Buku

buku is a powerful cmdline bookmark management utility written in Python3 and SQLite3. buku exists because of my monumental dependency on historious. I wanted the same database on my local system. However, I couldn't find an equally flexible cmdline solution. Hence, Buku (after my son's nickname).

You can add bookmarks to buku with title and tags, optionally fetch page title from web, search by keywords for matching tags or title or URL, update and remove bookmarks, title or tags. You can open the URLs from search results directly in the browser. You can encrypt or decrypt the database file manually, optionally with custom number of hash passes for key generation.

buku can also handle piped input, which lets you combine it with xsel (on Linux) and use a shortcut to add selected or copied text as bookmark without touching the terminal. Ref: buku & xsel: add selected or copied URL as bookmark

The SQLite3 database file is stored in $HOME/.local/share/buku/bookmarks.db (or $XDG_DATA_HOME/buku/bookmarks.db, if XDG_DATA_HOME is defined) for each user.

Before version 1.9, buku stored database in $HOME/.cache/buku/bookmarks.db. If the file exists, buku automatically moves it to new location.

buku is GPLv3 licensed. Copyright (C) 2015 Arun Prakash Jana.

If you find buku useful, please consider donating via PayPal.

Table of Contents

• Features
• Installation
  • Dependencies
  • Installating from this repository
  • Running as a standalone utility
  • Installing with a package manager
• Usage
  • Cmdline options
  • Operational notes
• Examples
  • Bookkeeping
• Contributions
• Developers

Features

• Add, update or remove a bookmark
• Add tags to bookmarks
• Manual password protection using AES256 encryption algorithm
• Optionally fetch page title data from the web (default: disabled)
• Add a custom page title manually
• Use (partial) tags or keywords to search bookmarks
• Any or all search keyword match options
• Unique URLs to avoid duplicates, show index if URL already exists
• Open bookmark in browser using index
• Open search results in browser
• Modify or delete tags in DB
• Show all unique tags sorted alphabetically
• Browser (Chromium and Firefox based) errors and warnings suppression
• Show single bookmark by ID or all bookmarks in a go
• Refresh all bookmarks online
• Auto-compact DB on a single bookmark removal
• Delete all bookmarks from DB
• Show all bookmarks with empty titles or no tags (for bookkeeping)
• Add a bookmark at N^th index, to fill deleted bookmark indices
• Secure parameterized SQLite3 queries to access database
• Supports HTTP compression
• Handle multiple HTTP redirections (reports redireted URL, loops, IP blocking)
• Unicode in URL works
• UTF-8 request and response, page character set detection
• Handle piped input
• Coloured output for clarity
• Easily create compatible batch add or update scripts
• Unformatted selective output (for creating batch update scripts)
• Manpage for quick reference
• Optional debug information
• Fast and clean (no ads or clutter)
• Minimal dependencies
• Open source and free

Installation

Dependencies

buku requires Python 3.x to work.

For optional encryption support, install PyCrypto module. Run:

$ sudo pip3 install pycrypto

or on Ubuntu:

$ sudo apt-get install python3-crypto

Installing from this repository

If you have git installed, run:

$ git clone https://github.com/jarun/buku/

or download the latest stable release or development version.

Install to default location:

$ sudo make install

or, a custom location (PREFIX):

$ PREFIX=/path/to/prefix make install

To remove, run:

$ sudo make uninstall

or, if you have installed to a custom location (PREFIX):

$ PREFIX=/path/to/prefix make uninstall

You may need to use sudo with PREFIX depending on your permissions on destination directory.

Running as a standalone utility

buku is a standalone utility. From the containing directory, run:

$ ./buku

Installing with a package manager

buku is also available on

• AUR for Arch Linux;

• Void Linux repos.

   $ sudo xbps-install -S buku
  

• Homebrew for OS X, or its Linux fork, Linuxbrew.

Usage

Cmdline options

Usage: buku OPTIONS [URL] [TAGS] [KEYWORDS ...]

A private cmdline bookmark manager. Your mini web!

General options
  -a URL [tags]        add URL as bookmark with comma separated tags
  -d N                 delete entry at DB index N (from -P), move last entry to N
  -g                   list all tags alphabetically
  -m title             manually specify the title, for -a, -i, -u
  -s keyword(s)        search all bookmarks for a (partial) tag or any keyword
  -S keyword(s)        search all bookmarks for a (partial) tag or all keywords
  -u N URL [tags]      update all fields of entry at DB index N
  -w                   fetch title from web, for -a, -i, -u

Power toys
  -D                   delete ALL bookmarks
  -e                   show bookmarks with empty titles or no tags
  -i N                 insert new bookmark at free DB index N
  -k                   decrypt (unlock) database file
  -l                   encrypt (lock) database file
  -o N                 open URL at DB index N in browser
  -p N                 show details of bookmark record at DB index N
  -P                   show all bookmarks along with index from DB
  -r oldtag [newtag]   replace oldtag with newtag, delete oldtag if newtag empty
  -R                   refresh title from web for all bookmarks, update if non-empty
  -t N                 use N (> 0) hash iterations to generate key, for -k, -l
  -x N                 modify -P behaviour, N=1: show only URL, N=2: show URL and tag
  -z                   show debug information

Keys
  1-N                  open Nth search result in browser. Enter exits buku.

