---------------------------------------
This is for folks who want to setup their own public-inbox instance.
-Clients should see http://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.
+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.
+
+Most packages are available in other GNU/Linux distributions
+and FreeBSD.
+
TODO: this still needs to be documented better,
also see the scripts/ and sa_config/ directories in the source tree
-It should also be possible to use public-inbox with only IMAP
-(or even POP(!)) access to a mailbox.
-
-standard MakeMaker installation (Perl)
---------------------------------------
+Requirements
+------------
+
+public-inbox requires a number of other packages to access its full
+functionality. The core tools are, of course:
- perl Makefile.PL
- make
- make test
- make install # root permissions may be needed
-
-Requirements (server MDA)
--------------------------
-
-* git
-* SpamAssassin (spamc/spamd)
-* MTA - postfix is recommended
-* lynx (for converting HTML messages to text)
-* Perl and several modules: (Debian package name)
- - Date::Parse libtimedate-perl
- - Email::Filter libemail-filter-perl
- - Email::MIME libemail-mime-perl
- - Email::MIME::ContentType libemail-mime-contenttype-perl
- - Encode::MIME::Header perl
- - File::Path::Expand libfile-path-expand-perl
- - IPC::Run libipc-run-perl
-
-Optional modules:
-
- - Plack[1] libplack-perl
- - Mail::Thread (2.5+)[1] libmail-thread-perl
- - URI::Escape[1] liburi-perl
- - Search::Xapian[3] libsearch-xapian-perl
- - IO::Compress::Gzip[3] libio-compress-perl
- - DBI[3] libdbi-perl
- - DBD::SQLite[3] libdbd-sqlite3-perl
- - Danga::Socket[4] libdanga-socket-perl
- - Net::Server[4] libnet-server-perl
-
-[1] - Only required for serving/generating Atom and HTML pages.
-[3] - Optional for HTML web interface and HTTP/NNTP servers
-[4] - Optional for HTTP and NNTP servers
+* Git (1.8.0+, 2.6+ for writing v2 inboxes)
+* Perl 5.10.1+
+* DBD::SQLite (needed for IMAP, NNTP, message threading, and v2 inboxes)
-When installing Search::Xapian, make sure the underlying Xapian
-is patched against the index corruption bug documented in:
+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)
+
+Beyond that, there is a long list of Perl modules required, starting with:
+
+* Digest::SHA typically installed with Perl
+ rpm: perl-Digest-SHA
+
+* URI::Escape deb: liburi-perl
+ pkg: p5-URI
+ rpm: perl-URI
+ (for HTML/Atom generation)
+
+Email::MIME will be optional as of public-inbox v1.5.0,
+it may still be used in maintainer comparison tests:
+
+* Email::MIME deb: libemail-mime-perl
+ pkg: p5-Email-MIME
+ rpm: perl-Email-MIME
+
+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 deb: libsearch-xapian-perl
+ pkg: p5-Search-Xapian
+ rpm: perl-Search-Xapian
+ (HTTP and IMAP search)
+
+- 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)
+
+- 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))
+
+- 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))
+
+The following modules are typically pulled in by dependencies listed
+above, so there is no need to explicitly install them:
+
+* Encode deb: libperl5.$MINOR (or libencode-perl)
+ pkg: perl5
+ rpm: perl-Encode
+ (likely installed with Perl)
+
+- DBI deb: libdbi-perl
+ pkg: p5-DBI
+ rpm: perl-DBI
+ (pulled in by DBD::SQLite)
+
+* Devel::Peek deb: libperl5.$MINOR (e.g. libperl5.24)
+ pkg: perl5
+ rpm: perl-Devel-Peek
+ (optional for stale FD cleanup in daemons,
+ typically installed alongside Perl5)
+
+- Linux::Inotify2 deb: liblinux-inotify2-perl
+ rpm: perl-Linux-Inotify2
+ (for public-inbox-watch and -imapd on Linux)
+
+- IO::Compress (::Gzip) deb: perl-modules (or libio-compress-perl)
+ pkg: perl5
+ rpm: perl-IO-Compress
+ (for gzipped mbox over HTTP, v2 format)
+
+Uncommonly needed 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))
+
+Optional packages testing and development:
+
+- Plack::Test deb: libplack-test-perl
+ pkg: p5-Plack
+ rpm: perl-Plack-Test
+
+- Test::Simple deb: perl-modules-5.$MINOR
+ pkg: perl5
+ rpm: perl-Test-Simple
+
+- XML::TreePP deb: libxml-treepp-perl
+ pkg: p5-XML-TreePP
+ rpm: perl-XML-TreePP
- https://bugs.debian.org/808610
+standard MakeMaker installation (Perl)
+--------------------------------------
-For Debian 8.0, this means installing from jessie-backports
-until the fix lands in jessie.
+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.
-# Ensure the following line is in your apt sources.list(5)
-# (typically /etc/apt/sources.list):
+Once the dependencies are installed, you should be able to build and
+install the system (into /usr/local) with:
-deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian jessie-backports main
+ perl Makefile.PL
+ make
+ make test # see HACKING for faster tests for hackers
+ make install # root permissions may be needed
-Then run:
+When installing Search::Xapian, make sure the underlying Xapian
+installation is not affected by an index corruption bug:
- apt-get update
- apt-get install -t jessie-backports libxapian22
+ https://bugs.debian.org/808610
-to install the package.
+For Debian 8.x (jessie), this means using Debian 8.5 or later.
public-inbox will never store unregeneratable data in Xapian
or any other search database we might use; Xapian corruption
will not destroy critical data.
+See the public-inbox-overview(7) man page for the next steps once
+the installation is complete.
+
Copyright
---------
-Copyright 2013-2015 all contributors <meta@public-inbox.org>
-License: AGPLv3 or later <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.txt>
+Copyright 2013-2021 all contributors <meta@public-inbox.org>
+License: AGPL-3.0+ <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.txt>