INSTALL

   1 public-inbox (server-side) installation
   2 ---------------------------------------
   3
   4 This is for folks who want to setup their own public-inbox instance.
   5 Clients should use normal git-clone/git-fetch, IMAP or NNTP clients
   6 if they want to import mail into their personal inboxes.
   7
   8 As of 2021, public-inbox is packaged by several OS distributions,
   9 listed in alphabetical order: Debian, GNU Guix, NixOS, and Void Linux.
  10
  11 public-inbox is developed on Debian GNU/Linux systems and will
  12 never depend on packages outside of the "main" component of
  13 the "stable" distribution, currently Debian 10.x ("buster"),
  14 but older versions of Debian remain supported.
  15
  16 Most packages are available in other GNU/Linux distributions
  17 and FreeBSD.  CentOS 7.x users will likely want newer git and
  18 Xapian packages for better performance and v2 inbox support:
  19 https://public-inbox.org/meta/20210421151308.yz5hzkgm75klunpe@nitro.local/
  20
  21 TODO: this still needs to be documented better,
  22 also see the scripts/ and sa_config/ directories in the source tree
  23
  24 Requirements
  25 ------------
  26
  27 public-inbox requires a number of other packages to access its full
  28 functionality.  The core tools are, of course:
  29
  30 * Git (1.8.0+, 2.6+ for writing v2 inboxes)
  31 * Perl 5.10.1+
  32 * DBD::SQLite (needed for IMAP, NNTP, message threading, and v2 inboxes)
  33
  34 To accept incoming mail into a public inbox, you'll likely want:
  35
  36 * MTA - postfix is recommended (for public-inbox-mda)
  37 * SpamAssassin (spamc/spamd)   (for public-inbox-watch/public-inbox-mda)
  38
  39 Beyond that, there is one non-standard Perl package required:
  40
  41 * URI                              deb: liburi-perl
  42                                    pkg: p5-URI
  43                                    rpm: perl-URI
  44                                    (for HTML/Atom generation)
  45
  46 Plack and Date::Parse are optional as of public-inbox v1.3.0,
  47 but required for older releases:
  48
  49 * Plack                            deb: libplack-perl
  50                                    pkg: p5-Plack
  51                                    rpm: perl-Plack, perl-Plack-Test,
  52                                    (for HTML/Atom generation)
  53
  54 - Date::Parse                      deb: libtimedate-perl
  55                                    pkg: p5-TimeDate
  56                                    rpm: perl-TimeDate
  57                                    (for broken, mostly historical emails)
  58
  59 Where "deb" indicates package names for Debian-derived distributions,
  60 "pkg" is for the FreeBSD package (maybe other common BSDs, too), and
  61 "rpm" is for RPM-based distributions (only known to work on Fedora).
  62
  63 Numerous optional modules are likely to be useful as well:
  64
  65 - DBD::SQLite                      deb: libdbd-sqlite3-perl
  66                                    pkg: p5-DBD-SQLite
  67                                    rpm: perl-DBD-SQLite
  68                                    (for v2, IMAP, NNTP, or gzipped mboxes)
  69
  70 - Search::Xapian or Xapian(.pm)    deb: libsearch-xapian-perl
  71                                    pkg: p5-Search-Xapian OR p5-Xapian
  72                                    rpm: perl-Search-Xapian
  73                                    (HTTP and IMAP search)
  74
  75 - Inline::C                        deb: libinline-c-perl
  76                                    pkg: pkg-Inline-C
  77                                    rpm: perl-Inline (or perl-Inline-C)
  78                                    (speeds up process spawning on Linux,
  79                                     see public-inbox-daemon(8))
  80
  81 - Email::Address::XS               deb: libemail-address-xs-perl
  82                                    pkg: pkg-Email-Address-XS
  83                                    (correct parsing of tricky email
  84                                     addresses, phrases and comments,
  85                                     required for IMAP)
  86
  87 - Parse::RecDescent                deb: libparse-recdescent-perl
  88                                    pkg: p5-Parse-RecDescent
  89                                    rpm: perl-ParseRecDescent
  90                                    (optional, for public-inbox-imapd(1))
  91
  92 - Mail::IMAPClient                 deb: libmail-imapclient-perl
  93                                    pkg: p5-Mail-IMAPClient
  94                                    rpm: perl-Mail-IMAPClient
  95                                    (optional for lei and public-inbox-watch)
  96
  97 - BSD::Resource                    deb: libbsd-resource-perl
  98                                    pkg: p5-BSD-Resource
  99                                    rpm: perl-BSD-Resource
 100                                    (optional, for PSGI limiters
 101                                     see public-inbox-config(5))
 102
 103 - Plack::Middleware::ReverseProxy  deb: libplack-middleware-reverseproxy-perl
 104                                    pkg: p5-Plack-Middleware-ReverseProxy
