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 public-inbox is developed on Debian GNU/Linux systems and will
   9 never depend on packages outside of the "main" component of
  10 the "stable" distribution, currently Debian 10.x ("buster"),
  11 but older versions of Debian remain supported.
  12
  13 Most packages are available in other GNU/Linux distributions
  14 and FreeBSD.
  15
  16 TODO: this still needs to be documented better,
  17 also see the scripts/ and sa_config/ directories in the source tree
  18
  19 Requirements
  20 ------------
  21
  22 public-inbox requires a number of other packages to access its full
  23 functionality.  The core tools are, of course:
  24
  25 * Git (1.8.0+, 2.6+ for writing v2 inboxes)
  26 * Perl 5.10.1+
  27 * DBD::SQLite (needed for IMAP, NNTP, message threading, and v2 inboxes)
  28
  29 To accept incoming mail into a public inbox, you'll likely want:
  30
  31 * MTA - postfix is recommended (for public-inbox-mda)
  32 * SpamAssassin (spamc/spamd)   (for public-inbox-watch/public-inbox-mda)
  33
  34 Beyond that, there is one non-standard Perl module required:
  35
  36 * URI::Escape                      deb: liburi-perl
  37                                    pkg: p5-URI
  38                                    rpm: perl-URI
  39                                    (for HTML/Atom generation)
  40
  41 Plack and Date::Parse are optional as of public-inbox v1.3.0,
  42 but required for older releases:
  43
  44 * Plack                            deb: libplack-perl
  45                                    pkg: p5-Plack
  46                                    rpm: perl-Plack, perl-Plack-Test,
  47                                    (for HTML/Atom generation)
  48
  49 - Date::Parse                      deb: libtimedate-perl
  50                                    pkg: p5-TimeDate
  51                                    rpm: perl-TimeDate
  52                                    (for broken, mostly historical emails)
  53
  54 Where "deb" indicates package names for Debian-derived distributions,
  55 "pkg" is for the FreeBSD package (maybe other common BSDs, too), and
  56 "rpm" is for RPM-based distributions (only known to work on Fedora).
  57
  58 Numerous optional modules are likely to be useful as well:
  59
  60 - DBD::SQLite                      deb: libdbd-sqlite3-perl
  61                                    pkg: p5-DBD-SQLite
  62                                    rpm: perl-DBD-SQLite
  63                                    (for v2, IMAP, NNTP, or gzipped mboxes)
  64
  65 - Search::Xapian or Xapian(.pm)    deb: libsearch-xapian-perl
  66                                    pkg: p5-Search-Xapian OR p5-Xapian
  67                                    rpm: perl-Search-Xapian
  68                                    (HTTP and IMAP search)
  69
  70 - Net::Server                      deb: libnet-server-perl
  71                                    pkg: pkg-Net-Server
  72                                    rpm: perl-Net-Server
  73                                    (for HTTP/IMAP/NNTP background daemons,
  74                                     not needed as systemd services or
  75                                     foreground servers)
  76
  77 - Inline::C                        deb: libinline-c-perl
  78                                    pkg: pkg-Inline-C
  79                                    rpm: perl-Inline (or perl-Inline-C)
  80                                    (speeds up process spawning on Linux,
  81                                     see public-inbox-daemon(8))
  82
  83 - Email::Address::XS               deb: libemail-address-xs-perl
  84                                    pkg: pkg-Email-Address-XS
  85                                    (correct parsing of tricky email
  86                                     addresses, phrases and comments,
  87                                     required for IMAP)
  88
  89 - Parse::RecDescent                deb: libparse-recdescent-perl
  90                                    pkg: p5-Parse-RecDescent
  91                                    rpm: perl-ParseRecDescent
  92                                    (optional, for public-inbox-imapd(1))
  93
  94 - BSD::Resource                    deb: libbsd-resource-perl
  95                                    pkg: p5-BSD-Resource
