Set up an email service

taeer commented

2024-05-24 21:14:13 +02:00

Owner

We should have an endogenous email service. This should allow the fediverse applications to send emails out, but also allow receiving emails (e.g. account confirmation) when running entirely within the VMs.

All the relevant config options should also be set so that the fediverse applications use this email service automatically.

simple-nixos-mailserver may be somwhere to start, especially because I'm already familiar with it. But Koen has said that the underlying technology does not scale, and recommended Stalwart

We should have an endogenous email service. This should allow the fediverse applications to send emails out, but also allow receiving emails (e.g. account confirmation) when running entirely within the VMs. All the relevant config options should also be set so that the fediverse applications use this email service automatically. [simple-nixos-mailserver](https://gitlab.com/simple-nixos-mailserver/nixos-mailserver) may be somwhere to start, especially because I'm already familiar with it. But Koen has said that the underlying technology does not scale, and recommended [Stalwart](https://github.com/stalwartlabs/mail-server)

taeer commented

2024-09-13 15:26:05 +02:00

Author

Owner

Update:

Stalwart has a freemium model, where a base version is open source, with some features gated behind a closed-source "enterprise" version.
However, Dovecot (which is used in simple-nixos-mailserver) also uses this model, and in particular s3 storage backend is not available in the open source "community" version. They also appear to be moving further away from open source support with Dovecot 3.0, removing any support for multiple servers from the community edition See 7:00 and 14:30 in this video

We haven't yet found an alternative to one of stalwart or dovecot. Will keep looking for a bit.

Update: - Stalwart has a freemium model, where a base version is open source, with some features gated behind a closed-source ["enterprise" version](https://stalw.art/enterprise/). - However, Dovecot (which is used in simple-nixos-mailserver) **also** uses this model, and in particular s3 storage backend is not available in the open source "community" version. They also appear to be moving further away from open source support with Dovecot 3.0, removing any support for multiple servers from the community edition See 7:00 and 14:30 in [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-JYrjCKshA) We haven't yet found an alternative to one of stalwart or dovecot. Will keep looking for a bit.

taeer commented

2024-09-13 15:56:13 +02:00

Author

Owner

Some alternative IMAP servers (haven't been evaluated):

Note: none of these are packed in nixpkgs yet

Some alternative IMAP servers (haven't been evaluated): - [james](https://github.com/apache/james-project) - [cyrus](https://github.com/cyrusimap/cyrus-imapd) - [wildduck](https://wildduck.email/) Note: none of these are packed in nixpkgs yet

taeer commented

2024-09-13 16:46:58 +02:00

Author

Owner

We've reached out to the simple-nixos-mailserver team on IRC to get their thoughts and experience with SNM at scale and also using IMAP servers besides Dovecot

taeer commented

2024-09-13 17:11:52 +02:00

Author

Owner

We need to find out what our constraints are.

how big can our databases grow?
what are all our reasons for using garage?

We need to find out what our constraints are. - how big can our databases grow? - what are all our reasons for using garage?

taeer commented

2024-09-16 17:31:54 +02:00

Author

Owner

From IRC:
Hexa:

due to the static user configuration [examples of simple-nixos-mailserver being used at scale] is quite unlikely. I did contribute ldap support some time last year (I think), so probably not
super happy with dovecot

Raito Bezarius:

Deuxfleurs has a IMAP implementation with S3 support
But their scaling is unknown and may require involvement to get it on par with professional offering

Deuxfleurs IMAP is called aerogramme.

List under consideration (besides dovecot/stalwart which are freemium) is now:

From IRC: Hexa: > due to the static user configuration [examples of simple-nixos-mailserver being used at scale] is quite unlikely. I did contribute ldap support some time last year (I think), so probably not > super happy with dovecot Raito Bezarius: > Deuxfleurs has a IMAP implementation with S3 support > But their scaling is unknown and may require involvement to get it on par with professional offering Deuxfleurs IMAP is called [aerogramme](https://aerogramme.deuxfleurs.fr/). List under consideration (besides dovecot/stalwart which are freemium) is now: - [james](https://github.com/apache/james-project) - [cyrus](https://github.com/cyrusimap/cyrus-imapd) - [wildduck](https://wildduck.email/) - [aerogramme](https://aerogramme.deuxfleurs.fr/)

Set up an email service #5