PLEASE REMEMBER THIS IS INCOMPLETE SOFTWARE, AND MAY HAVE SECURITY ISSUES AND BUGS. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK.
At the end of the guide, you will have an email server that lets you send and receive emails from your own domain.
You will need a domain name, e.g. mfashby.net or
janedoe.com. I use Namecheap
, but other domain name providers are available.
If you want to follow this guide exactly, you will
need to create an account with Namecheap and log in.
You will need a server with a fixed IP address. For this guide I am going to use a server from Digital Ocean. Other providers are available. The software will run on most operating systems. If you want to follow this guide exactly, you will need to create an account with Digital Ocean and log in.
Log into Digital Ocean. Select New Project and fill the required fields.
Create a new droplet. I'm going to create one with the Ubuntu 16.04 operating system. Henrymail doesn't need much resource, so I'm going to use the cheapest price plan.
Once you have created your droplet, write down it's IP address. This should be visible on the Project page.
You will be emailed the username and password for accessing the droplet.
Click on ... > Access Console to log into the droplet, and enter the
username and password that were emailed to you. You will be prompted to
enter a new password. Don't forget it! Once you have entered the new
password, you'll be presented with a terminal like this in your browser:
You can then copy & paste the following command into the terminal and press enter to run it. This will download and install the software. You will be prompted for the domain you want to serve (e.g. mfashby.net)
The administrator username and password will be shown in the terminal. Note them down. Once the script has finished, the server will be running!
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/MFAshby/henrymail/master/install.sh \
&& chmod +x install.sh \
&& sudo ./install.shNext we need to configure the DNS for your server. Log into Namecheap
and navigate to Dashboard > Manage > Advanced DNS.
Add a new A record for host mail, and fill in the IP address of your digital
ocean droplet as the value (you wrote this down earlier). Click the tick to
save it.
Allow a minute or so for this record to get updated across the DNS system. You can check it's progress on whatsmydns.net
Open your web browser to access the administration interface, e.g. https://mail.mfashby.net/, and enter the username and password . Save the password to your password manager, or you can change the password to something more memorable here if you want.
We've almost got a working email server. Go back to Namecheap, and add
a Custom MX record with host set to @, and value set to your mail server's name (with a trailing dot!):
Finally, you can connect your email client. Here I am using Thunderbird
Add a new account, and enter the details as follows:
- Incoming server should be IMAP, with your mail server name e.g.
mail.mfashby.net - Outgoing server should be SMTP, with your mail server name e.g.
mail.mfashby.net - Press 're-test', and thunderbird should automatically pick up the
port numbers and SSL settings.
Press Done, and enter the admin password when prompted
You're done! Test your new configuration by sending an email to another address that you own (or a friend)
Keep reading for further improvements to your server
It's advisable to have Sender Policy Framework and DomainKeys Identified Mail records set up for your server. These help other servers to validate emails from your server, so your emails are less likely to be rejected. See this article for an explanation.
To set these up, log into the administration page, then click 'Health Checks'.
These text boxes show the entries you need to add to your DNS system in order for emails to be verified by other servers. Log into Namecheap and add the corresponding entries as TXT records:
Save these entries, and allow a couple of minutes for them to propagate through the DNS system. Reload the 'Health Checks' page, it should now display a message saying that your SPF and DKIM records are OK
Henrymail is compatible with some more advanced setups, e.g. if you are running a web server on the same server.
The complete list of configuration options is documented in henrymail.full.prop
You can download & run the upgrade script with the following command, similar to the install script.
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/MFAshby/henrymail/master/upgrade.sh \
&& chmod +x upgrade.sh \
&& sudo ./upgrade.sh- Administration page guide to adding users.
- Ongoing administration (quotas, spam settings)