selfpost/docs/guide.md

SelfPost operator guide

Detailed install, configuration, and day-to-day operations. For a short overview and quick start, see README.md.

Table of contents

• Reverse proxy (mandatory)
• Local trial
• Environment variables
• DNS setup
• IP warmup
• Operations
• Rate limiting
• Backup, restore, and moving a single domain
  • Encrypting a backup or export
• Published ports
• Fixed image tag

Reverse proxy (mandatory)

SelfPost's panel speaks plain HTTP and never terminates TLS itself — a reverse proxy in front of it is not optional. The proxy is also the project's only source of TLS certificates: whatever it obtains via ACME/Let's Encrypt gets bind-mounted read-only into the SelfPost container, and Postfix uses those same PEM files for TLS on 465 (and 587, if enabled). If the panel and the mail service share one hostname — the common case — it's genuinely one certificate serving both.

SelfPost isn't tied to a specific proxy; pick whichever fits your host:

Proxy	Where certs live	Fragment
Apache (default/recommended)	Host disk, via the certbot Apache plugin — PEM files ready to bind-mount, no extraction step.	deploy/apache/selfpost-vhost.conf
nginx	Host disk, via a certbot sidecar container — same PEM-ready shape as Apache.	deploy/nginx/
Caddy	Automatic ACME, zero extra containers — simplest, but its on-disk cert path is versioned internal layout, not a stable API; verify it for the Caddy version you run.	deploy/caddy/
Traefik	Bundled inside acme.json — needs a small extraction script to produce standalone PEM files.	deploy/traefik/

Apache is the recommended default because the certbot Apache plugin already writes plain fullchain.pem/privkey.pem files to a predictable path with no extra moving parts between "certificate issued" and "Postfix can read it."

The proxy needs no security configuration of its own. The panel emits its own Content-Security-Policy, Strict-Transport-Security, X-Frame-Options, X-Content-Type-Options and Referrer-Policy — deliberately, so the part that's easy to get wrong lives in the service rather than in a config file somebody edits under pressure. There is exactly one thing the proxy must do: pass the original Host header through. All four fragments above already do (Apache ProxyPreserveHost On, nginx proxy_set_header Host $host, Caddy and Traefik by default). A proxy that rewrites Host instead makes the panel reject every form submission as cross-origin — the log says so explicitly, printing the Origin and Host it compared.

Local trial

The README quick start runs a single container with PANEL_COOKIE_SECURE=false and port 8080 published on localhost. No reverse proxy, no ./certs bind mount — Postfix still starts, but the Status page will report missing TLS material until you mount PEM files at /etc/postfix/tls/fullchain.pem and privkey.pem.

The one-time setup link is always printed as https://<SELFPOST_HOSTNAME>/setup/<token> (and written the same way to /data/setup-token). For a local trial that means rewriting the host and scheme to http://127.0.0.1:8080/setup/<token> — the path token is what matters; the hostname in the printed URL is not reachable as written.

What works: the full panel — setup, domains, applications, deliveries view, mail queue, system log. What does not: reliable outbound delivery to the public internet (no PTR, no real DNS for your domains, port 25 may be blocked on your network, HELO does not match anything receivers trust).

To exercise SMTP locally as well, generate a throwaway self-signed certificate and mount it before docker run:

mkdir -p /tmp/selfpost-certs
openssl req -x509 -newkey rsa:2048 \
  -keyout /tmp/selfpost-certs/privkey.pem \
  -out /tmp/selfpost-certs/fullchain.pem \
  -days 1 -nodes -subj '/CN=mail.local.test'

Add -v /tmp/selfpost-certs:/etc/postfix/tls:ro to the docker run command (and keep SELFPOST_HOSTNAME=mail.local.test so it matches the certificate CN). Clients must skip TLS verification — the cert is not from a public CA.

Environment variables

Copy deploy/.env.example to .env next to your docker-compose.yml. The table below lists every variable an operator is expected to set; defaults match the code exactly.

