How to Install Mailu on OpenBSD

Mailu is an open-source mail server that allows you to host your email accounts, groups, and domains on your server. In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Mailu on OpenBSD.

Requirements

Before proceeding with this tutorial, you will need:

• OpenBSD version 6.9 or higher
• A user account with sudo privileges
• A registered domain name
• An SMTP relay service (if you want to send outgoing email)

Step 1: Install Required Dependencies

First, you need to install the required dependencies for Mailu on OpenBSD. OpenBSD has many pre-installed packages that come with the initial installation. We will use the pkg_add command to add the packages required by Mailu.

Login to your terminal and run the following commands:

$ sudo su -
$ pkg_add python3 py3-pip py3-virtualenv

These commands will install Python 3, Pip, and virtualenv on your OpenBSD system.

Step 2: Clone Mailu Repository

Next, you need to clone the Mailu repository from Github. You can use the git clone command to clone the repository.

$ cd /opt/
$ git clone https://github.com/Mailu/Mailu.git mailu

This will clone the Mailu repository to the directory /opt/mailu.

Step 3: Configure Mailu

Now, it's time to configure Mailu. Change the directory to /opt/mailu and then edit the .env file using your favorite text editor.

$ cd /opt/mailu
$ cp env.sample .env
$ vi .env

In the .env file, you will see different configuration options for Mailu. Update the following options according to your requirements.

• MAILU_HOSTNAME: Enter your domain name.
• MAILU_ADMIN: Enter the email address of Mailu administrator.
• MAILU_SECRET_KEY: Generate a secret key using some random characters.
• MAILU_LANGUAGE: Enter the language (default is "en").

For example, you could set up the following:

MAILU_HOSTNAME=example.com
MAILU_ADMIN=admin@example.com
MAILU_SECRET_KEY=myrandomcharacters
MAILU_LANGUAGE=en

Step 4: Create Virtual Environment

Now, it's time to create the virtual environment for Mailu. You can use the following command to create a virtual environment.

$ virtualenv -p python3 venv

This command will create a virtual environment in the directory /opt/mailu/venv/ with Python version 3.

Step 5: Activate Virtual Environment

Next, you need to activate the virtual environment using the following command.

$ source venv/bin/activate

This command will activate the virtual environment, and you will see the name of the virtual environment in your prompt.

Step 6: Install Requirements

In this step, you need to install the required packages for Mailu using pip.

$ pip install -r requirements.txt

This command will install all the packages required by Mailu.

Step 7: Run Mailu

Finally, it's time to run Mailu using the following command.

$ ./compose up -d

This command will start all required services for Mailu, and you will see log output in your terminal.

Congratulations, you have successfully installed Mailu on OpenBSD! You can now configure your email clients with the server and start using your email account hosted on your own server.

If you want to self-host in an easy, hands free way, need an external IP address, or simply want your data in your own hands, give IPv6.rs a try!

Alternatively, for the best virtual desktop, try Shells!