kiwix-tools¶
Kiwix's command-line reader, server and library manager for offline ZIM books
- Version recorded: 3.7.0
- Categories:
references - Upstream: https://github.com/kiwix/kiwix-tools
What it does¶
Reads ZIM files, the single-file offline copies of Wikipedia, Stack Exchange sites, WikiMed and hundreds of other books that the Kiwix project publishes. kiwix-serve serves them as web pages with full-text search, kiwix-search searches one from a terminal, and kiwix-manage keeps the library file that lists them.
Why you would want it¶
With the network down, an encyclopaedia, a medical reference and the whole of Amateur Radio Stack Exchange are still on the laptop and searchable. It is the reader for the books kiwix-library installs, and for any ZIM you bring yourself. The alternative is the kiwix desktop reader, which is heavier and needs a desktop session; this runs anywhere, including over SSH to a Pi.
Before it will work¶
Books to read: choose them with hammunition station set --reference-books, or bring your own ZIM file. Nothing else.
How it installs¶
- apt:
kiwix-tools
Known problems¶
kiwix-serve listens on every network address of the machine unless told otherwise, and its default port, 80, needs root (both measured 2026-09-29). Run it through hammunition reference serve, which always passes -i 127.0.0.1 and a high port; if you run it by hand, pass -i 127.0.0.1 -p 8481 yourself, or anyone on the network can read your library. Debian's libzim (9.2.3) is several releases behind upstream and reads the format-6.3 ZIMs Kiwix publishes today. The package pulls aria2 as a dependency of libkiwix; nothing here uses it.
Keeping it current¶
- probe: apt policy
- strategy: apt_upgrade
Where to get help with the software itself¶
The Kiwix project's issue tracker on GitHub (https://github.com/kiwix/kiwix-tools/issues) and https://kiwix.org/.