Web server

Note

The following instructions are meant to help you get your site up and running quickly. However it is not possible for the people contributing documentation to Modoboa to test every single combination of web server, wsgi server, distribution, etc. So it is possible that your installation of uwsgi or nginx or Apache or what-have-you works differently. Keep this in mind.

Apache2

First, make sure that mod_wsgi is installed on your server.

Create a new virtualhost in your Apache configuration and put the following content inside:

WSGIPythonHome /var/www/modoboa/env
WSGIPythonPath /var/www/modoboa/instance

<VirtualHost *:80>
  ServerName <your value>

  DocumentRoot  <modoboa_instance_path>

  Alias /media/ <modoboa_instance_path>/media/
  <Directory <modoboa_instance_path>/media/>
    Options FollowSymLinks
    Require all granted
  </Directory>

  Alias /sitestatic/ <modoboa_instance_path>/sitestatic/
  <Directory <modoboa_instance_path>/sitestatic/>
    Options FollowSymLinks
    Require all granted
  </Directory>

  Alias /new-admin <modoboa_instance_path>/frontend
  <Directory <modoboa_instance_path>/frontend>
    Options FollowSymLinks
    Require all granted
  </Directory>

  WSGIScriptAlias / <modoboa_instance_path>/instance/wsgi.py
  WSGIApplicationGroup %{GLOBAL}

  # Pass Authorization header to enable API usage:
  WSGIPassAuthorization On

  LogLevel info
</VirtualHost>

This is just one possible configuration.

Replace values between <> with yours. If you don’t use a virtualenv, just remove the last part of the WSGIDaemonProcess directive. .. note:

You may need to add::
  import sys

  sys.path.append('<modoboa_instance_path>')
  sys.path.append('<modoboa_venv_path>/bin')
  sys.path.append('<modoboa_venv_path>/lib/python3.X/site-packages')

in :file:`<modoboa_instance_path>/instance/wsgi.py`.

Note

You will certainly need more configuration in order to launch Apache.

Now, you can go the Dovecot section to continue the installation.

Nginx

This section covers two different ways of running Modoboa behind Nginx using a WSGI application server. Choose the one you prefer between Green Unicorn or uWSGI.

In both cases, you’ll need to download and install nginx.

uWSGI

The following setup is meant to get you started quickly. You should read the documentation of both nginx and uwsgi to understand how to optimize their configuration for your site.

The Django documentation includes the following warning regarding uwsgi:

Warning

Use uwsgi 1.2.6 or newer. If you do not, you will run into problems. Modoboa will fail in obscure ways.

To use this setup, first download and install uwsgi.

Recommend packages for debian and derivatives:

apt install uwsgi uwsgi-plugin-python3

Here is a sample nginx configuration:

upstream modoboa {
  server unix:<uwsgi_socket_path> fail_timeout=0;
}

server {
    listen 80;
    listen [::]:80;
    server_name <hostname>;
    rewrite ^ https://$server_name$request_uri? permanent;
}

server {
    listen 443 ssl http2;
    listen [::]:443 ssl http2;
    server_name <hostname>;
    root <modoboa_instance_path>;

    ssl_certificate  <ssl certificate for your site>;
    ssl_certificate_key  <ssl certificate key for your site>;
    ssl_protocols TLSv1.2 TLSv1.3;
    ssl_ciphers "ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA512:DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA512:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:DHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384:ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA384";
    ssl_prefer_server_ciphers on;
    ssl_session_cache shared:SSL:10m;
    ssl_verify_depth 3;
    ssl_dhparam /etc/nginx/dhparam.pem;

    client_max_body_size 10M;

    access_log /var/log/nginx/modoboa-access.log;
    error_log /var/log/nginx/modoboa-error.log;

    location /sitestatic/ {
        try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
    }

    location /media/ {
        try_files $uri $uri/ =404;
    }

    location ^~ /new-admin {
        alias  <modoboa_instance_path>/frontend/;
        index  index.html;

        expires -1;
        add_header Pragma "no-cache";
        add_header Cache-Control "no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0";

        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.html = 404;
    }

    location / {
        include uwsgi_params;
        uwsgi_param UWSGI_SCRIPT instance.wsgi:application;
        uwsgi_pass modoboa;
    }
    %{extra_config}
}

<modoboa instance name>, <hostname>, <modoboa_instance_path> and <ssl...> must be replaced by the value you used. <uwsgi_socket_path>

when you deployed your instance.