Variable	Purpose	Default	Set in
SELFPOST_HOSTNAME	Mail-server identity: Postfix HELO/EHLO, SASL realm, certificate CN/SAN, and the hostname the PTR check expects. Bare FQDN only — no scheme or port.	(required)	.env
SUBMISSION_ENABLE	When true, also listen on port 587 with STARTTLS (RFC 6409 submission) alongside the primary 465/smtps listener.	false	.env
RATE_LIMIT_MESSAGES_PER_IP	Level-1 backstop: maximum messages one client IP may submit per window (Postfix smtpd_client_message_rate_limit). See Rate limiting.	100	.env
RATE_LIMIT_WINDOW_SECONDS	Level-1 window length in seconds (Postfix anvil_rate_time_unit).	3600	.env
SEND_LOG_RETENTION_DAYS	Days of send-log history kept before the background sweep deletes rows — the main driver of /data growth over time.	90	.env
PANEL_SESSION_IDLE_DAYS	Sliding idle timeout for the panel login session, in days. There is no absolute cap: an admin who keeps coming back stays signed in indefinitely.	7	.env
SELFPOST_DNS_RESOLVERS	Comma-separated recursive resolvers the panel's PTR/SPF/DKIM/DMARC checks query directly (so they report what the internet sees, not what this host's stub resolver synthesises).	1.1.1.1:53, 8.8.8.8:53, 9.9.9.9:53 when unset	.env
TRUSTED_PROXY_CIDR	Comma-separated CIDRs (bare IPs allowed) of reverse proxies allowed to supply X-Forwarded-For for login, setup, and account-change rate-limiting. Leave unset unless you know the exact address of your reverse proxy. A wrong value lets a client spoof its rate-limit key by sending a forged X-Forwarded-For header — the panel trusts the last hop only when the TCP peer matches one of these CIDRs. Behind the default Apache host-network setup this is typically the Docker bridge gateway, e.g. 172.18.0.1.	(empty — XFF ignored)	.env

TLS certificate paths (TLS_CERT_FILE, TLS_KEY_FILE) are fixed in deploy/docker-compose.yml to match the ./certs bind mount — configure the mount, not these variables.

Internal variables (not part of the operator interface). The following are read by the panel or startup scripts but are not meant to be changed in a normal deployment; documenting them here avoids treating accidental overrides as supported configuration:

• Panel paths and tuning: SELFPOST_DATA_DIR (/data), SELFPOST_DB_PATH (/data/selfpost.db), SELFPOST_SETUP_TOKEN_FILE (/data/setup-token), PANEL_HTTP_ADDR (:8080), JOURNAL_MILTER_SOCKET (/run/selfpost/journal.sock), MAIL_LOG (/data/log/mail.log — read by the panel and written by Postfix, so a change here has to be matched in build/postfix-config.sh), PANEL_COOKIE_SECURE (true), OPENDKIM_SOCKET (/run/opendkim/opendkim.sock), OPENDKIM_DIR (/data/opendkim), DKIM_SELECTOR_DEFAULT (selfpost), SASL_DB_PATH (/data/sasl/sasldb2), SASL_REALM (defaults to SELFPOST_HOSTNAME), POSTFIX_DIR (/data/postfix), POSTFIX_SENDER_LOGIN_MAPS (/data/postfix/sender_login_maps — read by Postfix config only; the panel always writes <POSTFIX_DIR>/sender_login_maps, so overriding this env alone desyncs the map Postfix reads from the file the panel maintains).
• Milter and Postfix startup: MILTER_CONNECT_TIMEOUT (15s), MILTER_COMMAND_TIMEOUT (15s), MILTER_CONTENT_TIMEOUT (30s), MILTER_WAIT_TIMEOUT (30 seconds).
• Background maintenance: TLS_RELOAD_INTERVAL_SECONDS (86400 — daily postfix reload to pick up renewed certificates), LOGROTATE_INTERVAL_SECONDS (21600 — check mail.log rotation every six hours; logrotate keeps 14 rotated files on a daily schedule, and each rotation triggers postfix reload).

