Knowledge Portal

A self-hosted, AI-enhanced learning platform running on Unraid NAS. Serves offline copies of Wikipedia, Project Gutenberg, Stack Overflow, and 7 other knowledge sources — accessible from any device on the home network.

This is Step 1 of a larger vision: a unified portal integrating textbooks, lectures, workbooks, local LLMs, and vector search for semantic discovery across all sources.

Architecture

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│  Unraid NAS (192.168.1.152 / Tower)                 │
│                                                     │
│  ┌──────────────────────┐  ┌──────────────────────┐ │
│  │  knowledge-portal    │  │  knowledge-portal-   │ │
│  │  (kiwix-serve)       │  │  tools (Debian Slim) │ │
│  │                      │  │                      │ │
│  │  Serves all .zim     │  │  Downloads & updates │ │
│  │  files on port 8081  │  │  ZIM library files   │ │
│  └──────────┬───────────┘  └──────────┬───────────┘ │
│             │ :ro                     │ :rw         │
│             └──────────┬──────────────┘             │
│                        │                            │
│         /mnt/user/knowledge/library/                │
│         ├── wikipedia_en_all_maxi_2025-08.zim       │
│         ├── wiktionary_en_all_nopic_2025-09.zim     │
│         ├── gutenberg_en_all_YYYY-MM.zim            │
│         └── ...                                     │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Two-Container Design

Container	Base Image	Purpose	Mount	Lifecycle
knowledge-portal	kiwix-serve (Alpine)	Read-only ZIM server	/data :ro	Always running
knowledge-portal-tools	Debian Slim	Download, update, manage ZIMs	/data :rw	Run-once (setup + weekly cron)

Why separate containers? Kiwix-serve is Alpine/BusyBox — no bash, no GNU wget, no GNU grep. Rather than fighting a minimal base image, the tools container uses Debian Slim with full GNU tooling. Each container does one job well.

Repositories

Repo	Visibility	Image	Purpose
knowledge-portal	Public	ghcr.io/thetechild/knowledge-portal	Thin kiwix-serve wrapper that globs /data/*.zim
knowledge-portal-tools	Private	ghcr.io/thetechild/knowledge-portal-tools	Debian Slim downloader with setup + update scripts

Both repos use GitHub Actions for CI/CD (build & push to GHCR on every push to main) and Dependabot for automated dependency monitoring.

Knowledge Sources

Source	ZIM Variant	Size	Description
Wikipedia	wikipedia_en_all_maxi	~100GB	Full English Wikipedia with images
Project Gutenberg	gutenberg_en_all	~206GB	60,000+ public domain books
Wikisource	wikisource_en_all_maxi	~18GB	Primary source texts
Stack Overflow	stackoverflow.com_en_all	~15GB	Programming Q&A
Wiktionary	wiktionary_en_all_nopic	~8GB	Dictionary & definitions
Wikibooks	wikibooks_en_all_maxi	~5GB	Open textbooks
Wikiversity	wikiversity_en_all_maxi	~2GB	Learning materials & courses
Wikivoyage	wikivoyage_en_all_maxi	~1GB	Travel guides
Wikiquote	wikiquote_en_all_maxi	~900MB	Notable quotations
PhET	phet_en_all	~100MB	Interactive science simulations

Total: ~356GB · Language: English only (for now)

Excluded: Khan Academy (no ZIM available), TED Talks (~79GB multilingual, excluded to save space)

Infrastructure

Unraid Share

• Share name: knowledge
• Primary storage: Cache (SSD) → moves to Array via Mover
• Min free space: 50GB
• Path: /mnt/user/knowledge/

Directory Layout

/mnt/user/knowledge/
└── library/              # All .zim files live here (mounted as /data in containers)
    ├── .staging/         # In-progress downloads (invisible to kiwix-serve glob)
    ├── wikipedia_en_all_maxi_2025-08.zim
    ├── wiktionary_en_all_nopic_2025-09.zim
    └── ...

GHCR Authentication (NAS)

Docker on the NAS authenticates with GHCR using a classic PAT (unraid-docker-pull) with read:packages scope. Credentials stored in /root/.docker/config.json.

docker login ghcr.io -u TheTechChild

Container Setup (Unraid Docker UI)

Kiwix server (always running):

• Name: kiwix-wikipedia
• Image: ghcr.io/thetechild/knowledge-portal:latest
• Port: 8081 → 8080
• Volume: /mnt/user/knowledge/library → /data (Read Only)
• Restart: unless-stopped
• Access: http://192.168.1.152:8081

Tools / updater (run-once via User Scripts):

• Image: ghcr.io/thetechild/knowledge-portal-tools:latest
• Volume: /mnt/user/knowledge/library → /data (Read/Write)
• Restart: no

Operations

Initial Setup (download all sources)

docker run -d --name knowledge-setup \
  -v /mnt/user/knowledge/library:/data \
  ghcr.io/thetechild/knowledge-portal-tools:latest \
  /scripts/setup.sh

# Follow progress
docker logs -f knowledge-setup

# Clean up after completion
docker rm knowledge-setup

Weekly Updates

Run via Unraid User Scripts plugin (weekly schedule):

docker run --rm \
  -v /mnt/user/knowledge/library:/data \
  ghcr.io/thetechild/knowledge-portal-tools:latest \
  /scripts/update.sh

# Restart kiwix to pick up new files
docker restart kiwix-wikipedia

After Downloads Complete

Restart the Kiwix container so it discovers all new ZIM files:

docker restart kiwix-wikipedia

All sources appear as "books" on the Kiwix landing page at http://192.168.1.152:8081.

Design Decisions

Conventions

1. Separate containers for separate concerns — don't cram everything into one image
2. English only for now — simplifies ZIM variant selection
3. Containers managed through Unraid's Docker web UI — not docker-compose (Unraid doesn't ship it)
4. Private repo for tools — contains download infrastructure, not needed publicly
5. Public repo for the portal — the kiwix-serve wrapper is generic and harmless
6. Digest-pinned base images in Dockerfiles for reproducible builds
7. Dependabot monitors both Docker base images and GitHub Actions versions

CI/CD

• provenance: false on build-push-action@v6 — GHCR doesn't properly serve OCI attestation manifests for private packages, causing "manifest unknown" errors on older Docker clients (including Unraid)
• Both repos use the same workflow pattern: build on push to main, push to GHCR with latest + short SHA tags

Unraid-Specific

• No docker-compose — Unraid manages containers through its own XML templates / web UI
• No tmux by default — use docker run -d for long-running operations, or install tmux via Nerd Tools plugin
• Slackware-based — no apt/pacman; use Nerd Tools plugin for common utilities
• Advanced View toggle (top-right of Add Container page) reveals Post Arguments and Extra Parameters fields

Future Plans

This portal is the foundation for a much larger learning system:

• Calibre — Book management (textbooks, technical references)
• Ollama — Local LLM for question answering and summarization
• Vector database — Semantic search across all knowledge sources
• Unified portal frontend — Single interface for browsing, searching, and learning
• Lecture integration — Downloaded video courses and educational content
• Workbook system — Interactive exercises tied to knowledge sources