Espial

Espial is an open-source, web-based bookmarking server.

It supports multiple user accounts and is primarily intended for self-hosted deployments.

Bookmarks are stored in a SQLite database to keep setup and maintenance straightforward.

Espial also includes internationalization support.

Adding Bookmarks

The easist way for logged-in users to add bookmarks, is with the "bookmarklet", found on the Settings page.

Espial also supports file import options.

Demo Server

Log in with:

• username: demo
• password: demo

https://espdemo.ae8.org/u:demo

Related Projects

Also, see the android app for adding bookmarks via an Android Share intent:

https://github.com/jonschoning/espial-share-android

Installation

Docker Setup (Recommended Method)

Docker installation is the recommended approach for most deployments.

See:

https://github.com/jonschoning/espial-docker

Setup From Source

1. Install Haskell tooling (choose one):
   • Stack: https://docs.haskellstack.org/en/stable/
   • GHCup (installs GHC, Stack, and more): https://www.haskell.org/ghcup/install/
2. Build executables:

stack build

3. Create the database:

stack exec migration -- createdb

4. Create a user:

stack exec migration -- createuser --userName myusername --userPassword myuserpassword

5. Import a pinboard bookmark file for a user (optional):

stack exec migration -- importbookmarks --userName myusername --bookmarkFile sample-bookmarks.json

6. Import a firefox bookmark file for a user (optional):

stack exec migration -- importfirefoxbookmarks --userName myusername --bookmarkFile firefox-bookmarks.json

7. Start a production server:

stack exec espial

Configuration

See config/settings.yml for changing default run-time parameters & environment variables.

• config/settings.yml is embedded into the app executable when compiled and also read once when the app starts. Current settings in config/settings.yml will override the embedded compile-time settings.
• config/settings.yml values formatted like _env:ENV_VAR_NAME:default_value can be overridden by the specified environment variable.
• Example:
  • _env:PORT:3000
  • environment variable PORT
  • default app http port: 3000

Internationalization

Espial's frontend supports a selectable UI language per account, on the Account Settings (settings) page.

The Server Language default is controlled by language-default in config/settings.yml, which can also be set with environment variable LANGUAGE_DEFAULT to the language code; the default value is en.

Supported Languages:

Code	English name	Native name
en	English	English
de	German	Deutsch
es	Spanish	Español
fr	French	Français
it	Italian	Italiano
ja	Japanese	日本語
ko	Korean	한국어
pl	Polish	Polski
pt-BR	Portuguese (Brazil)	Português (Brasil)
ru	Russian	Русский
tr	Turkish	Türkçe
uk	Ukrainian	Українська
zh-Hans	Chinese (Simplified)	简体中文
zh-Hant	Chinese (Traditional)	繁體中文

Request IP Logging

Espial supports the IP_FROM_HEADER environment variable for request logging.

• IP_FROM_HEADER=true: log the client IP from the X-Real-IP or X-Forwarded-For header when present, and fall back to the peer address if neither header is available.
• IP_FROM_HEADER=false: log the peer address from the HTTP connection.

Only set IP_FROM_HEADER=true if your application is safely positioned behind a trusted reverse proxy.

TLS / Reverse Proxy

A reverse proxy is the recommended approach for production and most self-hosted deployments. For simple local or LAN setups where that is impractical, Espial can also terminate TLS directly — see Optional: In-Process TLS below.

Set SSL_ONLY=true whenever Espial is served over HTTPS (via reverse proxy or in-process TLS) to enable the Secure cookie flag and HTTP→HTTPS redirects.

Recommended: Reverse Proxy (Caddy, nginx, Cloudflare Tunnel, …)

Running Espial behind a reverse proxy is the recommended approach for production and most self-hosted deployments. The proxy terminates TLS and forwards plain HTTP to Espial. This gives you automatic certificate management, HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 at the edge, and cleaner separation of concerns.

For container-based deployment examples, including production-oriented layouts, see the espial-docker repository:

• https://github.com/jonschoning/espial-docker

Minimal Caddy example:

Localhost without a real domain:

https://localhost:3050 {
    reverse_proxy localhost:3000
}

or with a domain:

espial.example.com {
  reverse_proxy 127.0.0.1:3000
}

With the domain setup:

• Caddy terminates TLS for espial.example.com.
• Espial continues listening on HTTP, locally on 127.0.0.1:3000
  • If using Docker Compose, it would look like espial:3000
• Set IP_FROM_HEADER=true only when Espial is reachable solely through that trusted proxy.