 105                                    rpm: perl-Plack-Middleware-ReverseProxy
 106                                    (ensures redirects are correct when running
 107                                     behind nginx or Varnish)
 108
 109 * highlight                        deb: libhighlight-perl
 110                                    (for syntax highlighting with coderepo)
 111
 112 * xapian-compact (tool)            deb: xapian-tools
 113                                    pkg: xapian-core
 114                                    rpm: xapian-core
 115                                    (optional, for public-inbox-compact(1))
 116
 117 * curl (tool)                      deb, pkg, rpm: curl
 118                                    (for HTTP(S) externals with curl)
 119
 120 - Linux::Inotify2                  deb: liblinux-inotify2-perl
 121                                    rpm: perl-Linux-Inotify2
 122                                    (for lei, public-inbox-watch and -imapd
 123                                     on Linux)
 124
 125 - IO::KQueue                       pkg: p5-IO-KQueue
 126                                    (for lei, public-inbox-watch and -imapd
 127                                     on *BSDs)
 128
 129 - Net::Server                      deb: libnet-server-perl
 130                                    pkg: pkg-Net-Server
 131                                    rpm: perl-Net-Server
 132                                    (for HTTP/IMAP/NNTP background daemons,
 133                                     not needed as systemd services or
 134                                     foreground servers)
 135
 136 The following module is typically pulled in by dependencies listed
 137 above, so there is no need to explicitly install them:
 138
 139 - DBI                              deb: libdbi-perl
 140                                    pkg: p5-DBI
 141                                    rpm: perl-DBI
 142                                    (pulled in by DBD::SQLite)
 143
 144 Uncommonly needed modules (see HACKING for development-only modules):
 145
 146 - Socket6                          deb: libsocket6-perl
 147                                    pkg: p5-Socket6
 148                                    rpm: perl-Socket6
 149                                    (pulled in by SpamAssassin and Net::Server,
 150                                     only necessary if using IPv6 with
 151                                     Plack::Middleware::AccessLog or similar
 152                                     on Perl <= 5.12)
 153
 154 - Crypt::CBC                       deb: libcrypt-cbc-perl
 155                                    pkg: p5-Crypt-CBC
 156                                    (for PublicInbox::Unsubscribe (rarely used))
 157
 158 standard MakeMaker installation (Perl)
 159 --------------------------------------
 160
 161 To use MakeMaker, you need to ensure ExtUtils::MakeMaker is available.
 162 This is typically installed with Perl, but RPM-based systems will likely
 163 need to install the `perl-ExtUtils-MakeMaker' package.
 164
 165 Once the dependencies are installed, you should be able to build and
 166 install the system (into /usr/local) with:
 167
 168         perl Makefile.PL
 169         make
 170         make test    # see HACKING for faster tests for hackers
 171         make install # root permissions may be needed
 172
 173 symlink-install (public-inbox.git and 1.7.0+)
 174 ---------------------------------------------
 175
 176 For users who lack permissions and/or wish to minimize their
 177 installation footprint, the "symlink-install" target is available in
 178 public-inbox.git.  The following installs symlinks to $HOME/bin
 179 pointing to the source tree:
 180
 181         perl Makefile.PL
 182         make symlink-install prefix=$HOME
 183
 184 Other installation notes
 185 ------------------------
 186
 187 Debian 8.x (jessie) users, use Debian 8.5 or later if using Xapian:
 188         https://bugs.debian.org/808610
 189
 190 public-inbox-* commands will never store unregeneratable data in
 191 Xapian nor any other search database we might use; Xapian
 192 corruption will not destroy critical data.  Note: `lei' DOES store
 193 unregeneratable data in Xapian and SQLite.
 194
 195 See the public-inbox-overview(7) man page for the next steps once
 196 the installation is complete.
 197
 198 The following required packages are part of the Perl standard
 199 library.  Debian-based distros put them in "libperl5.$MINOR" or
 200 "perl-modules-5.$MINOR"; and FreeBSD puts them in "perl5".
 201 RPM-based distros split them out into separate packages:
 202
 203 * Digest::SHA                      rpm: perl-Digest-SHA
 204 * Data::Dumper                     rpm: perl-Data-Dumper
 205 * Encode                           rpm: perl-Encode
 206 * IO::Compress                     rpm: perl-IO-Compress
 207 * Storable                         rpm: perl-Storable
 208 * Text::ParseWords                 rpm: perl-Text-Parsewords
 209
 210 Copyright
 211 ---------
 212
 213 Copyright 2013-2021 all contributors <meta@public-inbox.org>
 214 License: AGPL-3.0+ <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.txt>