The following tutorial is completely written by Claude after a sucessful session of vibe-coding to setup a private audiobook server for me and my friends, which I currently serve at audiobooks.carlossanchezmunoz.com. Not a very human text, but hey, this was useful to me, and we had to fix some initial mistakes by Claude along the way, so I guess the final recollection can be pretty useful, either for my future self or anyone interested.

Self-hosted Audiobook Server with Raspberry Pi, Audiobookshelf & Cloudflare Tunnel

A complete guide to building a silent, always-on audiobook server you can stream from anywhere in the world — for you, your family, or anyone you share it with. No screen, no keyboard, no subscription fees.

What you’ll end up with

• A headless Raspberry Pi server running Audiobookshelf
• Accessible from anywhere in the world via a personal domain with HTTPS
• Multiple users with independent listening progress (you and your partner, for example)
• Fully controllable from your Mac via SSH — no monitor ever needed
• Streaming audio without downloading files to your phone

What you need

• Raspberry Pi 4 or 5 (2GB RAM minimum recommended)
• MicroSD card (for OS) — 16GB or more
• External USB SSD or HDD for your audiobook library (optional for testing, recommended for real use)
• A Mac to set everything up from
• A domain managed on Cloudflare (free account is enough)
• A Cloudflare account

Hardware notes

Storage

For a permanent setup, avoid storing your audiobook library on the microSD card — they wear out under constant read/write. A USB SSD is the best option: silent, fast, and reliable. A 1TB USB SSD costs around 60-85€ and is more than enough for thousands of audiobooks (each one is typically 200–500MB).

If you have a Raspberry Pi 5, you can add an NVMe HAT (~20€) and a 1TB NVMe SSD (~45€) for the fastest possible setup, well within 100€.

Cooling

For this use case — audio streaming and light home automation — the Pi runs at very low CPU. You don’t need an active fan. A passive heatsink case (like the Flirc or Argon ONE) keeps temperatures around 50–55°C silently. Just heatsink stickers (~3€) are also enough for light workloads.

Step 1 — Flash the OS on your Mac

Download and install Raspberry Pi Imager from raspberrypi.com.

1. Open Imager → Choose OS → Raspberry Pi OS Lite (64-bit) — no desktop environment needed, saves resources
2. Choose Storage → select your SD card
3. Click the gear icon ⚙️ before writing — this is critical for headless setup:
   • Hostname: pi-home (or whatever you prefer)
   • Enable SSH ✅
   • Username: carlos (use your own name)
   • Password: choose a strong one
   • WiFi: enter your network credentials — or skip if using ethernet (recommended)
   • Locale / Timezone: set to your region
4. Write the image

Tip: Ethernet is better than WiFi for a permanent home server — more stable, faster file transfers, less CPU overhead, and one less thing that can break.

Step 2 — First boot

• Insert the SD card into the Pi
• Connect ethernet cable if using wired connection
• Power on the Pi
• Wait 2 minutes for the first boot to complete

Step 3 — Connect from your Mac via SSH

Open Terminal on your Mac:

ssh [email protected]

If that doesn’t resolve, find the Pi’s IP from your router admin panel and use:

ssh [email protected]

You’re now controlling the Pi from your Mac. You’ll never need a screen or keyboard.

Optional: passwordless SSH

Save yourself from typing the password every time:

ssh-copy-id [email protected]

Optional: keep SSH sessions alive

Add this to ~/.ssh/config on your Mac:

Host pi-home.local
  ServerAliveInterval 60

Step 4 — Update the system

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

Step 5 — Mount your external drive (skip for testing)

If you’re just testing with the SD card, skip this step and come back to it when you’re ready for a permanent setup.

# Find the drive name (usually /dev/sda1)
lsblk

# Create mount point
sudo mkdir /mnt/audiobooks

# Format if brand new
sudo mkfs.ext4 /dev/sda1

# Mount it
sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/audiobooks

# Auto-mount on reboot
echo '/dev/sda1 /mnt/audiobooks ext4 defaults,nofail 0 2' | sudo tee -a /etc/fstab

If testing with SD card only, Audiobookshelf will store files at /home/carlos/audiobooks instead.

Step 6 — Install Docker and run Audiobookshelf

Docker is the easiest way to run Audiobookshelf — no dependency management, easy updates, clean removal.

