Modoboa¶
This section describes the installation of the web interface (a Django project).
Prepare the system¶
First of all, we recommand the following context:
- Use a dedicated system user
- Use a virtualenv to install the application because it will isolate it (and its dependencies) from the rest of your system
The following example illustrates how to realize this (Debian like system):
> sudo apt-get install python-virtualenv python-pip
> sudo useradd modoboa
> sudo -i modoboa
> virtualenv env
> source env/bin/activate
(env)> pip install -U pip
Modoboa depends on external tools and some of them require compilation so you need a compiler and a few C libraries. Make sure to install the following system packages according to your distribution:
Debian/Ubuntu | CentOS |
---|---|
build-essential, python-dev, libxml2-dev, libxslt-dev, libjpeg-dev, librrd-dev, rrdtool, libffi-dev | gcc, gcc-c++, python-devel, libxml2-devel, libxslt-devel, libjpeg-turbo-devel, rrdtool-devel, rrdtool, libffi-devel |
Then, install Modoboa:
(env)> pip install modoboa
Database¶
Warning
This documentation does not cover the installation of a database server but only the setup of a functional database that Modoboa will use.
Thanks to Django, Modoboa is compatible with the following databases:
- PostgreSQL
- MySQL / MariaDB
- SQLite
Since the last one does not require particular actions, only the first two ones are described.
PostgreSQL¶
Install the corresponding Python binding:
(env)> pip install psycopg2
Then, create a user and a database:
> sudo -i postgres
>
MySQL / MariaDB¶
Install the corresponding Python binding:
(env)> pip install MySQL-Python
Then, create a user and a database:
> mysqladmin -u root -p create modoboa
Deploy an instance¶
modoboa-admin.py
, a command line tool, lets you deploy a
ready-to-use Modoboa site using only one instruction:
(env)> modoboa-admin.py deploy instance --collectstatic \
--domain <hostname of your server> --dburl default:database-url
Note
You can install additional extensions during the deploy process. To
do so, use the --extensions
option which accepts a list of
names as argument (--extensions ext1 ext2 ...
). If you want to
install all extensions, just use the all
keyword like this
--extensions all
.
If you choose to install extensions one at a time, you will have to
add their names in settings.py to MODOBOA_APPS
. Also ensure that
you have the line from modoboa_amavis.settings import *
at the
end of this file.
The list of available extensions can be found on the index page. Instructions to install them are available on each extensions page.
Note
You can specify more than one database connection using the
--dburl
option. Multiple connections are differentiated by a
prefix.
The primary connection must use the default:
prefix (as shown
in the example above). For the amavis extension, use the
amavis:
prefix. For example: --dburl
default:<database url> amavis:<database url>
.
A database url should meet the following syntax
<mysql|postgres>://[user:pass@][host:port]/dbname
OR
sqlite:////full/path/to/your/database/file.sqlite
.
The command will ask you a few questions, answer them and you’re done.
If you need a silent installation (e.g. if you’re using Salt-Stack, Ansible or whatever), it’s possible to supply the database credentials as commandline arguments.
You can consult the complete option list by running the following command:
$ modoboa-admin.py help deploy
Cron jobs¶
A few recurring jobs must be configured to make Modoboa works as expected.
Create a new file, for example /etc/cron.d/modoboa
and put the
following content inside:
#
# Modoboa specific cron jobs
#
PYTHON=<PATH TO PYTHON BINARY>
INSTANCE=<PATH TO MODOBOA INSTANCE>
# Operations on mailboxes
* * * * * vmail $PYTHON $INSTANCE/manage.py handle_mailbox_operations
# Sessions table cleanup
0 0 * * * root $PYTHON $INSTANCE/manage.py clearsessions
# Logs table cleanup
0 0 * * * root $PYTHON $INSTANCE/manage.py cleanlogs
# Logs parsing
*/5 * * * * root $PYTHON $INSTANCE/manage.py logparser &> /dev/null
# DNSBL checks
*/30 * * * * root $PYTHON $INSTANCE/manage.py modo check_mx
# Public API communication
0 * * * * root $PYTHON $INSTANCE/manage.py communicate_with_public_api
Now you can continue to the Web server section.