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Make the login limiter correct behind a reverse proxy
ClientIP used r.RemoteAddr and ignored X-Forwarded-For. That was right
about not trusting the header from an untrusted peer, but it is only half
the design: behind a proxy every request arrives from the proxy, so the
limiter key in handlers.go was "<proxy-ip>|<username>" for every client on
the internet. One attacker locked out a username for everyone, an attacker
rotating usernames never hit a limit, and sessions.ip recorded the proxy
so the device list was useless.

- VELLUM_TRUSTED_PROXIES is a CIDR list. X-Forwarded-For is honoured only
  when RemoteAddr is inside it, and the chain is walked right-to-left so
  the first address that is not itself a trusted proxy wins. Everything to
  its left was appended by a client we do not control, so a spoofed
  leftmost entry is discarded.
- VELLUM_PUBLIC_URL is the external origin. CookieSecure now defaults to
  true when it is https://, so a TLS deployment that forgets
  VELLUM_COOKIE_SECURE no longer ships a plaintext session cookie.
- A malformed CIDR fails the boot rather than being skipped: silently
  dropping a proxy network widens the trust boundary, which is the exact
  failure this setting exists to prevent.

ClientIP became a method on Authenticator so it can see the trusted set,
which is why handlers.go and main.go changed as well.

Verified red-green: neutering the trusted-peer path fails five ClientIP
tests, including the spoofed-leftmost case.

Known gap, pre-existing and not fixed here: this limiter still covers only
/api/v1/auth/login. Jellyfin AuthenticateByName and Subsonic auth call
auth.Authenticate with no limiting, so the same brute force is available
through those two surfaces.
2026-10-12 00:45:27 -04:00
.gitea/workflows Add CI 2026-10-12 00:45:27 -04:00
cmd/vellum Make the login limiter correct behind a reverse proxy 2026-10-12 00:45:27 -04:00
docs Documentation, and make a fresh clone actually work 2026-10-12 00:18:11 -04:00
internal Make the login limiter correct behind a reverse proxy 2026-10-12 00:45:27 -04:00
migrations Waves 9-10: Jellyfin and Subsonic clients can browse and play 2026-10-11 15:05:43 -04:00
scripts dev: fix the Vite proxy and add a one-command dev runner 2026-10-10 16:32:32 -04:00
web Documentation, and make a fresh clone actually work 2026-10-12 00:18:11 -04:00
.dockerignore Phase 0: skeleton, config, migrations, health check, container 2026-10-09 16:26:08 -04:00
.gitignore Phase 2: split the fat packages along real boundaries 2026-10-11 16:03:10 -04:00
compose.yml Beta blockers: async scans, admin CLI, deploy docs, pagination, password UI 2026-10-10 18:00:35 -04:00
DEPLOY.md Beta blockers: async scans, admin CLI, deploy docs, pagination, password UI 2026-10-10 18:00:35 -04:00
Dockerfile Web UI: Svelte app, embedded into the binary 2026-10-09 16:40:58 -04:00
entrypoint.sh Phase 0: skeleton, config, migrations, health check, container 2026-10-09 16:26:08 -04:00
go.mod Phase 6c: photo thumbnails and viewer 2026-10-09 21:22:30 -04:00
go.sum Phase 6c: photo thumbnails and viewer 2026-10-09 21:22:30 -04:00
Makefile dev: fix the Vite proxy and add a one-command dev runner 2026-10-10 16:32:32 -04:00
README.md Documentation, and make a fresh clone actually work 2026-10-12 00:18:11 -04:00

Vellum

One application, one process, one database for every media type — ebooks, comics, audiobooks, music, photos, games, and video — behind a single account system with real per-user progress and per-library permissions.

A modular monolith. One Go binary, one SQLite file, one web frontend.

The full plan lives in ~/.opencode/plan/vellum.md.

Status

Phase Scope State
0 Repo, config, migrations, health, Docker done
1 Users, sessions, library grants done
2 Scanner, items, assets done
2b FTS5 search done
3 EPUB reader + progress done
4 CBZ comic reader done
PDF PDF reading (pdf.js) done
5 Job queue, metadata (Open Library, Google Books, MusicBrainz, ComicVine, IGDB) done
6a Audiobooks + music playback done
6c Photos + thumbnails done
7 Games: ROM scanning, platforms, cloud saves, EmulatorJS done
UI Svelte app: home, browse, item pages, readers done
6b Music smart playlists not started
— Video (stays on Jellyfin) deferred

What works today: an administrator adds libraries pointing at server folders, scans them, and optionally enriches metadata. Users sign in and read EPUBs and PDFs, read CBZ comics, listen to audiobooks track-by-track, browse photos, and play emulated games in the browser with their own cloud saves — with position saved per account, per file.

Six media types work: ebooks, comics, audiobooks, music, photos, games. Video is the only one not implemented, and it stays on Jellyfin on purpose.

Of the services in the existing stack, this covers Stump, Kavita, Audiobookshelf, Navidrome, and RomM. Only Jellyfin (video) is left.