If you are using Cloudflare:

• Prefer Cloudflare SSL mode Full (strict).
• use header_up X-Forwarded-For {http.request.header.CF-Connecting-IP}
• If traffic can reach Espial directly without passing through your trusted proxy, do not enable IP_FROM_HEADER=true, because client IP headers can be spoofed.

Running on a Subpath

Espial can also be served under a path prefix on a shared domain, e.g. https://www.domain.com/espial alongside other apps on the same host. This needs two pieces working together:

1. APPROOT — tell Espial the full external URL (including the subpath) it's being served at, so generated links, redirects, and static asset URLs come out correct:

   approot: "_env:APPROOT:https://www.domain.com/espial"
   

   or via environment variable:

   APPROOT=https://www.domain.com/espial stack exec espial
   

2. Reverse proxy — strip the /espial prefix before forwarding to Espial, since Espial itself always routes as if mounted at /. Also redirect the bare /espial (no trailing slash) to /espial/ so relative URLs in the page resolve against the right base.

   Minimal Caddy example (see caddy/Caddyfile-Standalone-Subpath, which runs Caddy in Docker alongside an Espial instance on the host):

   :80 {
       redir /espial /espial/
   
       handle_path /espial/* {
           # Caddy pools and reuses idle connections to the backend
           # by default, but Espial's Warp server closes idle connections after 30s
           # set keepalive to off or 15s
           reverse_proxy host.docker.internal:3000 {
               transport http {
                   keepalive off
               }
           }
       }
   }
   

   handle_path strips the /espial prefix before proxying, matching what APPROOT told Espial to expect. If Caddy and Espial run on the same host (not in Docker), replace host.docker.internal:3000 with localhost:3000.

Optional: In-Process TLS

For simple local or LAN deployments where adding a reverse proxy is impractical, Espial can terminate TLS directly using your own certificate and key files (PEM format, unencrypted key).

Set the TLS_CERT_FILE and TLS_KEY_FILE environment variables (or the corresponding tls-cert-file / tls-key-file keys in config/settings.yml) to the paths of your certificate and private key:

TLS_CERT_FILE=/path/to/cert.pem TLS_KEY_FILE=/path/to/key.pem stack exec espial

Or in config/settings.yml:

tls-cert-file: "/path/to/cert.pem"
tls-key-file: "/path/to/key.pem"

When both values are set Espial listens on HTTPS with HTTP/2 enabled. When either is absent Espial falls back to plain HTTP.

Certificate rotation — Espial reloads the certificate from disk automatically every 12 hours without restarting or dropping existing connections. To trigger an immediate reload send SIGHUP to the process:

kill -HUP <espial-pid>

Notes:

• Let's Encrypt certificates (fullchain.pem + privkey.pem) work directly.
• A self-signed certificate for local testing can be generated with:

  openssl req -x509 -newkey rsa:2048 -nodes \
    -keyout key.pem -out cert.pem -days 3650 \
    -subj "/CN=localhost" \
    -addext "subjectAltName=DNS:localhost,IP:127.0.0.1"
  

• A reverse proxy is still preferred for production: it provides HTTP/3, edge caching, and hides the Espial process from the public internet.

Archive Backends

Espial supports configurable archive backends for saving bookmark snapshots.

Set the backend with archive-backend in config/settings.yml:

• disabled: archiving is turned off (default).

• wayback-machine: enables submission to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.

  Wayback Machine support requires the following settings:

  • wayback-machine-access-key

  • wayback-machine-secret-key

    Create these by signing in to your Internet Archive account and generating S3-style API credentials at https://archive.org/account/s3.php.
    If wayback-machine is selected but the access key or secret key is missing, archiving is disabled at runtime.

• archivebox07: queues the URL in a local ArchiveBox 0.7 instance and stores an ArchiveBox link on the bookmark.

  IMPORTANT - ArchiveBox stores all archive data in a single global index space, so this arcive-backend is best suited to single-user Espial instances.

  Recommended setup is to use Docker Compose to run the ArchiveBox instance

  • Simple example, running on localhost: docker-compose.archivebox07.yml
  • See https://github.com/jonschoning/espial-docker for more examples intended for deployment
  • In all examples, you must change the ARCHIVEBOX_PASSWORD from it's default value.

