mailcow-dockerized 🐮 🐋

mailcow dockerized comes with 11 containers linked in a mailcow network: Dovecot, Memcached, Redis, MySQL, PowerDNS Recursor, PHP-FPM, Postfix, Nginx, Rmilter, Rspamd and SOGo.

4 volumes to keep dynamic data. Feel free to use a 3rd-party driver to host your mail directory (vmail) in the cloud or whatever else: vmail-vol-1, dkim-vol-1, redis-vol-1, mysql-vol-1

Important configuration files are mounted into the related containers from the host (./data/conf) and can be changed. Services should be restarted after they were changed (docker-compose restart x-mailcow).

All configurations were written with security in mind.

Containers and volumes

Type	Object name	Network names	External binding	Internal binding	Volumes
Container	postfix-mailcow	${MAILCOW_HOSTNAME}, postfix	25/tcp, 465/tcp, 587/tcp	588/tcp	./data/conf/postfix:/opt/postfix/conf, ./data/assets/ssl:/etc/ssl/mail/:ro
Container	dovecot-mailcow	${MAILCOW_HOSTNAME}, dovecot	110/tcp, 143/tcp, 993/tcp, 995/tcp, 4190/tcp	24/tcp, 10001/tcp	vmail-vol-1:/var/vmail, ./data/conf/dovecot:/etc/dovecot, ./data/assets/ssl:/etc/ssl/mail/:ro
Container	nginx-mailcow	nginx	443/tcp	80/tcp, 8081/tcp	Mounts from sogo-mailcow, ./data/web:/web:ro, ./data/conf/rspamd/dynmaps:/dynmaps:ro, ./data/assets/ssl/:/etc/ssl/mail/:ro, ./data/conf/nginx/:/etc/nginx/conf.d/:ro
Container	pdns-mailcow	pdns	-	53/udp	./data/conf/pdns/:/etc/powerdns/
Container	rspamd-mailcow	rspamd	-	11333/tcp, 11334/tcp	dkim-vol-1:/data/dkim, ./data/conf/rspamd/override.d/:/etc/rspamd/override.d:ro, ./data/conf/rspamd/local.d/:/etc/rspamd/local.d:ro, ./data/conf/rspamd/lua/:/etc/rspamd/lua/:ro
Container	mysql-mailcow	mysql	-	3306/tcp	mysql-vol-1:/var/lib/mysql/, ./data/conf/mysql/:/etc/mysql/conf.d/:ro
Container	rmilter-mailcow	rmilter	-	9000/tcp	./data/conf/rmilter/:/etc/rmilter.conf.d/:ro
Container	phpfpm-mailcow	phpfpm	-	9000/tcp	dkim-vol-1:/data/dkim, ./data/web:/web:ro, ./data/conf/rspamd/dynmaps:/dynmaps:ro
Container	sogo-mailcow	sogo	-	20000/tcp	./data/conf/sogo/:/etc/sogo/,exposes /usr/lib/GNUstep/SOGo/WebServerResources/
Container	redis-mailcow	redis	-	6379/tcp	redis-vol-1:/data/
Container	memcached-mailcow	memcached	-	11211/tcp	-
Volume	vmail-vol-1	-	-	-	Mounts to dovecot
Volume	dkim-vol-1	-	-	-	Mounts to rspamd + phpfpm
Volume	redis-vol-1	-	-	-	Mounts to redis
Volume	mysql-vol-1	-	-	-	Mounts to mysql

All containers share a network "mailcow-network" with the subnet 172.22.1.0/24 - if you want to change it, set it in the composer file. IPs are dynamic except for PowerDNS resolver which has a static ip address 172.22.1.254.

FAQ

• rspamd learns mail as spam or ham when you move a message in or out of the junk folder to any mailbox besides trash.
• rspamd auto-learns mail when a high or low score is detected (see https://rspamd.com/doc/configuration/statistic.html#autolearning)
• You can upgrade containers by running docker-compose pull && docker-compose up -d.

Installation

1. You need Docker and Docker Compose. Most systems can install Docker by running wget -qO- https://get.docker.com/ | sh - see this link for installing Docker Compose.