Quick start

sudo dnf install golang        # once; Go is not in the base image here
make build
make run
curl localhost:7788/healthz    # {"database":"ok","status":"ok",...}

Run with media roots configured:

VELLUM_MEDIA_DIRS=/mnt/storage/media/ebooks:/mnt/storage/media/comics make run

Configuration

All configuration is environment variables. Every one has a default, so the binary runs with no configuration at all.

Variable Default Meaning
VELLUM_LISTEN :7788 Bind address
VELLUM_DATA_DIR ./data SQLite database lives here
VELLUM_CONFIG_DIR ./config Regenerable cache (covers, pages)
VELLUM_MEDIA_DIRS (none) Read-only library roots, colon-separated
VELLUM_ADMIN_USER (none) Creates the first admin, only on an empty database
VELLUM_ADMIN_PASSWORD (none) Password for that first admin (min 8 chars)
VELLUM_COOKIE_SECURE false Set true when serving over TLS
VELLUM_COMICVINE_API_KEY (none) Enables comic metadata via ComicVine
VELLUM_IGDB_CLIENT_ID (none) Enables game metadata via IGDB
VELLUM_IGDB_CLIENT_SECRET (none) IGDB client secret (both required)
VELLUM_LOG_LEVEL info debug, info, warn, error
VELLUM_LOG_FORMAT text text or json
VELLUM_SESSION_TTL 720h Login session lifetime
VELLUM_SHUTDOWN_GRACE 15s Graceful shutdown timeout

The first admin is created only when no users exist, so setting these on an established install does nothing. If the database is empty and they are unset, the server logs a warning and refuses to invent a default password.

Layout

cmd/vellum/          main — wiring and lifecycle only, the one place packages meet
internal/
  core/              config, logging, database, migrations, timestamps
  httpx/             shared JSON helpers
  httpapi/           router, middleware, security headers, static SPA serving
  auth/              argon2id, sessions, grants, bootstrap
  apitoken/          credentials for non-browser clients (Jellyfin, Subsonic)
  catalog/           THE data seam: read an item, and check you may
  library/           library CRUD and the media-type registry
  scanner/           walk the filesystem and reconcile with the database
  probe/             ffprobe wrapper — codec facts (optional dependency)
  media/             generic item/file/cover/progress endpoints
  home/              the five home shelves
  search/            FTS5 queries
  metadata/          the enrichment job and its matching policy
  providers/         Open Library, Google Books, MusicBrainz, ComicVine, IGDB
  playback/          playback engine selection endpoint
  engine/            playback engine registry (html5, mpv, vlc, mdk)
  progress/          the polymorphic per-user progress store
  stream/            range-capable file serving
  jobs/              table-backed job queue
  natsort/           natural ordering for pages and tracks
  jellyfin/          Jellyfin protocol adapter (+ dto/)
  subsonic/          Subsonic protocol adapter (+ dto/)
  arch/              import-rule tests; holds no code
  modules/
    ebooks/          EPUB parsing and cover extraction
    comics/          CBZ page listing and extraction
    games/           platforms, IGDB, cloud saves, EmulatorJS
    photos/          thumbnail generation
web/                 Svelte app; dist/ is embedded via web/embed.go
migrations/          embedded SQL, applied in order at boot
docs/                architecture guide and decision records

Module rule: the core never imports a feature module; modules import the core and mount their own routes, tables, and scanner rules. Adding a media type is a new package plus a migration, never a core edit.

Layer rule: packages are arranged in six layers and a package may never import from a higher one. This is enforced by tests in internal/arch, not by convention — see docs/ARCHITECTURE.md.

Schema rule: media items are global; everything user-specific is a join. Nothing may hold per-user state on a media row.

Documentation

Database

SQLite in WAL mode, opened through modernc.org/sqlite — a pure-Go driver, so the binary builds with CGO_ENABLED=0 and cross-compiles without a toolchain per target.

Migrations are embedded and applied in filename order; applied files are recorded only by number in PRAGMA user_version, so never edit an applied migration — add a new one.

Back up by copying the database (or its directory); VACUUM INTO 'backup.db' takes a consistent snapshot while running.

Deploy

make docker                                  # podman build
podman compose up -d                         # see compose.yml

The container mounts /data (database), /config (cache), and /media (read-only). On SELinux hosts every bind mount needs :z — compose.yml already has it.

The application never writes to /media.

Development

make dev        # backend + Vite dev server together, with hot reload
make build      # builds the frontend, then the Go binary with it embedded
make build-go   # Go only, when the frontend is unchanged
make check      # gofmt + vet + test
make run        # run the server on :7788
cd web && pnpm dev   # frontend only; needs the backend running on :7788

make dev is the one to reach for while developing: it builds and starts the backend, waits for it to answer, then starts Vite. Vite proxies /api to the backend so the browser sees a single origin and sessions behave exactly as in production. Ctrl-C stops both.

If you run Vite on its own, the backend must already be running, or every request fails with ECONNREFUSED on :7788.