1 public-inbox (server-side) installation
2 ---------------------------------------
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.
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.
13 Most packages are available in other GNU/Linux distributions
16 TODO: this still needs to be documented better,
17 also see the scripts/ and sa_config/ directories in the source tree
22 public-inbox requires a number of other packages to access its full
23 functionality. The core tools are, of course:
25 * Git (1.8.0+, 2.6+ for writing v2 inboxes)
27 * DBD::SQLite (needed for IMAP, NNTP, message threading, and v2 inboxes)
29 To accept incoming mail into a public inbox, you'll likely want:
31 * MTA - postfix is recommended (for public-inbox-mda)
32 * SpamAssassin (spamc/spamd) (for public-inbox-watch/public-inbox-mda)
34 Beyond that, there is a long list of Perl modules required, starting with:
36 * Digest::SHA typically installed with Perl
39 * URI::Escape deb: liburi-perl
42 (for HTML/Atom generation)
44 Email::MIME will be optional as of public-inbox v1.5.0,
45 it may still be used in maintainer comparison tests:
47 * Email::MIME deb: libemail-mime-perl
51 Plack and Date::Parse are optional as of public-inbox v1.3.0,
52 but required for older releases:
54 * Plack deb: libplack-perl
56 rpm: perl-Plack, perl-Plack-Test,
57 (for HTML/Atom generation)
59 - Date::Parse deb: libtimedate-perl
62 (for broken, mostly historical emails)
64 Where "deb" indicates package names for Debian-derived distributions,
65 "pkg" is for the FreeBSD package (maybe other common BSDs, too), and
66 "rpm" is for RPM-based distributions (only known to work on Fedora).
68 Numerous optional modules are likely to be useful as well:
70 - DBD::SQLite deb: libdbd-sqlite3-perl
73 (for v2, IMAP, NNTP, or gzipped mboxes)
75 - Search::Xapian deb: libsearch-xapian-perl
77 rpm: perl-Search-Xapian
78 (HTTP and IMAP search)
80 - Net::Server deb: libnet-server-perl
83 (for HTTP/IMAP/NNTP background daemons,
84 not needed as systemd services or
87 - Inline::C deb: libinline-c-perl
89 (speeds up process spawning on Linux,
90 see public-inbox-daemon(8))
92 - Email::Address::XS deb: libemail-address-xs-perl
93 pkg: pkg-Email-Address-XS
94 (correct parsing of tricky email
95 addresses, phrases and comments,
98 - Parse::RecDescent deb: libparse-recdescent-perl
99 pkg: p5-Parse-RecDescent
100 rpm: perl-ParseRecDescent
101 (optional, for public-inbox-imapd(1))
104 - Plack::Middleware::ReverseProxy deb: libplack-middleware-reverseproxy-perl
105 pkg: p5-Plack-Middleware-ReverseProxy
106 rpm: perl-Plack-Middleware-ReverseProxy
107 (ensures redirects are correct when running
108 behind nginx or Varnish)
110 * highlight deb: libhighlight-perl
111 (for syntax highlighting with coderepo)
113 * xapian-compact (tool) deb: xapian-tools
116 (optional, for public-inbox-compact(1))
118 The following modules are typically pulled in by dependencies listed
119 above, so there is no need to explicitly install them:
121 * Encode deb: libperl5.$MINOR (or libencode-perl)
124 (likely installed with Perl)
126 - DBI deb: libdbi-perl
129 (pulled in by DBD::SQLite)
131 * Devel::Peek deb: libperl5.$MINOR (e.g. libperl5.24)
134 (optional for stale FD cleanup in daemons,
135 typically installed alongside Perl5)
137 - Linux::Inotify2 deb: liblinux-inotify2-perl
138 rpm: perl-Linux-Inotify2
139 (for public-inbox-watch and -imapd on Linux)
141 - IO::Compress (::Gzip) deb: perl-modules (or libio-compress-perl)
143 rpm: perl-IO-Compress
144 (for gzipped mbox over HTTP, v2 format)
146 Uncommonly needed modules:
148 - Socket6 deb: libsocket6-perl
151 (pulled in by SpamAssassin and Net::Server,
152 only necessary if using IPv6 with
153 Plack::Middleware::AccessLog or similar
156 - Crypt::CBC deb: libcrypt-cbc-perl
158 (for PublicInbox::Unsubscribe (rarely used))
160 Optional packages testing and development:
162 - Plack::Test deb: libplack-test-perl
166 - Test::Simple deb: perl-modules-5.$MINOR
168 rpm: perl-Test-Simple
170 - XML::TreePP deb: libxml-treepp-perl
174 standard MakeMaker installation (Perl)
175 --------------------------------------
177 To use MakeMaker, you need to ensure ExtUtils::MakeMaker is available.
178 This is typically installed with Perl, but RPM-based systems will likely
179 need to install the `perl-ExtUtils-MakeMaker' package.
181 Once the dependencies are installed, you should be able to build and
182 install the system (into /usr/local) with:
186 make test # see HACKING for faster tests for hackers
187 make install # root permissions may be needed
189 When installing Search::Xapian, make sure the underlying Xapian
190 installation is not affected by an index corruption bug:
192 https://bugs.debian.org/808610
194 For Debian 8.x (jessie), this means using Debian 8.5 or later.
196 public-inbox will never store unregeneratable data in Xapian
197 or any other search database we might use; Xapian corruption
198 will not destroy critical data.
200 See the public-inbox-overview(7) man page for the next steps once
201 the installation is complete.
206 Copyright 2013-2021 all contributors <meta@public-inbox.org>
207 License: AGPL-3.0+ <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.txt>