Operational notes

• It's advisable to copy URLs directly from the browser address bar, i.e., along with the leading http:// or https:// token. buku looks up title data (found within tags of HTML) from the web ONLY for fully-formed HTTP(S) URLs.
• If the URL contains characters like ;, & or brackets they may be interpreted specially by the shell. To avoid it, add the URL within single ' or double " quotes.
• The same URL cannot be added twice. You can update tags and re-fetch title data. You can also insert a new bookmark at a free index.
• You can either add or update or delete record(s) in one instance. A combination of these operations is not supported in a single run.
• Search works in mysterious ways:
  • Substrings match (match matches rematched) for URL, tags and title.
  • All the keywords are treated together as a single tag in the same order. Bookmarks with partial or complete tag matches are shown in results.
  • -s : match any of the keywords in URL or title. Order is irrelevant.
  • -S : match all the keywords in URL or title. Order is irrelevant.
  • Search results are indexed serially. This index is different from actual database index of a bookmark record which is shown within () after the URL.
• AES256 is used for encryption. Optionally specify (-t) the number of hash iterations to use to generate key. Default is 8 iterations.
• Encryption is optional and manual. If you choose to use encryption, the database file should be unlocked (-k) before using buku and locked (-l) afterwards. Between these 2 operations, the database file lies unencrypted on the disk, and NOT in memory. Also, note that the database file is unecrypted on creation.

Examples

1. Add a new bookmark with title Linux magazine & tags linux news and open source:

    $ buku -a -m 'Linux magazine' http://tuxdiary.com linux news, open source
    Added at index 15012014
   

Note that URL must precede tags. Multiple words in title must be within quotes. The assigned automatic index 15012014 is unique, one greater than highest index already in use in database. 2. Add a bookmark, fetch page title information from web:

    $ buku -a -w http://tuxdiary.com linux news, open source
    Title: [TuxDiary | Linux, open source and a pinch of leisure.]
    Added at index 15012014

3. Update existing bookmark at index 15012014 with a new tag:

    $ buku -u 15012014 -w http://tuxdiary.com linux news, open source, magazine
    Title: [TuxDiary | Linux, open source and a pinch of leisure.]
    Updated index 15012014
   

Tags are updated too. Original tags are removed. 4. Update or refresh full DB:

    $ buku -R

This operation does not modify the indexes, URLs or tags. Only titles, if non-empty, are refreshed. 5. Delete bookmark at index 15012014:

    $ buku -d 15012014
    Index 15012020 moved to 15012014

The last index is moved to the deleted index to keep the DB compact. 6. Delete all bookmarks:

    $ buku -D

7. List all unique tags alphabetically:

    $ buku -g
   

8. Insert a bookmark at index 15012014 (fails if index or URL exists in database):

    $ buku -i 15012014 -w http://tuxdiary.com/about linux news, open source
    Title: [A journey with WordPress | TuxDiary]
    Added at index 15012014
   

9. Replace a tag with new one:

    $ buku -r 'old tag' 'new tag'
   

10. Delete a tag from DB:

    $ buku -r 'old tag'
    

11. Show info on bookmark at index 15012014:

    $ buku -p 15012014
    

12. Show all bookmarks with real index from database:

    $ buku -P
    

13. Open URL at index 15012014 in browser:

    $ buku -o 15012014
    

14. Search bookmarks for a tag matching *kernel debugging* or ANY of the keywords *kernel* and *debugging* in URL or title (separately):

    $ buku -s kernel debugging
    

15. Search bookmarks for a tag matching *kernel debugging* or ALL the keywords *kernel* and *debugging* in URL or title (separately):

    $ buku -S kernel debugging
    

16. Encrypt/decrypt DB with custom number of iterations to generate key:

    $ buku -l -t 15
    $ buku -k -t 15
    

The same number of iterations must be used for one lock & unlock instance. 17. Show debug info:

    $ buku -z ...

18. More help:

    $ buku
    $ man buku
    

Bookkeeping

1. To list bookmarks with no title or tags:

    $ buku -e
   

Use the -u option to add title or tags to those entries, if you want to. 2. buku doesn't have any import feature of its own. To import URLs in bulk, create a script with URLs and tags like the following (check TIP below):

    #!/bin/bash
    buku -aw https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/ networking, device drivers
    buku -aw https://courses.engr.illinois.edu/ece390/books/artofasm/ArtofAsm.html assembly
    buku -aw http://www.tittbit.in/
    buku -aw http://www.mikroe.com/chapters/view/65/ electronics
    buku -aw "http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb470206(v=vs.85).aspx" file systems
    buku -aw http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-linuxboot/index.html boot process

Make the script executable and run to batch add bookmarks. 3. To update selected URLs (refresh) along with your tags, first get the unformatted selective output with URL and tags:

    $ buku -P -x 2 | tee myurls

Remove the lines you don't need. Add buku -wu in front of all the other lines (check TIP below). Should look like:

    #!/bin/bash
    buku -wu 50 https://wireless.wiki.kernel.org/ networking, device drivers
    buku -wu 51 https://courses.engr.illinois.edu/ece390/books/artofasm/ArtofAsm.html assembly
    buku -wu 52 http://www.tittbit.in/
    buku -wu 53 http://www.mikroe.com/chapters/view/65/ electronics
    buku -wu 54 "http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb470206(v=vs.85).aspx" file systems
    buku -wu 55 http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-linuxboot/index.html boot process

Run the script:

    $ chmod +x myurls
    $ ./myurls

####TIP

Add the same text at the beginning of multiple lines:

vim

• Press Ctrl-v to select the first column of text in the lines you want to change (visual mode).
• Press Shift-i and type the text you want to insert.
• Hit Esc, wait 1 second and the inserted text will appear on every line.

sed

$ sed -i 's/^/buku -wu /' filename

Contributions

Pull requests are welcome. Some of the features I have in mind are:

• Support subcommands using argparse
• Merge bookmark database files (for users who work on multiple systems)
• Exact word match (against substring in a word as it works currently. Hint: REGEXP)
• Parse full page data??? Might end up writing a search engine like Google. ;)
• Anything else which would add value (please raise an issue for discussion)

Developers

Arun Prakash Jana

Special thanks to the community for valuable suggestions and ideas.