# Install Docker
curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com | sh
sudo usermod -aG docker carlos

Log out and back in so the group change takes effect:

exit
# SSH back in, then:

docker run -d \
  --name audiobookshelf \
  --restart unless-stopped \
  -p 13378:80 \
  -v /home/carlos/audiobooks:/audiobooks \
  -v /home/carlos/abs/config:/config \
  -v /home/carlos/abs/metadata:/metadata \
  ghcr.io/advplyr/audiobookshelf

If using external drive, replace /home/carlos/audiobooks with /mnt/audiobooks.

Step 7 — Access Audiobookshelf on your local network

Open your browser on any device connected to your home WiFi:

http://pi-home.local:13378

Or using the IP directly:

http://192.168.1.XXX:13378

Find the IP anytime with:

hostname -I

Create your admin account on first access and set the library path to /audiobooks.

Step 8 — Set up multiple users

Audiobookshelf has full multi-user support built in. Each user gets completely independent listening progress, bookmarks, history, and preferences — sharing the same library.

Go to: Settings → Users → Create User

Give each family member their own username and password. They log in on their phone with their own account and everything is tracked separately.

Step 9 — Copy audiobooks to the Pi

The easiest way on Mac is Cyberduck — free, works like Finder, connects via SFTP.

1. Download Cyberduck (free)
2. New Connection → SFTP
3. Server: pi-home.local, Port: 22, Username: carlos, Password: your Pi password
4. Drag and drop your audiobook files to /home/carlos/audiobooks

Fix permissions if needed

If Cyberduck shows “permission denied”:

sudo chown -R carlos:carlos /home/carlos/audiobooks

Alternative: mount as Finder network drive

In Finder → Go → Connect to Server (⌘K) → enter sftp://[email protected]

After copying files

In Audiobookshelf → Libraries → click Scan to pick up new files.

Step 10 — Expose to the internet with Cloudflare Tunnel

This lets you and anyone you share it with stream from anywhere in the world, with automatic HTTPS — no port forwarding, no VPN required.

Prerequisites: Your domain must be managed on Cloudflare (free account).

Install cloudflared

curl -L https://github.com/cloudflare/cloudflared/releases/latest/download/cloudflared-linux-arm64 -o cloudflared
sudo mv cloudflared /usr/local/bin/
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/cloudflared

Authenticate with Cloudflare

cloudflared tunnel login

It prints a URL — open it on your Mac, select your domain, and authorize it.

Create the tunnel

cloudflared tunnel create audiobooks

Note the tunnel ID it returns (a UUID string).

Create the config file

sudo mkdir -p /etc/cloudflared
sudo nano /etc/cloudflared/config.yml

Paste this (replace with your tunnel ID and domain):

tunnel: YOUR-TUNNEL-ID
credentials-file: /etc/cloudflared/YOUR-TUNNEL-ID.json

ingress:
  - hostname: audiobooks.yourdomain.com
    service: http://localhost:13378
  - service: http_status:404

Copy credentials to system path

sudo cp ~/.cloudflared/*.json /etc/cloudflared/

Add DNS record

cloudflared tunnel route dns audiobooks audiobooks.yourdomain.com

This automatically creates the CNAME in Cloudflare — no dashboard needed.

Test it

cloudflared tunnel run audiobooks

Open https://audiobooks.yourdomain.com — it should work with HTTPS automatically.

Run on boot

sudo cloudflared service install
sudo systemctl enable cloudflared
sudo systemctl start cloudflared

Check it’s running:

sudo systemctl status cloudflared

Step 11 — Install the mobile app

Audiobookshelf streams audio directly — no need to download files to your phone.

iOS options:

• Still — clean, minimalist, native iOS, available on the App Store
• SoundLeaf — premium feel, CarPlay support, App Store
• ShelfPlayer — open source, feature-rich, App Store

Android:

• Official Audiobookshelf app (available on the Play Store / direct APK)

On first launch, enter your server URL:

https://audiobooks.yourdomain.com

Then log in with your Audiobookshelf username and password.

Quick reference

Architecture overview

Phone / any device
        │
        │ HTTPS
        ▼
Cloudflare Tunnel
        │
        │ HTTP (local)
        ▼
Raspberry Pi
  ├── Docker: Audiobookshelf (:13378)
  ├── Docker: Home Assistant (:8123)  [optional]
  └── Storage: USB SSD / SD card

Built and documented from a real setup session. Total time from scratch to streaming: under an hour.