Postal is an open-source mail delivery platform that aims to make it easy to send, receive, and manage email. In this tutorial, we will show you step-by-step how to install Postal on Arch Linux.
To install Postal on Arch Linux, you will need:
Before installing Postal, it is recommended to update your system packages to make sure you have the latest features and security patches.
You can update your system on Arch Linux using the following command in your terminal:
sudo pacman -Syu
This command will update all system packages to the latest version.
Postal has several dependencies that we need to install before installing Postal itself. We can install all Postal packages, including their dependencies using pacman.
sudo pacman -S --needed git curl wget tar bzip2 make cmake gcc postgresql nodejs npm ruby ruby-rack ruby-minitest
These pacman commands will install git, curl, wget, tar, bzip2, make, cmake, gcc, postgresql, nodejs, npm, ruby, ruby-rack, ruby-minitest, which are required dependencies to run Postal.
Now we can download the latest version of Postal from its official GitHub repository using the following command in your terminal.
sudo git clone https://github.com/postalhq/postal /opt/postal
This command will clone the Postal source code to the /opt/postal directory.
After cloning the Postal repository, we need to configure the database for Postal. Postal supports two kinds of databases, MySQL and PostgreSQL. In this tutorial, we will use PostgreSQL.
Start the PostgreSQL service and enable it to start automatically after system boot:
sudo systemctl enable --now postgresql
After starting the PostgreSQL service, we need to create a new PostgreSQL database user and a database for Postal.
sudo -u postgres createuser postal -s
sudo -u postgres psql -c "ALTER USER postal WITH PASSWORD 'postalpassword';"
sudo -u postgres createdb -O postal postal -E UTF8 -T template0 --lc-collate='en_US.utf8' --lc-ctype='en_US.utf8'
Where the first and second commands create a new database user called postal with the password postalpassword. After creating the user, in the third command, we create a new database called postal owned by postal user.
Next step is to configure Postal.
sudo ruby /opt/postal/config/postal.rb setup
This command runs the Postal setup configuration script that guides us through the configuration process.
When prompted to create an SSL certificate, type Y, and follow the instructions. If you don't have a domain name registered, you can use a free Let's Encrypt SSL certificate.
After the setup script finishes, start the Postal service and enable it to start automatically after system boot:
sudo systemctl enable --now postal
To check if the Postal service is running, use the following command:
sudo postal status
If everything is correctly installed and configured, this should output something like:
_ _ _
_ __ ___ __| |_ __ ___ /_\ _ __ ___ ___ _ __(_)
| '_ \ / _ \/ _` | '__/ _ \/ _ \| '__/ _ \/ _ \ '__| |
| |_) | __/ (_| | | | __/ ___ \ | | __/ __/ | | |
| .__/ \___|\__,_|_| \___/_/ \_\_| \___|\___|_| |_|
|_|
___ _
|_ _|_ __ ___ __ _ __ _ ___ _ __ | |_
| || '_ ` _ \ / _` |/ _` |/ _ \ '_ \| __|
| || | | | | | (_| | (_| | __/ | | | |_
|___|_| |_| |_|\__,_|\__, |\___|_| |_|\__|
|___/
Congratulations! You have successfully installed Postal on Arch Linux. Your system is now ready to send and receive emails using Postal.
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