=head1 NAME public-inbox-overview - an overview of public-inbox =head1 DESCRIPTION public-inbox consists of many pieces which may be used independently or in conjunction of each other for: =over 4 =item 1 Mirroring existing public-inboxes. =item 2 Mirroring mailing lists. =item 3 Hosting standalone inboxes. =back =head2 Mirroring existing public-inboxes Mirroring existing public-inboxes is the easiest way to get started. Your mirror will remain dependent on the REMOTE_URL you are mirroring and you only need to use two new commands in addition to common L commands. Instructions are different depending on whether the inbox is L or L. See the "Archives are clonable:" part of the WWW interface of a given inbox for cloning instructions specific to that inbox. The instructions are roughly: # for v1 inboxes: git clone --mirror URL INBOX_DIR # for v2 inboxes (each epoch needs to be cloned): git clone --mirror URL/EPOCH INBOX_DIR/git/EPOCH.git # The following should create the necessary entry in # ~/.public-inbox/config, use "-V2" only for v2 inboxes: public-inbox-init [-V2] NAME INBOX_DIR MY_URL LIST_ADDRESS # Optional but strongly recommended for hosting HTTP # (and required for NNTP) # enable overview (requires DBD::SQLite) and, if Search::Xapian is # available, search: public-inbox-index INBOX_DIR # Periodically fetch the repo using git-fetch(1) # for v1 inboxes: git --git-dir=INBOX_DIR fetch # for v2 (in most cases, only the newest epoch needs to be fetched): git --git-dir=INBOX_DIR/git/EPOCH.git fetch # index new messages after fetching: public-inbox-index INBOX_DIR See L below for info on how to expose your mirror to other readers. =head2 Mirroring mailing lists Mirroring mailing lists may be done by any reader of a mailing list using L. # This will create a new git repository: public-inbox-init -V2 NAME INBOX_DIR MY_URL LIST_ADDRESS Then, see the L manual for configuring C, C, C and the optional C and C entries. You will need to leave L running to keep the mailbox up-to-date as messages are delivered to the mailing list. Running L to create search indices is recommended. L will automatically maintain the indices if they were created by L public-inbox-index INBOX_DIR Instead of using L, using L with the C<--no-precheck> option and relying on the C directive in L is also an option. =head2 Hosting standalone inboxes Using L to initialize the inbox as in the other methods is recommended. See L for more details; but this also requires MTA-specific knowledge. =head2 Serving public-inboxes Since public-inboxes are git repositories, they may be served to remote clients via L as well as specialized HTTP and NNTP daemons distributed with public-inbox. See L and L for more information on using these daemons. Hosting a public-inbox over HTTP or NNTP will never require write access to any files in the git repository, including the search indices or article number map database. Users familiar with PSGI and L may also use L with the preferred server instead of L =head1 CONTACT Feedback welcome via plain-text mail to L The mail archives are hosted at L and L =head1 COPYRIGHT Copyright 2016-2020 all contributors L License: AGPL-3.0+ L