Radicale

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Radicale is a server designed to support the CalDav and CardDav protocols. It operates either as a standalone package using its own internal http server or can be integrated with an existing webserver.

Installation

Install the radicale package.

The package creates the radicale user and service as per the Radicale systemd instructions, along with the /var/lib/radicale/collections data folder, so you can just enable radicale.service.

Configuration

The easiest thing is to follow the instructions at the Radicale website.

The main configuration file is located at /etc/radicale/config

If this is setup on a remote / headless system, consider adding the hosts option to enable remote access to the built-in web interface.

Many of the configuration options can be changed on the command-line: 

$ radicale --help

Authentication

By default, anyone can access the web interface and create address books or calendars, so authentication should be considered.

Authentication is controlled by /etc/radicale/users which can use Apache httpasswd formatted passwords (as well as plaintext & other options). If you are not planning to install Apache HTTP Server, you can just use an online htpasswd generator to generate the user:password hashes.

Non-default Storage Location

By default, the Radicale package comes configured to store data in /var/lib/radicale/collections. If you want to change this you can specify another location in the configuration file but you must also adjust the systemd configuration. The included radicale.service file sets ProtectSystem=strict which means systemd won't allow the service read-write access to any area outside /var/lib/radicale/. To get around this create a drop-in file with the following contents: 

/etc/systemd/system/radicale.service.d/override.conf
[Service]
ReadWritePaths=/path/to/storage

You can now tell Radicale to use your chosen location by editing the config file as in the Radicale documentation: 

/etc/radicale/config
[storage]
filesystem_folder = /path/to/storage

Changing /path/to/storage in both files to your chosen location.

Integration

Mail Servers

If you run a mail server the radicale-imap-gitAUR or radicale-dovecot-authAUR IMAP authentication plugins may be useful. If you use radicale-dovecot-auth with UNIX sockets, create a radicale.service drop-in file with the following contents: 

[Service]
RestrictAddressFamilies=
RestrictAddressFamilies=~AF_PACKET AF_NETLINK

This allows the process to open AF_UNIX sockets.

Web Servers

Radicale provides its own web server (initially restricted to localhost only, accessible at localhost:5232 with any username and password), but it can be integrated with HTTP webservers like Apache HTTP Server via Reverse Proxy or the WSGI interface.

Client support

Since it uses the CalDav and CardDav protocols, it should support most clients, particularly the officially supported.

The following list may or may not be accurate:

  • Thunderbird
    • To add calendars, on the calendar view click on "New Calendar" -> On the network, in the location field add the root address radicale is listening to, for instance http://localhost:5232, not the address of a single calendar, and Thunderbird will automatically discover all the calendars shared by radicale
  • GNOME/Evolution, Contacts and Calendar
  • KOrganizer (korganizer)
  • InfCloud (infcloudAUR), CalDavZAP, CardDavMATE
  • syncEvolution (syncevolutionAUR)
  • DAVx⁵, Infomaniak kSync, Simple Contacts Pro SE for Android (ICSx⁵ will also works for single calendars, but DAVx⁵ is highly recommended over it for full experience, as will automatically detect all calendars and addressbooks that radicale exposes).
  • Mac OSX Calendar/Contacts
  • Apple iOS

See also