DNS setup

Two different scopes — don't confuse them:

Server level (once, for the machine itself):

• PTR/rDNS for the server's IP, pointing at its mail hostname. Most receiving mail servers weigh this heavily; get it from whoever assigns the IP (hosting provider's panel/support), not from your own DNS zone.

Domain level (for every sending domain you add in the panel):

• SPF — a TXT record on the domain authorizing this server to send on its behalf (e.g. v=spf1 a mx ip4:<server IP> -all, adjusted to your setup).
• DKIM — a TXT record with the exact value the panel shows on that domain's page (domain page → DKIM TXT record), one selector per domain.
• DMARC — a _dmarc TXT record. The panel suggests p=none (monitoring only, safe to publish immediately). On a send-only relay the sending domain often has no inbox, so rua= is optional — configure a default report address in Settings or per domain when you have a mailbox that receives inbound mail elsewhere. If rua= points at another domain, publish _report._dmarc on that hub domain too; the panel checks it. Public mail hosts (Gmail, Outlook, …) cannot be used as external report destinations.

Skipping any of the three per-domain records is the single most common reason mail lands in spam even though SelfPost delivered it correctly — DKIM passing doesn't help if SPF/DMARC are absent. Whenever you add a new domain in the panel, add its DNS records at the same time, not later.

The panel checks both scopes for you and tells you what is actually published: the Status page verifies the server's hostname and its reverse record (forward-confirmed reverse DNS), and each domain's page shows a DNS status card comparing the published DKIM record against the key this server signs with, plus the domain's SPF, DMARC, and (when configured) DMARC report-authorisation records. Results are cached for a few minutes; use Re-check right after publishing a record. The SPF check is deliberately shallow — it looks for a mechanism that literally covers this server's address and does not follow include: or redirect=, so a record that authorizes the server through an include is reported as "cannot tell" rather than as a failure.

IP warmup

A brand-new IP has no sending history, so receiving servers are cautious with it regardless of how correct your DKIM/SPF/DMARC are. Start with low volume to a domain, increase gradually over days/weeks rather than sending everything on day one, and check the IP against major blocklists (Spamhaus and similar) before and during warmup. This is inherent to how mail reputation works on the public internet, not something SelfPost's configuration can shortcut.

Operations

After sign-in the panel opens on Status — the place to answer "is the service healthy and will mail be accepted?"

• Status (/status) — supervised processes (Postfix, OpenDKIM, panel), TLS certificate validity and expiry, milter socket presence, and a short Postfix queue summary. The Machine card adds the resource usage of the host underneath — processor (core and thread counts), memory and swap, and per-interface network throughput and totals — read from the kernel's counters; CPU and throughput are measured between refreshes, so they appear one refresh after the page opens. A fully busy processor or a machine out of memory is a warning here, because both delay or kill the mail path; throughput is only reported. The hostname block compares SELFPOST_HOSTNAME against the PTR record the internet publishes for this server's IP (forward-confirmed reverse DNS); use Re-check after changing DNS. The Reload configuration button re-applies OpenDKIM tables and the Postfix sender map from the database — use it if daemons drifted from what the panel shows after manual edits under /data.
• Domains (/domains) — add sending domains, inspect each domain's DKIM TXT value, SPF/DMARC checks, and SASL applications. Per-domain rate limits (level 2) and trusted-IP application overrides are configured here. Export domain writes a single-domain archive; Import a domain on the Backup page reads one back in.
• Deliveries (/deliveries) — searchable send log with server-side filters by domain and application. A row identifies its message and nothing more — time, sender, recipient, subject and status queued (accepted, not yet delivered), sent (handed off successfully), deferred (Postfix is retrying), bounced (final failure), or rejected (refused — for example by a level-2 rate limit); Details opens that row's own page (/deliveries/{id}). That page carries the sending domain, the application it was submitted under, the Postfix queue id and the journal id, beside the message's history — when it was accepted and what Postfix later reported for the recipient — and, under both, the mail.log lines for its queue id: the connection to the receiving server, the server's reply, and the status that reply was filed as. Rows outlive mail.log, so an older message's lines may have rotated away; the page says so. Retention is controlled by SEND_LOG_RETENTION_DAYS.
• Mail queue (/mail-queue) — live view of messages Postfix is still trying to deliver or deferring.
• System log (/system-log) — tail of /data/log/mail.log (Postfix and related daemon lines). The log rotates daily (14 files kept) with a postfix reload after each rotation; a background loop checks every six hours. It lives in the data volume, so it survives a container recreate along with the rest of the state — ./data/log/ on the host — but it is not included in backups: it is diagnostics, not state.
• Backup (/backup) — download a full-server backup; the same page hosts the domain-import form (POST /domains/import). See Backup, restore, and moving a single domain.
• Settings (/settings) — change the administrator username and/or password. Application SASL logins are separate and are not changed here.

