Mail-in-a-Box

Take back control of your email with this easy-to-deploy mail server in a box.

sudo apt-get install vagrant git# spin up a fresh Ubuntu 14.04 machine --- it must be fresh!
sudo apt-get install git
git clone https://github.com/joshdata/mailinabox
cd mailinabox

vagrant up
vagrant sshsudo setup/start.sh
sudo management/whats_next.py

Note: This is a work in progress. I work on Mail-in-a-Box in my limited free time. Your mileage may vary.

Why build this?

Mass electronic surveillance by governments revealed over the last year has spurred a new movement to re-decentralize the web: to empower individuals to be their own service providers again.

Although the core protocal of email, SMTP, is completely decentralized, in practice email has become highly centralized because it is so damn difficult to implement the dozens of modern protocols that surround it.

A mail server in a box

Mail-in-a-Box turns a fresh Ubuntu 14.04 LTS 64-bit machine into a working mail server including all of the components listed on the leftbelow.

My goals

I want to...

Make deploying a good mail server easy.
Promote decentralization, innovation, and privacy on the web.
Have automated, auditable, and idempotent system configuration.
Not build a mail server that the NSA cannot hack.
Not be endlessly customizable by power users.

Who am I? I'm @JoshData. I’ve been running my own mail server for 15 years and am tired of feeling like the last hold-out. So join me.

Development

Development takes place on github at https://github.com/joshdata/mailinabox.

Thank you to the contributors!

Mail-in-a-Box is dedicated to the public domain using CC0.

Acknowledgements

This project was inspired in part by the "NSA-proof your email in 2 hours" blog post by Drew Crawford, Sovereign by Alex Payne, and conversations with @shevski, @konklone, and @GregElin.