kiwix-serve1

Usage

Overview

The kiwix-serve command is used to run a stand-alone HTTP server for serving ZIM contents over the network.

Arguments

LIBRARY_FILE_PATH

Path of an XML library file listing ZIM files to serve. To be used only with the --library option. Multiple library files can be provided as a semicolon (;) separated list.

ZIM_FILE_PATH ...

ZIM file path(s). Multiple arguments are allowed.

Options

--library

By default, kiwix-serve expects a list of ZIM files as command line arguments. Providing the --library option tells kiwix-serve that the command line argument is rather a library XML file.

-i ADDR, --address=ADDR

Listen only on this IP address. By default, the server listens on all available IP addresses. Alternatively, you can use special values to define which types of connections to accept:

all : Listen for connections on all IP addresses (IPv4 and IPv6).
ipv4 : Listen for connections on all IPv4 addresses.
ipv6 : Listen for connections on all IPv6 addresses.

-p PORT, --port=PORT

TCP port on which to listen for HTTP requests (default: 80).

-r ROOT, --urlRootLocation=ROOT

URL prefix on which the content should be made available (default: empty).

-d, --daemon

Detach the HTTP server daemon from the main process.

-a PID, --attachToProcess=PID

Exit when the process with id PID stops running.

-M, --monitorLibrary

Monitor the XML library file and reload it automatically when it changes.

Library reloading can be forced anytime by sending a SIGHUP signal to the “kiwix-serve” process (this works regardless of the presence of the “--monitorLibrary”/“-M” option).

-m, --nolibrarybutton

Disable the library home button in the ZIM viewer toolbar.

-n, --nosearchbar

Disable the search box in the ZIM viewer toolbar.

-b, --blockexternal

Prevent users from directly navigating to external resources via links in ZIM content.

-t N, --threads=N

Number of threads to run in parallel (default: 4).

-s N, --searchLimit=N

Maximum number of ZIM files in a fulltext multizim search (default: No limit).

-z, --nodatealiases

Create URL aliases for each content by removing the date embedded in the file name.

The expected format of the date in the filename is “_YYYY-MM”. For example, a ZIM file named “wikipedia_en_all_2020-08.zim” will be accessible both as “wikipedia_en_all_2020-08” and “wikipedia_en_all”.

-c PATH, --customIndex=PATH

Override the welcome page with a custom HTML file.

-L N, --ipConnectionLimit=N

Max number of (concurrent) connections per IP (default: infinite, recommended: >= 6).

-k, --skipInvalid

Startup even when ZIM files are invalid (those will be skipped)

-v, --verbose

Print debug log to STDOUT.

-V, --version

Print the software version.

-h, --help

Print a help message.

Examples

Serve a single ZIM file:

kiwix-serve myzim.zim

Serve multiple ZIM files:

kiwix-serve zim1.zim zim2.zim zim3.zim

Serve ZIM files from a library:

kiwix-serve --library library.xml

Documentation

Online documentation: https://kiwix-tools.readthedocs.io/en/latest/kiwix-serve.html
Source code: https://github.com/kiwix/kiwix-tools
More info: https://wiki.kiwix.org/wiki/Kiwix-serve