mixandClaude Opus 5.5 50fd6b859f panel-notifications: the notifier, its mail and the server's own DKIM key
internal/notify applies the owner's rules. Each subject has a row of state,
so a thing is said once and a restart says nothing again:

- DNS of a sending domain: said after two hourly checks in a row found a
  record wrong, said to be over after two found it right. A lookup that did
  not answer moves nothing; a warning (no DMARC record) is not a subject.
- TLS certificate: at 14 days and at 3, per certificate.
- Queue: a message older than three days, once; once more when none is.
- Level-2 limit: from the rejected rows of the send log, every five minutes;
  at most once a day per domain and application.

Global users are told everything, domain users about their domains; one
message per recipient. With the instance switch off nothing is checked and no
state moves. A message that could not be handed to Postfix is tried again at
the next check.

Mail leaves by sendmail(1) as postmaster@<hostname>, addresses after "--",
no shell. For it to be believed the server's own name is signed like a
sending domain: domain.Service keeps a key for it and a line in OpenDKIM's
tables without a registry row, and non_smtpd_milters now names OpenDKIM. A
sending domain of the same name shares its key with the server.
dnscheck.ServerMail checks the name's DKIM and SPF records;
postfix.QueueMessages reads postqueue -j for arrival times.

The notifier is a sixth role of the panel process. Nothing in the panel
shows or switches it yet.

Checked on Windows: go vet clean; go test passes for notify, store, postfix,
dnscheck, cmd, and domain apart from TestWriteLoadPrivateKeyRoundtrip, which
fails there on file modes and always did. Not yet run in a container: whether
the unprivileged panel may submit is for the e2e step.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-12 15:56:13 +03:00

SelfPost

SelfPost

Self-hosted SMTP relay with a web panel — one Docker image, no provider.

Postfix, OpenDKIM, and a small Go panel run together under supervisord; you configure domains, DKIM keys, and SASL applications once, then point your apps at the SMTP endpoint.

SelfPost sends mail straight to the internet from your own IP, with per-domain DKIM signing. No mailboxes or webmail. An optional inbound relay (backup-MX / forwarder on port 25) forwards to an upstream; it does not store mail.

For: operators who run their own VPS or home server and want a simple relay they control, without a third-party SMTP provider.

Key properties: one container, multi-domain DKIM, SASL per application, send log and DNS checks in the panel, encrypted backups.

Features

  • Outbound SMTP (465/smtps; optional 587 submission) with per-domain DKIM signing
  • Optional inbound relay on port 25 (backup-MX / forwarder; off by default)
  • Optional DMARC aggregate report ingest on port 25 (off by default)
  • In-panel Help: a page of topics, opened from the ? in the head of a box
  • Per-application client IP allow-list for SMTP AUTH (optional)
  • Web panel grouped by mail direction — Overview, Outbound (domains, log, queue, DMARC reports), Inbound, Server (health, system log, backup, users, settings)
  • Multi-domain relay — each SASL application is bound to one sending domain
  • DNS status checks (PTR, SPF, DKIM, DMARC) with in-panel re-check
  • Two-level rate limiting — IP backstop (Postfix), per-domain ceilings, and trusted-IP app overrides
  • Full-server backup and single-domain export/import (optional password encryption)
  • Single Docker image; production data in a ./data bind mount (the quick start below uses a named Docker volume instead)

Documentation

Document Contents
Operator guide Reverse proxy, environment variables, DNS, IP warmup, panel operations, rate limiting, backup/restore, ports, image tag
Product boundaries Purpose, deployment assumptions, out-of-scope items, multi-domain model
Architecture As-built technical design
Security design Mandatory requirements, accepted risks, the CSRF ADR
Development Building, testing, docs rules, model routing, commits
Roadmap Open work (1.x+) — direction, not commitments
CHANGELOG Release history

Found a vulnerability? Do not open an issue — SECURITY.md has the private reporting channel and the scope.