  96                                    rpm: perl-BSD-Resource
  97                                    (optional, for PSGI limiters
  98                                     see public-inbox-config(5))
  99
 100 - Plack::Middleware::ReverseProxy  deb: libplack-middleware-reverseproxy-perl
 101                                    pkg: p5-Plack-Middleware-ReverseProxy
 102                                    rpm: perl-Plack-Middleware-ReverseProxy
 103                                    (ensures redirects are correct when running
 104                                     behind nginx or Varnish)
 105
 106 * highlight                        deb: libhighlight-perl
 107                                    (for syntax highlighting with coderepo)
 108
 109 * xapian-compact (tool)            deb: xapian-tools
 110                                    pkg: xapian-core
 111                                    rpm: xapian-core
 112                                    (optional, for public-inbox-compact(1))
 113
 114 - Linux::Inotify2                  deb: liblinux-inotify2-perl
 115                                    rpm: perl-Linux-Inotify2
 116                                    (for public-inbox-watch and -imapd on Linux)
 117
 118 The following module is typically pulled in by dependencies listed
 119 above, so there is no need to explicitly install them:
 120
 121 - DBI                              deb: libdbi-perl
 122                                    pkg: p5-DBI
 123                                    rpm: perl-DBI
 124                                    (pulled in by DBD::SQLite)
 125
 126 Uncommonly needed modules (see HACKING for development-only modules):
 127
 128 - Socket6                          deb: libsocket6-perl
 129                                    pkg: p5-Socket6
 130                                    rpm: perl-Socket6
 131                                    (pulled in by SpamAssassin and Net::Server,
 132                                     only necessary if using IPv6 with
 133                                     Plack::Middleware::AccessLog or similar
 134                                     on Perl <= 5.12)
 135
 136 - Crypt::CBC                       deb: libcrypt-cbc-perl
 137                                    pkg: p5-Crypt-CBC
 138                                    (for PublicInbox::Unsubscribe (rarely used))
 139
 140 standard MakeMaker installation (Perl)
 141 --------------------------------------
 142
 143 To use MakeMaker, you need to ensure ExtUtils::MakeMaker is available.
 144 This is typically installed with Perl, but RPM-based systems will likely
 145 need to install the `perl-ExtUtils-MakeMaker' package.
 146
 147 Once the dependencies are installed, you should be able to build and
 148 install the system (into /usr/local) with:
 149
 150         perl Makefile.PL
 151         make
 152         make test    # see HACKING for faster tests for hackers
 153         make install # root permissions may be needed
 154
 155 When installing Search::Xapian, make sure the underlying Xapian
 156 installation is not affected by an index corruption bug:
 157
 158         https://bugs.debian.org/808610
 159
 160 For Debian 8.x (jessie), this means using Debian 8.5 or later.
 161
 162 public-inbox will never store unregeneratable data in Xapian
 163 or any other search database we might use; Xapian corruption
 164 will not destroy critical data.
 165
 166 See the public-inbox-overview(7) man page for the next steps once
 167 the installation is complete.
 168
 169 The following required packages are part of the Perl standard
 170 library.  Debian-based distros put them in "libperl5.$MINOR" or
 171 "perl-modules-5.$MINOR"; and FreeBSD puts them in "perl5".
 172 RPM-based distros split them out into separate packages:
 173
 174 * Digest::SHA                      rpm: perl-Digest-SHA
 175 * Data::Dumper                     rpm: perl-Data-Dumper
 176 * Encode                           rpm: perl-Encode
 177 * IO::Compress                     rpm: perl-IO-Compress
 178 * Storable                         rpm: perl-Storable
 179 * Text::ParseWords                 rpm: perl-Text-Parsewords
 180
 181 Copyright
 182 ---------
 183
 184 Copyright 2013-2021 all contributors <meta@public-inbox.org>
 185 License: AGPL-3.0+ <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.txt>