cprogrammer/indimail-mta repository overview

⁠Dockerfile repository for automated builds.

This repo contains repository for Dockerfiles used for building docker/podman images for indimail-mta⁠, indimail⁠ and indimail⁠ with roundcube⁠ web frontend. Read this document on how to run a fully functional mail server using docker / podman images. In just less than an hour, you will read how to run an indimail container and the bonus will be that you will understand how docker and podman works.

You can use either docker or podman. One of the downsides of Docker is it has a central daemon that runs as the root user, and this has security implications. But this is where Podman comes in handy. Podman is a daemonless container engine⁠ for developing, managing, and running OCI Containers on your Linux system in root or rootless⁠ mode. The complete set of instructions for installing podman is given here⁠. If you decide to use docker, the complet set of instructions for installing docker is given here⁠.

You have to decide the image that you want.

• indimail-mta - for a minimal server that gives you a MTA. This server can receive mails from the internet and send mails to users within the same server or to the internet. This also provides you IMAP(S), POP3(S) protocols to access emails received on the server.
• indimail - For a complete mail server. You can create many virtual domains, access the mails using IMAP(S), POP3(S) and do everything that the indimail-mta image does.
• indimail-web - Like the indimail image with the addition of a web based email client based on Roundcube Mail⁠.
• indimail-mta-web - Like the indimail-mta image with the addition of a web based email client based on Roundcube Mail⁠. Use this if you just want to access your own personal mailbox or you want to host few local accounts on your server.

The following tags/images can be pulled by executing the commands

Docker

docker pull ghcr.io/mbhangui/indimail-mta:tag
docker pull ghcr.io/mbhangui/indimail:tag
docker pull ghcr.io/mbhangui/indimail-web:tag

or

podman

podman pull ghcr.io/mbhangui/indimail-mta:tag
podman pull ghcr.io/mbhangui/indimail:tag
podman pull ghcr.io/mbhangui/indimail-web:tag

Replace tag in the above command with one of the following

tag	OS Distribution	indimai-mta	indimail	webmail
bionic	Ubuntu 18.04
focal	Ubuntu 20.04
jammy	Ubuntu 22.04
noble	Ubuntu 24.04
debian10	Debian10
debian11	Debian11
debian12	Debian12
fc40	Fedora Core 36
fc39	Fedora Core 39
Tumbleweed	openSUSE Tumbleweed
Leap15.5	openSUSE Leap 15.5
Leap15.6	openSUSE Leap 15.6
oracle8	Orace Linux 8
oracle9	Orace Linux 9
almalinux8	Alma Linux 8
almalinux9	Alma Linux 9
rockylinux8	Rocky Linux 8
rockylinux9	Rocky Linux 9

Runtime Container images built from Source

Distributions like alpine, gentoo, archlinux and ubi8 are not supported on the Open Build Service⁠. The runtime images are built using Dockerfiles that pull the source from github, compile and install them. To reduce the build time, these are built in two steps.

1. Build an intermediate image with all source packages installed in the image. The base image comes from the OS distribution images. This image takes very long to build (1.5 hours for gentoo) and is refreshed on a need basis.
2. Build the final image by pulling the base images built and pushed in step 1. The dockerfiles come from indimail-src⁠.

tag	OS Distribution	indimai-mta	indimail	webmail
alpine	alpine Linux v3.15.x			TODO
gentoo	Gentoo			TODO
archlinux	Arch Linux			TODO
stream8	CentOS Stream 8
stream9	CentOS Stream 9
fedora	lastest Fedora
ubi8	Redhat ubi8			TODO
ubi9	Redhat ubi9			TODO

⁠SUPPORT INFORMATION

⁠IRC / Matrix

• Matrix Invite Link #indimail:matrix.org⁠
• IndiMail has an IRC channel on libera⁠ #indimail-mta

The matrix room and libera.chat channel have been bridged so joining either one should be sufficient.

⁠Mailing list

There are four Mailing Lists for IndiMail

1. indimail-support - You can subscribe for Support here⁠. You can mail indimail-support⁠ for support Old discussions can be seen here⁠
2. indimail-devel - You can subscribe here⁠. You can mail indimail-devel⁠ for development activities. Old discussions can be seen here⁠
3. indimail-announce - This is only meant for announcement of New Releases or patches. You can subscribe here⁠
4. Archive at Google Groups⁠. This groups acts as a remote archive for indimail-support and indimail-devel.

There is also a Project Tracker⁠ for IndiMail (Bugs, Feature Requests, Patches, Support Requests)

⁠References

1. Super-Slim Docker Containers⁠
2. Rootless containers with Podman: The basics⁠
3. Using volumes with rootless podman, explained⁠