Linux Install

1. Download

Go to https://github.com/Kareadita/Kavita/releases/latest and scroll down untill you see the 'assets' section where there's a list of files that you can download

You should download the one that fits your system

2. Install Kavita

  1. Unzip the archive to a writable directory with the command tar -xzf kavita-linux-{arch}.tar.gz
  2. Use chmod and chown commands so Kavita can write to the directory you placed it in.
  3. Run Kavita executable. Usually ./Kavita

Note: For unprivileged LXC containers it may be necessary to use tar -xzf kavita-linux-{arch}.tar.gz --no-same-owner instead to prevent permission errors while extracting

Install Kavita as a Service (Optional)

Optionally to have Kavita start in the background at boot, you may install it as a systemd service on your operating system. Save the following to a file named kavita.service in the directory /etc/systemd/system.

[Unit]
Description=Kavita Server
After=network.target

[Service]
User=kavita
Group=kavita
Type=simple
WorkingDirectory=/opt/Kavita
ExecStart=/opt/Kavita/Kavita
TimeoutStopSec=20
KillMode=process
Restart=on-failure

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Note: This file is an example and assumes you have installed Kavita in /opt/Kavita and you are running it as a separate user.


Please change those settings if that is not the case for you.

Once the file is saved you can run systemctl start kavita.service to test if it starts correctly, and if does, run systemctl enable kavita.service and it will start at boot for your system.

3. View Kavita

Browse to http://localhost:5000 to start using Kavita.

Note: localhost should be replaced with the IP address of the machine that is running Kavita when accessing from inside your network from a different device like a phone or tablet.

For more instructions on how to make Kavita accessible from outside your home network... see Accessing Kavita from external network.

4. Updating Kavita

IMPORTANT: If you are updating from a really old version you need to upgrade every 2 versions at a time. Doing otherwise you risk to having to restart with a fresh db

Kavita self-updating is down the road. Expected to be released in v0.6.0 per the project page

Before updating Kavita, stop the program/service from running.

  1. Follow the guide aguain but:
  2. Copy/paste all files EXCEPT config/ to your Kavita install directory.

Warning: If you replace config/, you will lose your data.