  ArchiveBox support requires the following settings:

  • archivebox-url

    archivebox-url is the URL espial uses to sign in to ArchiveBox and submit URLs through the web UI. In Docker Compose this is typically http://archivebox:8000.

  • archivebox-public-url (optional)

    Public ArchiveBox URL stored on bookmarks.

  • archivebox-username plus archivebox-password

    Espial signs in to the ArchiveBox web UI with these credentials before submitting URLs.

  • archivebox-tag (optional)

    A tag Espial adds to submissions (example: espial).

  • archivebox-plugins (optional)

    Comma-separated list of ArchiveBox methods (plugins) to request when submitting URLs, e.g. title,favicon,singlefile,screenshot.

  Set the ArchiveBox admin credentials in the override path by supplying:

  • ARCHIVEBOX_USERNAME=...
  • ARCHIVEBOX_PASSWORD=...

  The Makefile includes the following helpers:

  • docker-compose-up-archivebox07
  • docker-compose-up-d-archivebox07
  • docker-compose-exec-archivebox07

  Or start the instance manually via docker compose, example:

  docker compose -f docker-compose.archivebox07.yml up
  

  Configure the enrivonment variable ARCHIVE_METHODS to control which archive methods ArchiveBox uses:

  environment:
    - ARCHIVE_METHODS=title,favicon,singlefile,screenshot
  

  Available ARCHIVE_METHODS plugins:

  • archive_org, dom, favicon, git, headers, htmltotext, media, mercury, pdf, readability, screenshot, singlefile, title, wget

  If ARCHIVE_METHODS is unset/not-present, ArchiveBox will uses all plugins.

  For additional information and configuration, refer to the ArchiveBox repository

Optional proxy settings for archive requests:

• archive-socks-proxy-host
• archive-socks-proxy-port

CLI

Migration commands are run via:

stack exec migration -- <command> [options]

All commands take an optional --conn parameter for the database location; if omitted, the database location is loaded from config/settings.yml or environment variable SQLITE_DATABASE

Commands

Command	Example
createdb	stack exec migration -- createdb
createuser	stack exec migration -- createuser --userName myusername --userPassword myuserpassword
createuser (password file)	stack exec migration -- createuser --userName myusername --userPasswordFile mypassword.txt
deleteuser	stack exec migration -- deleteuser --userName myusername
createapikey	stack exec migration -- createapikey --userName myusername
deleteapikey	stack exec migration -- deleteapikey --userName myusername
importbookmarks	stack exec migration -- importbookmarks --userName myusername --bookmarkFile sample-bookmarks.json
importfirefoxbookmarks	stack exec migration -- importfirefoxbookmarks --userName myusername --bookmarkFile firefox-bookmarks.json
importnetscapebookmarks	stack exec migration -- importnetscapebookmarks --userName myusername --bookmarkFile bookmarks.html
importnotes	stack exec migration -- importnotes --userName myusername --noteDirectory ./notes
importnotesjson	stack exec migration -- importnotesjson --userName myusername --noteFile exported-notes.json
exportbookmarks	stack exec migration -- exportbookmarks --userName myusername --bookmarkFile exported-bookmarks.json
exportnetscapebookmarks	stack exec migration -- exportnetscapebookmarks --userName myusername --bookmarkFile exported-bookmarks.html
exportnotesjson	stack exec migration -- exportnotesjson --userName myusername --noteFile exported-notes.json
printmigratedb	stack exec migration -- printmigratedb
runmigratedb	stack exec migration -- runmigratedb
showuser	stack exec migration -- showuser --userName myusername

importbookmarks Command Notes:

See sample-bookmarks.json, which contains a JSON array, each line containing a FileBookmark object.

Example:

[
  {
    "href": "http://raganwald.com/2018/02/23/forde.html",
    "description": "Forde's Tenth Rule, or, \"How I Learned to Stop Worrying and \u2764\ufe0f the State Machine\"",
    "extended": "",
    "time": "2018-02-26T22:57:20Z",
    "shared": "yes",
    "toread": "yes",
    "tags": "raganwald"
  },
  ,
  {
    "href": "http://downloads.haskell.org/~ghc/latest/docs/html/users_guide/flags.html",
    "description": "7.6. Flag reference \u2014 Glasgow Haskell Compiler 8.2.2 User's Guide",
    "extended": "-fprint-expanded-synonyms",
    "time": "2018-02-26T21:52:02Z",
    "shared": "yes",
    "toread": "no",
    "tags": "ghc haskell"
  }
]