Sessions. A login survives a container restart: sessions live in SQLite, not in memory. Expiry is a sliding idle window (PANEL_SESSION_IDLE_DAYS, default seven days) with no absolute lifetime cap — an admin who keeps using the panel stays signed in indefinitely. HTMX polling on the monitoring screens (Deliveries, Mail queue, System log, and the Status health fragment) does not count as activity, so an auto-refreshing tab left open will not keep a session alive forever. Changing the password signs out every other session but leaves the current browser signed in.

Upgrading. Bump the pinned image tag in docker-compose.yml to the target release, then docker compose up -d. The backup version check requires the running image to match the version that created a full backup — see Fixed image tag.

Container health. The image declares a Docker HEALTHCHECK that probes GET /healthz on port 8080 (unauthenticated). It returns 200 ok when OpenDKIM, the panel, and Postfix are all RUNNING under supervisord; otherwise 503 unhealthy. This catches a dead mail path that would still leave the HTTP server up, but it does not verify TLS certificates, DNS records, or end-to-end delivery — use the authenticated Status page for that. External monitoring can use the same endpoint through the reverse proxy if you expose it, or poll docker inspect health state on the host.

First-time setup link. On first start the one-time setup URL is printed in the container log (docker compose logs -f) and written to /data/setup-token inside the container — ./data/setup-token on the host, mode 0600 — then deleted when setup completes. The link is https://<SELFPOST_HOSTNAME>/setup/<token> (path token, not a query string), valid for ten minutes. If this host ships container logs to a central aggregator, prefer reading the file:

docker compose exec selfpost cat /data/setup-token

Rate limiting

SelfPost applies two independent layers; both can refuse a submission, but only level 2 writes a rejected row in the send log. Level-2 ceilings set in the panel cannot exceed level 1 (the panel shows the level-1 values and rejects higher numbers).

Level 1 (IP backstop) — always on, configured via .env:

• RATE_LIMIT_MESSAGES_PER_IP → Postfix smtpd_client_message_rate_limit
• RATE_LIMIT_WINDOW_SECONDS → Postfix anvil_rate_time_unit

This is an anvil limit per connecting client IP. It keeps working even if the journal-milter (level 2) is down. There is no per-IP bypass.

Level 2 — domain — optional, on each domain's page. A message ceiling and window for every client IP sending as that domain. When unset, only level 1 applies for non-privileged senders.

Level 2 — application (trusted IPs) — optional override on an application: list one or more client IPs and a ceiling strictly above the domain limit (still ≤ level 1). Connections from those IPs use the application ceiling and skip the domain check. Other IPs stay under the domain limit (or level 1 alone). An application override without trusted IPs is inactive.

When a level-2 ceiling is exceeded, Postfix returns a 4xx and the refusal is recorded in Deliveries as rejected.

