---------------------------------------
This is for folks who want to setup their own public-inbox instance.
-Clients should see https://ssoma.public-inbox.org/INSTALL.html instead
+Clients should use normal git-clone/git-fetch, IMAP or NNTP clients
if they want to import mail into their personal inboxes.
-TODO: this still needs to be documented better,
-also see the scripts/ and sa_config/ directories in the source tree
+As of 2022, public-inbox is packaged by several OS distributions,
+listed in alphabetical order: Debian, GNU Guix, NixOS, and Void Linux.
-It should also be possible to use public-inbox with only IMAP
-(or even POP(!)) access to a mailbox.
+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.
-standard MakeMaker installation (Perl)
---------------------------------------
+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/
- perl Makefile.PL
- make
- make test
- make install # root permissions may be needed
+TODO: this still needs to be documented better,
+also see the scripts/ and sa_config/ directories in the source tree
Requirements
------------
-* git
-* Perl and several modules: (Debian package name)
- - Date::Parse libtimedate-perl
- - Email::MIME libemail-mime-perl
- - Email::MIME::ContentType libemail-mime-contenttype-perl
- - Encode::MIME::Header perl
+public-inbox requires a number of other packages to access its full
+functionality. The core tools are, of course:
-Optional components:
+* Git (1.8.0+, 2.6+ for writing v2 inboxes)
+* Perl 5.12.0+
+* 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)
-Optional Perl modules:
+Beyond that, there is one non-standard Perl package required:
+
+* URI 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)
+
+- 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))
+
+- Mail::IMAPClient deb: libmail-imapclient-perl
+ pkg: p5-Mail-IMAPClient
+ rpm: perl-Mail-IMAPClient
+ (optional for lei and public-inbox-watch)
+
+- 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))
+
+* curl (tool) deb, pkg, rpm: curl
+ (for HTTP(S) externals with curl)
+
+- Linux::Inotify2 deb: liblinux-inotify2-perl
+ rpm: perl-Linux-Inotify2
+ (for lei, public-inbox-watch and -imapd
+ on Linux)
+
+- IO::KQueue pkg: p5-IO-KQueue
+ (for lei, public-inbox-watch and -imapd
+ on *BSDs)
+
+- 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)
+
+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
- - Plack[1] libplack-perl
- - Mail::Thread (2.5+)[1] libmail-thread-perl
- - URI::Escape[1] liburi-perl
- - Search::Xapian[2][3] libsearch-xapian-perl
- - IO::Compress::Gzip[3] perl-modules (or libio-compress-perl)
- - DBI[3] libdbi-perl
- - DBD::SQLite[2][3] libdbd-sqlite3-perl
- - Danga::Socket[4] libdanga-socket-perl
- - Net::Server[5] libnet-server-perl
- - Filesys::Notify::Simple[6] libfilesys-notify-simple-perl
+Other installation notes
+------------------------
-[1] - Optional, needed for serving/generating Atom and HTML pages
-[2] - Optional, only required for NNTP server
-[3] - Optional, needed for gzipped mbox support over HTTP
-[4] - Optional, needed for bundled HTTP and NNTP servers
-[5] - Optional, needed for standalone daemonization of HTTP+NNTP servers
-[6] - Optional, needed for public-inbox-watch Maildir watcher
+Debian 8.x (jessie) users, use Debian 8.5 or later if using Xapian:
+ https://bugs.debian.org/808610
-When installing Search::Xapian, make sure the underlying Xapian
-installation is not affected by an index corruption bug:
+public-inbox-* commands will never store unregeneratable data in
+Xapian nor any other search database we might use; Xapian
+corruption will not destroy critical data. Note: `lei' DOES store
+unregeneratable data in Xapian and SQLite.
- https://bugs.debian.org/808610
+See the public-inbox-overview(7) man page for the next steps once
+the installation is complete.
-For Debian 8.x (jessie), this means using Debian 8.5 or later.
+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:
-public-inbox will never store unregeneratable data in Xapian
-or any other search database we might use; Xapian corruption
-will not destroy critical data.
+* 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 2013-2016 all contributors <meta@public-inbox.org>
+Copyright all contributors <meta@public-inbox.org>
License: AGPL-3.0+ <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.txt>