Mailpiler - self hosted email archive

[timconsidine]

Ah. Thinks.
Building this on Mac Big Sur running on Mac Mini with new Apple chip (not Intel)
Is that the cause of the architecture issue ?

[timconsidine]

Using the following seems to get past the platform architecture issue :
Only needed perhaps if building on Mac with Apple chip

docker buildx build --platform linux/amd64 -f Dockerfile --no-cache . -t <reponame>/mailpiler:cloudron-<date>

[timconsidine]

Build process failed (for me) on this line in #nginx section

ln -sf /etc/piler/piler-nginx.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

But i noticed preceding similar command succeeded

ln -s /app/data/nginx/conf/sites-enabled /etc/nginx/sites-enabled 

So I amended problem line by removing the trailing "/"
That build process now runs to completion.

I hope people don't mind the segregated comments and 'running commentary'. Personally I find it easier to track problems and solutions.

[timconsidine]

Successfully built and pushed to repository (docker in my case).
App installed on Cloudron w/o hassle .... but hangs in 'starting' mode.
So I uninstalled and tried cloudron install --image <repo>/<image>:<tag> without the --no-wait option.
This installs but similarly gets stuck

 => Wait for health check ........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................^C

Out of my depth now. What to check / amend ?

[timconsidine]

Blundering around in the dark, but I notice that start.sh has on line 53

local SSL_CERT_DATA="/C=US/ST=Denial/L=Springfield/O=Dis/CN=www.example.com"

Should this not reference the Cloudron variable for location ?

[girish]

@marcusquinn @vladimir-d what is the status of the app package?

[marcusquinn]

@girish We have 2 self-installed working instances, not given it a thorough test but can't see anything obvious that wouldn't work either. Could perhaps do with some more experienced eyes and feedback on it though.

[vladimir.d]

@timconsidine I've updated Dockerfile to fix all building issues you faced with. After that everything went just fine on a fresh cloned copy.

@timconsidine said in Mailpiler - self hosted email archive:

Blundering around in the dark, but I notice that start.sh has on line 53

local SSL_CERT_DATA="/C=US/ST=Denial/L=Springfield/O=Dis/CN=www.example.com"

Should this not reference the Cloudron variable for location ?

When tls add-on is enabled in the manifest, the script doesn't generate a self signed certificate and uses the Cloudron certificate of the primary domain. I've amended it to use $CLOUDRON_APP_DOMAIN variable.

@timconsidine said in Mailpiler - self hosted email archive:

Successfully built and pushed to repository (docker in my case).
App installed on Cloudron w/o hassle .... but hangs in 'starting' mode.
So I uninstalled and tried cloudron install --image <repo>/<image>:<tag> without the --no-wait option.
This installs but similarly gets stuck

 => Wait for health check ............................^C

Out of my depth now. What to check / amend ?

It doesn't get stuck for me - I've tried to build&install the app with the recent changes.

I guess there is an issue with piler or nginx directories in /etc/, probably a wrong path or an invalid symlink or so.
You need to look at the app logs to see the issue.

[timconsidine]

@vladimir-d thank you !
I will give it another go in the morning.

[vladimir.d]

@girish It needs to expose 25 port for piler-smtp daemon. it says 25 (and other smtp ports) are reserved.
For now I've added tcpPorts field to Cloudronmanifest.json and exposed it as 12525 but I guess it won't properly work in most cases.
Is there a workaround to expose 25 port for the app?

[girish]

@vladimir-d Oh, interesting. Don't think an app can ever expose port 25 since the mail server requires port 25. Do you know why it requires port 25? Maybe I don't understand how the archiver works. I though it's pulling in all email via IMAP? Or is it that we should redirect all mail to mailpiler?

[luckow]

@girish According to my understanding of a mail archive solution, every incoming and outgoing mail must be forwarded to the archive solution. This is the only way to fulfil the requirements of the law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email_archiving
The mailpiler docs tells us:
Postfix
Add the following to main.cf then issue the postfix reload command:

always_bcc = uuid@smtp.example.com

For historical mails there is the import option
https://docs.google.com/document/d/15F0fyb07etMqEXRJnMZcYc016UN-WDds-6zrZNjF6aU/edit#heading=h.58uixy8guf9y

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YK7zVbcohFWf2w8BpYhCcsAY6Q61JKXa8pqUDrU7nn4/edit#

Both docs are for the enterprise edition. But the oss edition has similar docs.
https://www.mailpiler.org/wiki/current:installation

[timconsidine]

@luckow this makes sense ... except I don't understand why an archive solution would need SMTP for sending. It just needs its own incoming email capability, and the always_bcc means it will get a copy of all inbound and outbound emails from the primary 'working' email server.
But maybe (as is often the case) I am not understanding the full picture.

[luckow]

@timconsidine as I understand it, the smtp port of the archive solution is only relevant for receiving the bcc mails. The user uses the "normal" (in this case the Cloudron) smtp server for sending emails via webmail or the local mail client. And Cloudron smtp forwards/sends any incoming or outgoing mail via smtp to the archive solution. That is the magic in my understanding

[timconsidine]

@luckow thank you
I just didn't know inbound can even be done via SMTP. Either my bad knowledge, or non-standard config.

[luckow]

@timconsidine worth reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_Mail_Transfer_Protocol

[timconsidine]

@vladimir-d whoop whoop !
Just built, pushed and installed your updated package of Mailpiler.
All went smoothly.
Now I have to set it up and learn it.
Thank you so much !

[marcusquinn]

@timconsidine Nice, more the merrier!

It's definitely another app that can help win mindshare for Cloudron as an enterprise considerate solution with this sort of auditing. Especially when it can be setup as a separate Cloudron instance too for further risk spreading.

[timconsidine]

@marcusquinn agreed.
I totally agree. Have tried some archiving solutions previously and mailpiler looks nice.
But I having a "thick" morning :

• looking through app and their online docs, I can't what address emails should be BCC'ed to. Is it staring me in the face and I can't see it? Do I have to set it up ?

• importing from a server doesn't specify a port number to access IMAP on, so test connection always fails, and it doesn't specify SSL/STARTTLS

I'm embarrassed by these basic questions, but if someone can nudge me in the right direction, I'd appreciate it.

[marcusquinn]

@timconsidine We haven't got to out setup and migration yet, working on 6 things at once, as always! Will bear in mind and answer when we do get to it.