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 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 9.x ("stretch")
  11
  12 Most packages are available in other GNU/Linux distributions;
  13 and FreeBSD support can happen.
  14
  15 TODO: this still needs to be documented better,
  16 also see the scripts/ and sa_config/ directories in the source tree
  17
  18 Requirements
  19 ------------
  20
  21 public-inbox requires a number of other packages to access its full
  22 functionality.  The core tools are, of course:
  23
  24 * Git (1.8.0+, 2.6+ for writing v2 repositories)
  25 * Perl 5.10.1+
  26 * SQLite (needed for Xapian use)
  27
  28 To accept incoming mail into a public inbox, you'll likely want:
  29
  30 * MTA - postfix is recommended (for public-inbox-mda)
  31 * SpamAssassin (spamc/spamd)   (for public-inbox-watch/public-inbox-mda)
  32
  33 Beyond that, there is a long list of Perl modules required, starting with:
  34
  35 * Date::Parse                   deb: libtimedate-perl
  36                                 rpm: perl-Time-ParseDate
  37
  38 * Email::MIME                   deb: libemail-mime-perl
  39                                 rpm: perl-Email-MIME
  40
  41 * Email::MIME::ContentType      deb: libemail-mime-contenttype-perl
  42                                 rpm: perl-Email-MIME-ContentType
  43
  44 * Encode::MIME::Header          deb: libencode-perl
  45                                 rpm: perl-Encode
  46
  47 * Plack                         deb: libplack-perl
  48                                 rpm: perl-Plack, perl-Plack-Test,
  49                                 (for HTML/Atom generation)
  50
  51 * URI::Escape                   deb: liburi-perl
  52                                 rpm: perl-URI
  53                                 (for HTML/Atom generation)
  54
  55 Where "deb" indicates package names for Debian-derived distributions 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   - Search::Xapian             deb: libsearch-xapian-perl
  61                                rpm: perl-Search-Xapian
  62                                (for NNTP service or gzipped mbox over HTTP)
  63
  64   - IO::Compress::Gzip         deb: perl-modules (or libio-compress-perl)
  65                                rpm: perl-PerlIO-gzip
  66                                (for gzipped mbox over HTTP)
  67
  68   - DBI                        deb: libdbi-perl
  69                                rpm: perl-DBI
  70                                (for gzipped mbox over HTTP)
  71
  72   - DBD::SQLite                deb: libdbd-sqlite3-perl
  73                                rpm: perl-DBD-SQLite
  74                                (for NNTP service or gzipped mbox over HTTP)
  75
  76   - Danga::Socket              deb: libdanga-socket-perl
  77                                rpm: perl-Danga-Socket
  78                                (for bundled HTTP and NNTP servers)
  79
  80   - Net::Server                deb: libnet-server-perl
  81                                rpm: perl-Net-Server
  82                                (for HTTP/NNTP servers as standalone daemons,
  83                                 not needed as systemd services)
  84
  85   - Filesys::Notify::Simple    deb: libfilesys-notify-simple-perl
  86                                rpm: perl-Filesys-Notify-Simple
  87                                (for public-inbox-watch)
  88
  89   - Inline::C[7]               deb: libinline-c-perl
  90                                (speeds up spawning of git(1) on Linux
  91                                 (see public-inbox-daemon(8))
  92
  93   - Plack::Middleware::ReverseProxy
  94
  95                                deb: libplack-middleware-reverseproxy-perl
  96                                rpm: perl-Plack-Middleware-ReverseProxy
  97                                (ensures redirects are correct when running
  98                                 behind nginx or Varnish)
  99
 100   - Plack::Middleware::Deflater
 101
 102                                deb: libplack-middleware-deflater-perl
 103                                rpm: perl-Plack-Middleware-Deflater
 104                                (saves bandwidth on responses)
 105
 106   - Socket6                    deb: libsocket6-perl
 107                                rpm: perl-Socket6
 108                                (pulled in by SpamAssassin and Net::Server,
 109                                 only necessary if using IPv6 with
 110                                 Plack::Middleware::AccessLog or similar
 111                                 on Perl <= 5.12)
 112
 113   - Crypt::CBC                 deb: libcrypt-cbc-perl
 114                                (for the rarely-used PublicInbox::Unsubscribe)
 115
 116 On Fedora systems, you'll probably also end up wanting
 117 perl-Test-HTTP-Server-Simple, perl-Devel-Peek, and perl-IPC-Run to run the
 118 test suite.  On Debian systems, libxml-feed-perl and libipc-run-perl
 119 will aid in running the test suite (XML::Feed and IPC::Run respectively,
 120 on CPAN).
 121
 122 standard MakeMaker installation (Perl)
 123 --------------------------------------
 124
 125 Once the dependencies are installed, you should be able to build and
 126 install the system (into /usr/local) with:
 127
 128         perl Makefile.PL
 129         make
 130         make test
 131         make install # root permissions may be needed
 132
 133 When installing Search::Xapian, make sure the underlying Xapian
 134 installation is not affected by an index corruption bug:
 135
 136         https://bugs.debian.org/808610
 137
 138 For Debian 8.x (jessie), this means using Debian 8.5 or later.
 139
 140 public-inbox will never store unregeneratable data in Xapian
 141 or any other search database we might use; Xapian corruption
 142 will not destroy critical data.
 143
 144 See the public-inbox-overview(7) man page for the next steps once the
 145 installation is complete.
 146
 147 Copyright
 148 ---------
 149
 150 Copyright 2013-2019 all contributors <meta@public-inbox.org>
 151 License: AGPL-3.0+ <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.txt>