[Freedombox-discuss] Hosting emails at home

Joseph Nuthalapati njoseph at thoughtworks.com
Sun Jun 3 15:10:35 BST 2018


André,

Thanks for sharing this. I'm really excited to find a project that
installs and configures email servers purely through Debian packages.
This compatible with the FreedomBox way of doing things.

FreedomBox installation scripts are plain Python scripts for now. I have
recently used Ansible for a FreedomBox project called
cloud-image-builder which creates EC2 images (called AMIs) of FreedomBox
for the AWS cloud. I can see some benefits in using Ansible over writing
our own scripts. Well, the FreedomBox project was started before Ansible
became mainstream. I personally think that directly integrating Ansible
playbooks into the Django project is not a bad idea though this needs
discussion with the other team members. We might invoke Ansible
playbooks from actions scripts in Plinth. If we take that route, these
playbooks can be directly integrated into the FreedomBox project.

We did implement a rudimentary Single Sign On mechanism for some of our
applications using the Apache module called mod_auth_pubtkt. It had its
limitations. We are now considering implementing a SAML2 based SSO.

We recently put a lot of effort into improving our build system for
Single Board Computers. It's called freedom-maker. It's also used by
some other projects like Freedombone to build images for SBCs. It's
written in Python3. Please feel free to use it and contribute improvements.

We did have both email and SSO planned for 2018. Hope FreedomBox will
evolve soon enough to satisfy your requirements so that you don't have
to maintain a different project. We look forward to more collaboration
with you.


On Sunday 03 June 2018 01:10 PM, André Rodier wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>
> A few months ago, I had a look on the freedombox project, and while it
> was promising, the main features I wanted were not implemented.
> Basically, I needed emails and single sign-on, plus some emphasis on
> strong security and privacy. I did not need all the software and
> servers in the list. None of the project I have seen online where
> providing exactly what I wanted.
>
> I have been self-hosted for years, but after a migration from a
> dedicated server online to a low power consumption mini server at
> home, I wanted to create some scripts to do it properly. I started a
> project on Github, you will find a link below.
>
> I think I have achieved this. The way I did it is very transparent, so
> you can see what I have done. Everything is done through Ansible
> scripts. I may extract a few parts in different repositories.
>
> I am sending this email for many valid reasons, IMHO:
>
> - I see email and SSO are on your roadmap, and I reckon it is
> something long to achieve, if done properly. What I have done might be
> useful to you.
> - I will focus more on open source hardware boards and fully automatic
> installation of the whold system (OS and Software). I reckon this will
> overlap with FreedomBox.
>
> The link to the project: https://github.com/progmaticltd/homebox
>
> I am registered in UK, as a company, and this will allow me pay some
> people to do a few things I do not have the time or skills to do
> myself. Anything developed will be published in GPLv3 or any
> appropriate open source license, and submitted to Debian.
>
> Have a look on the official documentation, and list of features.
>
> Kind regards,
> André Rodier.
>
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> Freedombox-discuss mailing list
> Freedombox-discuss at alioth-lists.debian.net
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-- 
Regards
Joseph Nuthalapati


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