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, or NNTP clients
   6 if they want to import mail into their personal inboxes.
   7
   8 TODO: this still needs to be documented better,
   9 also see the scripts/ and sa_config/ directories in the source tree
  10
  11 Requirements
  12 ------------
  13
  14 public-inbox requires a number of other packages to access its full
  15 functionality.  The core tools are, of course:
  16
  17 * Git
  18 * Perl
  19 * SQLite (needed for Xapian use)
  20
  21 To accept incoming mail into a public inbox, you'll likely want:
  22
  23 * MTA - postfix is recommended (for public-inbox-mda)
  24 * SpamAssassin (spamc/spamd)   (for public-inbox-watch/public-inbox-mda)
  25
  26 Beyond that, there is a long list of Perl modules required, starting with:
  27
  28 * Date::Parse                   deb: libdatetime-perl
  29                                 rpm: perl-Time-ParseDate
  30
  31 * Email::MIME                   deb: libemail-mime-perl
  32                                 rpm: perl-Email-MIME
  33
  34 * Email::MIME::ContentType      deb: libemail-mime-contenttype-perl
  35                                 rpm: perl-Email-MIME-ContentType
  36
  37 * Encode::MIME::Header          deb: libencode-perl
  38                                 rpm: perl-Encode
  39
  40 * Plack                         deb: libplack-perl
  41                                 rpm: perl-Plack, perl-Plack-Test,
  42                                 (for HTML/Atom generation)
  43
  44 * URI::Escape                   deb: liburi-perl
  45                                 rpm: perl-URI
  46                                 (for HTML/Atom generation)
  47
  48 Where "deb" indicates package names for Debian-derived distributions and
  49 "rpm" is for RPM-based distributions (only known to work on Fedora).
  50
  51 Numerous optional modules are likely to be useful as well:
  52
  53   - Socket6                    deb: libsocket6-perl
  54                                rpm: perl-Socket6
  55                                (for IPv6 support)
  56
  57   - Search::Xapian             deb: libsearch-xapian-perl
  58                                rpm: perl-Search-Xapian
  59                                (for NNTP service or gzipped mbox over HTTP)
  60
  61   - IO::Compress::Gzip         deb: perl-modules (or libio-compress-perl)
  62                                rpm: perl-PerlIO-gzip
  63                                (for gzipped mbox over HTTP)
  64
  65   - DBI                        deb: libdbi-perl
  66                                rpm: perl-DBI
  67                                (for gzipped mbox over HTTP)
  68
  69   - DBD::SQLite                deb: libdbd-sqlite3-perl
  70                                rpm: perl-DBD-SQLite
  71                                (for NNTP service or gzipped mbox over HTTP)
  72
  73   - Danga::Socket              deb: libdanga-socket-perl
  74                                rpm: perl-Danga-Socket
  75                                (for bundled HTTP and NNTP servers)
  76
  77   - Net::Server                deb: libnet-server-perl
  78                                rpm: perl-Net-Server
  79                                (for HTTP/NNTP servers as standalone daemons)
  80
  81   - Filesys::Notify::Simple    deb: libfilesys-notify-simple-perl
  82                                rpm: perl-Filesys-Notify-Simple
  83                                (for public-inbox-watch)
  84
  85   - Inline::C[7]               deb: libinline-c-perl
  86                                (speeds up spawning on Linux
  87                                 (see public-inbox-daemon(8))
  88
  89   - Plack::Middleware::ReverseProxy
  90
  91                                deb: libplack-middleware-reverseproxy-perl
  92                                rpm: perl-Plack-Middleware-ReverseProxy
  93                                (ensures redirects are correct when running
  94                                 behind nginx or Varnish)
  95
  96   - Plack::Middleware::Deflater
  97
  98                                deb: libplack-middleware-deflater-perl
  99                                rpm: perl-Plack-Middleware-Deflater
 100                                (saves bandwidth on responses)
 101
 102
 103 On Fedora systems, you'll probably also end up wanting
 104 perl-Test-HTTP-Server-Simple, perl-Devel-Peek, and perl-IPC-Run to run the
 105 test suite.  On Debian systems, libxml-feed-perl and libipc-run-perl
 106 will aid in running the test suite (XML::Feed and IPC::Run respectively,
 107 on CPAN).
 108
 109 standard MakeMaker installation (Perl)
 110 --------------------------------------
 111
 112 Once the dependencies are installed, you should be able to build and
 113 install the system (into /usr/local) with:
 114
 115         perl Makefile.PL
 116         make
 117         make test
 118         make install # root permissions may be needed
 119
 120 When installing Search::Xapian, make sure the underlying Xapian
 121 installation is not affected by an index corruption bug:
 122
 123         https://bugs.debian.org/808610
 124
 125 For Debian 8.x (jessie), this means using Debian 8.5 or later.
 126
 127 public-inbox will never store unregeneratable data in Xapian
 128 or any other search database we might use; Xapian corruption
 129 will not destroy critical data.
 130
 131 See the public-inbox-overview(7) man page for the next steps once the
 132 installation is complete.
 133
 134 Copyright
 135 ---------
 136
 137 Copyright 2013-2019 all contributors <meta@public-inbox.org>
 138 License: AGPL-3.0+ <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.txt>