Jul 24, 2023

Hey developers,

Interested in #contributing to a smol but neat #FOSS project? I'm looking for help with feature requests for my #mailserver side project: https://github.com/t-lo/mailserver/issues

Mailserver is "a no pain, minimal configuration, full-featured dockerised mail server" based on postfix and dovecot. Goal of this project is to ship a DKMS / DMARC / SPF mailserver system whose emails are accepted by GMail / Outlook etc. out of the box.

(boosts welcome!)

GitHub - t-lo/mailserver: Dockerised mailserver

Dockerised mailserver. Contribute to t-lo/mailserver development by creating an account on GitHub.

GitHub
Show threadtronicum
@thilo I guess you are aware of this project? https://github.com/docker-mailserver/docker-mailserver just ask because its more or less what you want and derived from tivals docker-mailserver and is several years old.
GitHub - docker-mailserver/docker-mailserver: Production-ready fullstack but simple mail server (SMTP, IMAP, LDAP, Antispam, Antivirus, etc.) running inside a container.

Production-ready fullstack but simple mail server (SMTP, IMAP, LDAP, Antispam, Antivirus, etc.) running inside a container. - docker-mailserver/docker-mailserver

GitHub
Jul 24, 2023 at 1:43pmWeb
Show threadJul 24, 2023

@tronicum I like it - but that project has a different scope. My mailserver aims at conciseness and ease of set-up and operation. It trys to ship a batteries-included, self-sufficient solution without external dependencies; main target are small and medium installations

docker-mailserver aims at flexibility and integrates a number of services that solve the same problem, e.g. spam / virus scanners, and it tries to integrate well into existing environments. Target seem to be large installations.

Show threadtronicumJul 24, 2023
@thilo i would like to differ. it is not meant with a large installations AFAIK. Several features for that where missing for a while (e.g. backup mx). You can use LDAP etc. ofc but it works fine (e.g. for my personal mailserver). As you can disable services you do not want, you can configure down to do as little as you want. It is not as minimal of course as you suggested.
Show threadJul 24, 2023

@tronicum It's also a matter of set-up / ease of use. We go the extra mile for integration; the mailserver only needs 4 variables set in an env file and then it's ready to go (https://github.com/t-lo/mailserver#quickstart-instructions). Everything else is generated (e.g. letsencrypt certificates).

For the DNS set-up, tokens like DKIM and DMARC are generated and can be copy+pasted from the DNS monitoring page (or from the output of a sanity checker script).

GitHub - t-lo/mailserver: Dockerised mailserver

Dockerised mailserver. Contribute to t-lo/mailserver development by creating an account on GitHub.

GitHub
Show threadtronicumJul 24, 2023
@thilo docker-mailserver has an setup script and scripts for generating those values. not more then 4 steps (compared to 4 variables)
Show threadJul 24, 2023

@tronicum Another example is monitoring: it's not included with docker-mailserver and expected to be supplied externally (afaikt).

That makes sense for large installations because usually the operators of these have existing monitoring solutions they'd integrate docker-mailserver with.

My mailserver does not make that assumption and ships with an optional monitoring suite: our assumption is there is none in place, and that operators would have challenges to set one up just for the mailserver.

Show threadtronicumJul 24, 2023
@thilo making the existence of monitoring an factor for what audience it is aimed at sounds strange to me, to be honest.
Show threadJul 24, 2023

@tronicum I was merely trying to use it as an example of the different goals of docker-mailserver and my own project: "docker-mailserver" has a stronger focus on integrating well into existing environments.
"mailserver" does not assume there even is an environment.

(But I might be mistaken with that interpretation of docker-mailserver; just took a cursory look before starting my own, so I'm not super familiar with it)