partdb is an electronic parts manager.

goals

I wished for a part manager with the following properties:

• self hosted: I do not wish to rely on an external service (which could become unreachable or simply disappear)
• web interface: this removes the need of yet another window running while designing boards, and just integrates well with the remaining part searching activity (e.g. on manufacturer and distributor web pages)
• customizable: simply because everyone has a different designing work flow, and wants to optimize their tools according to it (particularly myself)

One matching solution I found is PartKeepr. I used it for several year, and it could still be OK for my needs. But some aspects are just not that optimal anymore:

• it is not developed anymore since 2018 (a docker image keeps it runnable)
• logging in, and searching for parts is slow
• customizing it is really hard (views, features, ...)
• you always have to edit the part and click several times to copy any kind of value

I recently also discovered Binner. It does not allow to add custom part properties, or third parties distributors. But it's a young project and seems promising.

Because they did not fit by power user demands, I decided to implement my own solution. partdb is very crude, but it works, particularly for me.

components

Part information is:

• stored in a MariaDB/mySQL database
• retrieved using a sinatra HTTP/REST server
• displayed using minimal HTML+JS pages

installation

install software dependencies (here for Arch linux):

sudo pacman -S mariadb
sudo pacman -S ruby-sinatra ruby-webrick
pikaur -S ruby-mysql2

configure database

sudo mariadb-install-db --user=mysql --basedir=/usr --datadir=/var/lib/mysql
sudo mysql
CREATE DATABASE partdb;
CREATE USER 'partdb'@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON partdb.* TO 'partdb'@localhost;
exit
mysql --user=partdb --password=password --database=partdb < schema.sql

put the database access information in credentials.json and run server.rb. now go to http://localhost:4244 and you are ready to use it.