public-inbox (server-side) installation --------------------------------------- This is for folks who want to setup their own public-inbox instance. Clients should use normal git-clone/git-fetch, IMAP or NNTP clients if they want to import mail into their personal inboxes. As of 2021, public-inbox is packaged by several OS distributions, listed in alphabetical order: Debian, GNU Guix, NixOS, and Void Linux. public-inbox is developed on Debian GNU/Linux systems and will never depend on packages outside of the "main" component of the "stable" distribution, currently Debian 10.x ("buster"), but older versions of Debian remain supported. Most packages are available in other GNU/Linux distributions and FreeBSD. CentOS 7.x users will likely want newer git and Xapian packages for better performance and v2 inbox support: https://public-inbox.org/meta/20210421151308.yz5hzkgm75klunpe@nitro.local/ TODO: this still needs to be documented better, also see the scripts/ and sa_config/ directories in the source tree Requirements ------------ public-inbox requires a number of other packages to access its full functionality. The core tools are, of course: * Git (1.8.0+, 2.6+ for writing v2 inboxes) * Perl 5.10.1+ * DBD::SQLite (needed for IMAP, NNTP, message threading, and v2 inboxes) To accept incoming mail into a public inbox, you'll likely want: * MTA - postfix is recommended (for public-inbox-mda) * SpamAssassin (spamc/spamd) (for public-inbox-watch/public-inbox-mda) Beyond that, there is one non-standard Perl module required: * URI::Escape deb: liburi-perl pkg: p5-URI rpm: perl-URI (for HTML/Atom generation) Plack and Date::Parse are optional as of public-inbox v1.3.0, but required for older releases: * Plack deb: libplack-perl pkg: p5-Plack rpm: perl-Plack, perl-Plack-Test, (for HTML/Atom generation) - Date::Parse deb: libtimedate-perl pkg: p5-TimeDate rpm: perl-TimeDate (for broken, mostly historical emails) Where "deb" indicates package names for Debian-derived distributions, "pkg" is for the FreeBSD package (maybe other common BSDs, too), and "rpm" is for RPM-based distributions (only known to work on Fedora). Numerous optional modules are likely to be useful as well: - DBD::SQLite deb: libdbd-sqlite3-perl pkg: p5-DBD-SQLite rpm: perl-DBD-SQLite (for v2, IMAP, NNTP, or gzipped mboxes) - Search::Xapian or Xapian(.pm) deb: libsearch-xapian-perl pkg: p5-Search-Xapian OR p5-Xapian rpm: perl-Search-Xapian (HTTP and IMAP search) - Net::Server deb: libnet-server-perl pkg: pkg-Net-Server rpm: perl-Net-Server (for HTTP/IMAP/NNTP background daemons, not needed as systemd services or foreground servers) - Inline::C deb: libinline-c-perl pkg: pkg-Inline-C rpm: perl-Inline (or perl-Inline-C) (speeds up process spawning on Linux, see public-inbox-daemon(8)) - Email::Address::XS deb: libemail-address-xs-perl pkg: pkg-Email-Address-XS (correct parsing of tricky email addresses, phrases and comments, required for IMAP) - Parse::RecDescent deb: libparse-recdescent-perl pkg: p5-Parse-RecDescent rpm: perl-ParseRecDescent (optional, for public-inbox-imapd(1)) - BSD::Resource deb: libbsd-resource-perl pkg: p5-BSD-Resource rpm: perl-BSD-Resource (optional, for PSGI limiters see public-inbox-config(5)) - Plack::Middleware::ReverseProxy deb: libplack-middleware-reverseproxy-perl pkg: p5-Plack-Middleware-ReverseProxy rpm: perl-Plack-Middleware-ReverseProxy (ensures redirects are correct when running behind nginx or Varnish) * highlight deb: libhighlight-perl (for syntax highlighting with coderepo) * xapian-compact (tool) deb: xapian-tools pkg: xapian-core rpm: xapian-core (optional, for public-inbox-compact(1)) - Linux::Inotify2 deb: liblinux-inotify2-perl rpm: perl-Linux-Inotify2 (for public-inbox-watch and -imapd on Linux) The following module is typically pulled in by dependencies listed above, so there is no need to explicitly install them: - DBI deb: libdbi-perl pkg: p5-DBI rpm: perl-DBI (pulled in by DBD::SQLite) Uncommonly needed modules (see HACKING for development-only modules): - Socket6 deb: libsocket6-perl pkg: p5-Socket6 rpm: perl-Socket6 (pulled in by SpamAssassin and Net::Server, only necessary if using IPv6 with Plack::Middleware::AccessLog or similar on Perl <= 5.12) - Crypt::CBC deb: libcrypt-cbc-perl pkg: p5-Crypt-CBC (for PublicInbox::Unsubscribe (rarely used)) standard MakeMaker installation (Perl) -------------------------------------- To use MakeMaker, you need to ensure ExtUtils::MakeMaker is available. This is typically installed with Perl, but RPM-based systems will likely need to install the `perl-ExtUtils-MakeMaker' package. Once the dependencies are installed, you should be able to build and install the system (into /usr/local) with: perl Makefile.PL make make test # see HACKING for faster tests for hackers make install # root permissions may be needed symlink-install (public-inbox.git and 1.7.0+) --------------------------------------------- For users who lack permissions and/or wish to minimize their installation footprint, the "symlink-install" target is available in public-inbox.git. The following installs symlinks to $HOME/bin pointing to the source tree: perl Makefile.PL make symlink-install prefix=$HOME Other installation notes ------------------------ Debian 8.x (jessie) users, use Debian 8.5 or later if using Xapian: https://bugs.debian.org/808610 public-inbox will never store unregeneratable data in Xapian or any other search database we might use; Xapian corruption will not destroy critical data. See the public-inbox-overview(7) man page for the next steps once the installation is complete. The following required packages are part of the Perl standard library. Debian-based distros put them in "libperl5.$MINOR" or "perl-modules-5.$MINOR"; and FreeBSD puts them in "perl5". RPM-based distros split them out into separate packages: * Digest::SHA rpm: perl-Digest-SHA * Data::Dumper rpm: perl-Data-Dumper * Encode rpm: perl-Encode * IO::Compress rpm: perl-IO-Compress * Storable rpm: perl-Storable * Text::ParseWords rpm: perl-Text-Parsewords Copyright --------- Copyright 2013-2021 all contributors License: AGPL-3.0+