{"id":1403,"date":"2017-07-23T22:00:16","date_gmt":"2017-07-24T05:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/partofthething.com\/thoughts\/?p=1403"},"modified":"2023-10-29T09:34:19","modified_gmt":"2023-10-29T16:34:19","slug":"host-your-own-contacts-and-calendars-and-share-them-across-devices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/partofthething.com\/thoughts\/host-your-own-contacts-and-calendars-and-share-them-across-devices\/","title":{"rendered":"Host your own contacts and calendars and share them across devices"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m trying to learn ways to minimize my reliance upon large companies for handling my day-to-day personal data. So I figured calendar and contacts should be on my list of things to self-host. This post is about how I migrated all my Google calendars and phone contacts to my own server without losing any features I was using. I’m doing this mostly for fun.<\/p>\n

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My self-hosted calendar in the web client<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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My self-hosted calendar on the phone<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Installing Radicale CalDAV\/CardDAV server behind an Apache Reverse Proxy<\/h1>\n

First step is to choose a CalDAV<\/a>\/CardDAV<\/a> server. These are standard file formats that hold calendar and contact info, and there are lots of choices. I found Radicale<\/a>, which I liked because it was small, simple, open source, and written in Python, my favorite programming language! In its simplest form, it just runs on a port of your server, and you can test it out like that.<\/p>\n

I wanted the extra security of running it behind the more robust web server I already had running (Apache) with authentication, so I had to set up a Reverse Proxy, where Apache passes traffic to the Radicale instance and back. The instructions work<\/a> but are specific to nginx, so I had to figure out what to do for Apache. Here’s what I got:<\/p>\n

ProxyPass \/radicale\/ http:\/\/127.0.0.1:8822\/\n<Location \/radicale\/>\n    ProxyPassReverse \/radicale\/\n    RewriteRule ^\/radicale\/(.*)$ http:\/\/127.0.0.1:8822\/$1 [QSA,L,E=HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization}]\n    RequestHeader set X-Remote-User %{REMOTE_USER}s\n    RequestHeader set X-Script-Name \/radicale\n    AuthType Basic\n    AuthName \"Secret Self-Hosted Calendar\"\n    require valid-user\n    AuthUserFile \"\/path\/to\/my\/htpasswd\"\n<\/Location><\/pre>\n
This authenticates users that hit the \/radicale\/ folder and then sends everything to the Radicale server chilling on port 8822. I put two users in my htpasswd file, one for me and the other to be shared across the family.<\/p>\n
I also have an older server that’s still running upstart<\/code> so I had to come up with the upstart version of the startup script for Radicale:<\/p>\n
description \"Radicale CalDAV and CardDAV server\"\nsetuid radicaleuser\nstart on net-device-up\nrespawn\nexec \/usr\/bin\/env python3 -m radicale --config \/etc\/radicale\/config<\/pre>\n
With that all in place, I could get to the server’s web interface, log in with the htpasswd info, and add some empty calendars and addressbooks.<\/p>\n
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Radicale web interface working<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
I created a one calendar in my personal folder and another in the family account and then symbolically linked the family one into my folder in the Radicale storage area so I could share it easily.<\/p>\n
Importing, Organizing, and Merging Contacts<\/h1>\n
Now to populate the server! I had several overlapping contact lists on various devices:<\/p>\n