Backup, restore, and moving a single domain

Two related but distinct operations (architecture.md § Persistence):

• Full backup (whole /data except log/: SQLite, all domains' DKIM keys, all applications' SASL credentials, manifest.json with the version that created it): panel button (Backup → Full backup), or from the host:

  docker exec <container> selfpost-backup > selfpost-backup.tar.gz
  

  Restore means unpacking that archive into a fresh /data bind mount and starting a container of the exact same image version that created it — SelfPost refuses to start otherwise and tells you which tag to use. On the first successful start after restore, manifest.json from the archive is deleted — it guards only that one boot, so a later in-place upgrade is not blocked. This is why the compose file pins a fixed tag rather than :latest: without a known version, there'd be no way to tell which image restoring a given backup actually requires.

  Alternative: archive ./data while stopped. If the service can be taken offline, docker compose down then tar czf selfpost-data.tar.gz ./data on the host is safe — nothing is writing to SQLite. Unlike the panel/CLI backup this sweeps in ./data/log/ too, which is Postfix's raw log and usually the bulk of the archive; add --exclude=./data/log if you only want the state. Do not tar ./data while the container is running: the database uses WAL mode and a naive copy can capture an inconsistent snapshot. The panel/CLI backup remains preferable when you cannot afford downtime because it takes a consistent SQLite snapshot via the Backup API on a live container.

• Export/import a single domain (domain page → Export domain to write the file, Backup → Import a domain to read it back in): moves one domain — its DKIM key and its applications' working SASL passwords — to a different SelfPost instance without regenerating anything, so DNS (the DKIM TXT record) doesn't need to change. Unlike a full restore, this works across different hostnames/instances.

Both files are secrets — they contain the admin password hash (full backup) or working application credentials (domain export) in the clear or in directly reversible form. Treat them like any other credential material: restrict who can read them, don't email them around — and encrypt them, which SelfPost can do for you.

Encrypting a backup or export

Both download forms carry an Encrypt with a password checkbox. Ticked, the file that comes down is an encrypted envelope instead of the plain archive:

Artefact	Plain	Encrypted
Full backup	.tar.gz	.spbk (SelfPost backup)
Domain export	.json	.spde (SelfPost domain export)

The suffixes are for the operator only — the server detects an encrypted file by its magic bytes (SELFPOST1), not by the extension.

The key is derived from the password with scrypt and the contents are sealed with AES-256-GCM, in chunks, so a truncated or altered file fails to open rather than restoring quietly. SelfPost does not store the password — lose it and the file is unrecoverable, which is the entire point.

Import a domain takes an encrypted export directly: choose a .spde file and the password field appears (driven by the file extension in the browser; the server also detects the envelope by its magic bytes). A plain .json export needs no password.

A full backup has to be turned back into a plain archive before it can be unpacked into /data, which the CLI does with the same password:

docker exec -i <container> selfpost-backup -decrypt < backup.spbk > backup.tar.gz

The CLI also writes encrypted backups for scripted/cron use. The password comes from SELFPOST_BACKUP_PASSWORD or -password-file <path> (first line), never from a command-line argument, which would be visible in the process list:

docker exec -e SELFPOST_BACKUP_PASSWORD="$PW" <container> selfpost-backup > backup.spbk

With no password set, the CLI keeps writing the plain .tar.gz it always has.

Published ports

deploy/docker-compose.yml maps 465 and 587 to the host. Port 465 (smtps) is always active. Port 587 is published even when SUBMISSION_ENABLE=false; nothing listens until you set it to true — harmless, but it can look like an open port in external scans.

Fixed image tag

deploy/docker-compose.yml pins an explicit version (ghcr.io/mixeme/selfpost:X.Y.Z), deliberately never :latest. The current pin is 1.2.4. Intermediate CHANGELOG sections (0.2.0…0.6.0) record development cuts from before that image was published. Pinning matters because of the backup version check above: the panel binary's embedded version and the image tag that produced it are the same value by construction (the release CI stamps both from one git tag — see .github/workflows/release.yml), so the pin is what makes "restore into the same version" a checkable fact rather than a guess. Upgrade by bumping the tag deliberately, not by riding a moving target.