Repository: https://github.com/mixeme/selfpost — source, issues, releases, and the ghcr.io/mixeme/selfpost image.

Requirements

Providing these is the operator's job — SelfPost cannot fix a blocked port or a missing PTR record for you. Details: Operator guide.

Platform

  • Docker + Compose v2 on the host
  • A reverse proxy in front of the panel (SelfPost never terminates HTTPS itself)
  • Rough sizing: 1 vCPU, 512 MB–1 GB RAM, 8–10 GB disk (send log and rotated mail.log are the main growth drivers; both sit in the ./data volume, and both are capped — 90 days and 14 files by default)

Network and IP

  • Static IP address
  • Outbound TCP port 25 unblocked (many consumer/cloud hosts block it by default)
  • PTR/rDNS for that IP pointing at your mail hostname (SELFPOST_HOSTNAME)
  • Reasonable starting IP reputation — a fresh IP still needs warmup

Per sending domain

For every domain you add in the panel:

  • SPF TXT record authorizing this server
  • DKIM TXT record (value shown on the domain page)
  • DMARC _dmarc TXT record

See Domain-level DNS in the operator guide.

Per inbound domain (optional)

Only if you turn on inbound relay (INBOUND_RELAY_ENABLE=true):

  • MX record pointing at SELFPOST_HOSTNAME (keep any existing primary MX if this host is backup-MX)

See Inbound relay in the operator guide.

Quick start

First boot — create the admin account. On a fresh container SelfPost prints a one-time setup URL (valid ten minutes). Open it in a browser to choose the administrator username and password. Until you do, the panel has no login. Production deploy: Full deployment in the operator guide.

One container, panel at http://127.0.0.1:8080 — no reverse proxy, no TLS files, no compose files. Good for clicking through the UI on your machine; outbound mail will not reach the real internet without DNS, PTR, and port 25.

docker run --rm -d --name selfpost-try \
  -p 127.0.0.1:8080:8080 \
  -e SELFPOST_HOSTNAME=mail.local.test \
  -e PANEL_COOKIE_SECURE=false \
  -v selfpost-try-data:/data \
  ghcr.io/mixeme/selfpost:2.2.0

Get the setup URL (pick one):

docker logs selfpost-try 2>&1 | grep -m1 'http'
docker exec selfpost-try cat /data/setup-token

The printed URL is https://mail.local.test/setup/<token>. For this local trial rewrite it to http://127.0.0.1:8080/setup/<token> (same path token; PANEL_COOKIE_SECURE=false so the cookie works over plain HTTP). Open it before it expires.

When finished:

docker rm -f selfpost-try && docker volume rm selfpost-try-data

More detail (limitations, optional throwaway TLS for local SMTP): Local trial in the operator guide.

Reference deploy

Production layout: one docker-compose.yml, a .env, persistent ./data, and TLS PEM files at ./certs (read by Postfix on 465/587). The panel is reached only through a reverse proxy on 443 — port 8080 is bound to localhost in the default compose file.

Full walkthrough — fetching the base files, setting up a reverse proxy and TLS (Apache/nginx/Caddy/Traefik), starting the container, and wiring up DNS — lives in the operator guide's Full deployment section, with proxy-specific commands under Reverse proxy.

The compose file always publishes 465, 587, and 25; Postfix listens on 587 only when SUBMISSION_ENABLE=true, and on 25 when INBOUND_RELAY_ENABLE=true and/or DMARC_REPORTS_ENABLE=true (see Ports). Bump the pinned image tag deliberately when upgrading, never :latest (why). Optional variables (TRUSTED_PROXY_CIDR, rate limits, retention): see Environment variables.

License

Copyright © 2026 Mikhail Yenuchenko.

AGPL-3.0. The AGPL closes the "SaaS loophole": if you run a modified version as a network-accessible service, you must make the modified source available to its users — not only when you distribute copies of the code. Third-party notices: NOTICE.

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