Getting started
This document will show you how to get up and running with Poste.io mailserver. You will get your email server running, delivering and receiving emails in 5 minutes.
Requirements
For fully functional internet available email server you need couple things:
- any 64bit linux distribution running in virtual machine or dedicated server
- CPU and free RAM to run Spamassassin and Clamav. Other components are not so CPU and memory hungry
- Docker engine running - see how to install docker engine
- public IP address
- ability to change IP address's reverse DNS entry - contact your service provider if you are not able to do it by yourself
- full access to domain DNS administration
Downloading and running Poste.io
There are two versions of product, PRO and FREE image.
poste.io/mailserver # (from https://poste.io docker server)
analogic/poste.io # (from https://hub.docker.com)
Both versions share same data directory structure - the only one difference when running PRO version is that you will login to our private docker repository.
$ docker login -u "username" -p "password" https://poste.io
$ docker run \
--net=host \
-e TZ=Europe/Prague \
-v /your-data-dir/data:/data \
--name "mailserver" \
-h "mail.example.com" \
-t poste.io/mailserverYou will be using image from public Docker hub.
$ docker run \
--net=host \
-e TZ=Europe/Prague \
-v /your-data-dir/data:/data \
--name "mailserver" \
-h "mail.example.com" \
-t analogic/poste.ioDocker arguments explained
- --net=host (recomended) mailserver will use host network stack (see https://docs.docker.com/network/host/)
- in this mode host's firewall will work correctly
- connection source IP is not hidden by userland-proxy
- ipv6 working correctly
- network schemes explanation
Ports which are opened by poste.io:
| Port number | Purpose |
|---|---|
| 25 | SMTP - mostly processing incoming mails |
| 80 | HTTP - redirect to https (see options) and authentication for Let's encrypt service |
| 110 | POP3 - standard protocol for accessing mailbox, STARTTLS is required before client auth |
| 143 | IMAP - standard protocol for accessing mailbox, STARTTLS is required before client auth |
| 443 | HTTPS - access to administration or webmail client |
| 465 | SMTPS - Legacy SMTPs port |
| 587 | MSA - SMTP port used primarily for email clients after STARTTLS and auth |
| 993 | IMAPS - alternative port for IMAP encrypted since connection |
| 995 | POP3S - encrypted POP3 since connections |
| 4190 | Sieve - remote sieve settings |
-e TZ=Europe/Prague Set timezone for correct datetime
-v /your-data-dir/data:/data Mounts data directory from host system. User database, emails, logs, all will end up in this directory for easy backup.
--name "mailserver" Run poste.io as container with defined name
-h "mail.example.com" Hostname for your mailserver
-t analogic/poste.io Image name, differs for PRO and FREE version
Optional arguments
-e "HTTPS=OFF" To disable all redirects to encrypted HTTP, its useful when you are using some kind of reverse proxy (place this argument before image name!)
-e "HTTP_PORT=8080" Custom HTTP port. Please note that you must handle Let's encrypt requests at port 80, so if you are using reverse proxy setup you need to forward /.well-known/ folder to this port
-e "HTTPS_PORT=4433" Custom HTTPS port.
-e "DISABLE_CLAMAV=TRUE" To disable all ClamAV, it is useful for low mem usage.
-e "DISABLE_RSPAMD=TRUE" To disable all Rspamd, it is useful for low mem usage.
-e "DISABLE_ROUNDCUBE=TRUE" To disable Roundcube webmail.
-p 4190:4190 When you are going to use clients with ability to manage Sieve filters externally, you need also publish port 4190