose file for Dokploy at deploy/server/compose.yaml. It runs the edge-browser image.

1. Create a Compose application from readchek/chek, and select deploy/server/compose.yaml.
2. In Environment, set CHEK_SETUP_TOKEN to 32 or more random characters.
3. To run a release instead of main, also set CHEK_IMAGE, such as ghcr.io/readchek/chek:0.3.0-browser.
4. Route your domain to the service chek on port 8080, with HTTPS.
5. Deploy, then create the admin account.

The Compose file mounts no folders of books. To read files from the host, add a read-only bind mount, such as /srv/books:/library/books:ro.

Build it from source

To build the server, you need a recent stable Rust and two libraries. Chek uses libvips to make cover thumbnails and libarchive to read RAR and 7-Zip comics.

1. Install the libraries.

   apt install libvips-dev libarchive-dev   # Debian or Ubuntu
   brew install vips libarchive             # macOS

2. Clone the repository and run the server.

   git clone https://github.com/readchek/chek
   cd chek
   cargo run --release --bin chek

A server built from source listens on 127.0.0.1:8080 and keeps its data in ./data. To change them, set CHEK_BIND and CHEK_DATA_DIR.

To build the image yourself, run docker build -t chek . in the repository. For the image with Chromium, run docker build --target browser -t chek-browser ..