If you do not plan to use SSL then change the listen directive to listen 80; and delete each of the following directives:

ssl on;
keepalive_timeout 70;
ssl_certificate     <ssl certificate for your site>;
ssl_certificate_key <ssl certificate key for your site>;
uwsgi_param UWSGI_SCHEME https;

If you do plan to use SSL, you’ll have to generate a certificate and a key. This article contains information about how to do it.

Make sure to replace the <...> in the sample configuration with appropriate values. Here are some explanations for the cases that may not be completely self-explanatory:

<hostname>

This is the URL which will be the root of your Modoboa site at your domain. For instance, if your Modoboa installation is reachable at at https://foo/modoboa then <hostname> is /modoboa. In this case you probably also have to set the alias directives to point to where Modoboa’s sitestatic and media directories are because otherwise nginx won’t be able to find them.

If Modoboa is at the root of your domain, then <hostname> is an empty string and can be deleted from the configuration above. In this case, you probably do not need the alias directives.

<uwsgi_socket_path>

The location where uwsig is listening. It could be a unix domain socket or an address:port combination. Ubuntu configures uwsgi so that the port is:

unix:/run/uwsgi/app/<app name>/socket

where <app name> is the name of the application.

Your uwsgi configuration should be:

[uwsgi]
# Not needed when using uwsgi from pip
# plugins = python
chdir = <modoboa_instance_path>
module = <name>.wsgi:application
master = true
harakiri = 60
processes = 4
vhost = true
no-default-app = true

The plugins directive should be turned on if you use a uwsgi installation that requires it. If uwsgi was installed from pip, it does not require it. In the configuration above:

<modoboa_instance_path>

The directory where manage.py resides. This directory is the parent of <modoboa's settings dir>

<name>

The name that you passed to modoboa-admin.py deploy when you created your Modoboa instance, usually instance.

Now, you can go the Dovecot section to continue the installation.

Green Unicorn

Firstly, Download and install gunicorn. Then, use the following sample gunicorn configuration (create a new file named gunicorn.conf.py inside Modoboa’s root dir):

backlog = 2048
bind = "unix:/var/run/gunicorn/modoboa.sock"
pidfile = "/var/run/gunicorn/modoboa.pid"
daemon = True
debug = False
workers = 2
logfile = "/var/log/gunicorn/modoboa.log"
loglevel = "info"

To start gunicorn, execute the following commands:

$ cd <modoboa dir>
$ gunicorn -c gunicorn.conf.py <APP/INSTANCE Name>.wsgi:application

Now the nginx part. Just create a new virtual host and use the following configuration:

upstream modoboa {
      server      unix:/var/run/gunicorn/modoboa.sock fail_timeout=0;
}

server {
      listen 443 ssl;
      ssl on;
      keepalive_timeout 70;

      server_name <host fqdn>;
      root <modoboa_instance_path>;

      access_log  /var/log/nginx/<host fqdn>.access.log;
      error_log /var/log/nginx/<host fqdn>.error.log;

      ssl_certificate     <ssl certificate for your site>;
      ssl_certificate_key <ssl certificate key for your site>;

      location /sitestatic/ {
              autoindex on;
      }

      location /media/ {
              autoindex on;
      }

      location / {
              proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
              proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
              proxy_redirect off;
              proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Protocol ssl;
              proxy_pass http://modoboa;
      }
}

If you do not plan to use SSL then change the listen directive to listen 80; and delete each of the following directives:

ssl on;
keepalive_timeout 70;
ssl_certificate     <ssl certificate for your site>;
ssl_certificate_key <ssl certificate key for your site>;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Protocol ssl;

If you do plan to use SSL, you’ll have to generate a certificate and a key. This article contains information about how to do it.

Paste this content to your configuration (replace values between <> with yours) and restart nginx.

Now, you can go the Dovecot section to continue the installation.