2. Clone this repository and configure mailcow.conf, do not use special chars in passwords in this file (will be fixed soon).

3. docker-compose up -d - leave the -d out for a wall of logs in case of debugging.

Done.

You can now access https://${MAILCOW_HOSTNAME} with the default credentials admin + password moohoo. The database will be initialized when you first visit the UI.

Configuration after installation

Rspamd UI access

If you want to use Rspamds web UI, you need to set a Rspamd controller password:

# Generate hash
docker-compose exec rspamd-mailcow rspamadm pw

Replace given hash in data/conf/rspamd/override.d/worker-controller.inc:

enable_password = "myhash";

Restart rspamd:

docker-compose restart rspamd-mailcow

Open https://${MAILCOW_HOSTNAME}/rspamd in a browser.

SSL (and: How to use Let's Encrypt)

mailcow dockerized comes with a snakeoil CA "mailcow" and a server certificate in data/assets/ssl. Please use your own trusted certificates.

Use Let's Encrypt

Get the certbot client:

wget https://dl.eff.org/certbot-auto -O /usr/local/sbin/certbot && chmod +x /usr/local/sbin/certbot

Please disable applications blocking port 80 and run certbot:

source mailcow.conf
certbot certonly \
	--standalone \
	--standalone-supported-challenges http-01 \
	-d ${MAILCOW_HOSTNAME} \
	--email you@example.org \
	--agree-tos

Create hard links to the full path of the new certificates. Assuming you are still in the mailcow root folder:

mv data/assets/ssl/cert.{pem,pem.backup}
mv data/assets/ssl/key.{pem,pem.backup}
ln $(readlink -f /etc/letsencrypt/live/${MAILCOW_HOSTNAME}/fullchain.pem) data/assets/ssl/cert.pem
ln $(readlink -f /etc/letsencrypt/live/${MAILCOW_HOSTNAME}/privkey.pem) data/assets/ssl/key.pem

Restart containers which use the certificate:

docker-compose restart postfix-mailcow
docker-compose restart dovecot-mailcow
docker-compose restart nginx-mailcow

When renewing certificates, run the last two steps (link + restart) as post-hook in certbot.

More useful commands and examples (todo: move to wiki soon)

Logs

You can use docker-compose logs $service-name for almost all containers. Only rmilter does not log to stdout. You can check rspamd logs for rmilter responses.

MySQL

Connect to MySQL database:

source mailcow.conf
docker-compose exec mysql-mailcow mysql -u${DBUSER} -p${DBPASS} ${DBNAME}

Reset mailcow admin to admin:moohoo:

source mailcow.conf
docker-compose exec mysql-mailcow mysql -u${DBUSER} -p${DBPASS} ${DBNAME} -e "DROP TABLE admin; DROP TABLE domain_admins"
# Open mailcow UI to auto-init the db

Backup database:

source mailcow.conf
# Create
DATE=$(date +"%Y%m%d_%H%M%S")
docker-compose exec mysql-mailcow mysqldump --default-character-set=utf8mb4 -u${DBUSER} -p${DBPASS} ${DBNAME} > backup_${DBNAME}_${DATE}.sql

Backup maildir (simple tar):

docker run --rm -it -v $(docker inspect --format '{{ range .Mounts }}{{ if eq .Destination "/var/vmail" }}{{ .Name }}{{ end }}{{ end }}' $(docker-compose ps -q dovecot-mailcow)):/vmail -v ${PWD}:/backup debian:jessie tar cvf /backup/backup_vmail.tar /vmail

Redis

Connect to redis key store:

docker-compose exec redis-mailcow redis-cli

Use rspamadm:

docker-compose exec rspamd-mailcow rspamadm --help

Use rspamc:

docker-compose exec rspamd-mailcow rspamc --help

Use doveadm:

docker-compose exec dovecot-mailcow doveadm

Remove persistent data

Remove volume mysql-vol-1 to get rid fo MySQL data. Do the same for volume redis-vol-1 to remove Redis data.

Scale it

You can scale services for mailcow:

docker-compose scale rspamd-mailcow=2
docker-compose scale rmilter-mailcow=3
# ...