jcoffey-dev
a90df656e7
One file describes the whole installation: which machine runs what, under which names. Each machine acts on its own part of it and prints the command to run on the others, which nobody but their operator runs. Emit, never execute -- no agent, no console-held credential, no machine reaching another. inbuxa plan -f topology.json what would change here; changes nothing inbuxa apply -f topology.json make this machine match it inbuxa export the file, from what is already here plan diffs the file against what is installed rather than against what happens to be running: a container stopped by hand is still installed, and offering to install it again would be a lie about what is about to happen. The state that makes that possible -- intent, which the machine itself cannot tell you -- is /etc/inbuxa/install.json. Front ends across machines, not a clustered mail server. Two machines each running one is refused, and the refusal says why: a second node needs a shared store and cluster configuration, which this does not set up. Two of the same component on one machine is refused too -- two webmails need two ports and two names, and the file says neither. The shrink is the half worth proving, and it found the bug that mattered: apply ran first boot every time, so the second one asked a configured server for bootstrap credentials it had stopped accepting, and adding or removing a front end could not work at all. An installed machine now converges instead: the deployment is rewritten from the shapes asked for, --remove-orphans takes away what the file no longer lists, data volumes are left alone, and the secrets generated the first time are kept rather than rolled. Two more found the same way: - Certificates were turned on even where nothing holds port 80. On a machine with no proxy the order can only fail, and it stopped the install over it. It now says whose job they are instead. - A converge that restarts the server reported "Done" while it was still coming back. It waits. Twenty-eight checks, on Debian 13 and Fedora 43: install from a file, plan the same file and be told there is nothing to do, remove the webmail and watch it go while the mail stays, put it back.
inbuxa-installer
One program that installs the inbuxa suite on the machine you run it on: the mail server, the administration console and the webmail, each as a container or on the host, in any mixture.
inbuxa survey what this machine is, as the installer sees it
inbuxa install --dry-run … what would happen, before any of it does
inbuxa install … do it
It only ever installs here. A second machine runs it too, and inbuxa join
points that machine at a server already running elsewhere.
Linux only, and it says so on any other system rather than reporting a machine that does not exist. Debian, Red Hat and Arch families, and the derivatives people run: Ubuntu, Fedora, Rocky, CentOS, CachyOS. It uses whichever container runtime the distribution ships -- docker where there is one, podman on the Red Hat family -- and refuses a shape the machine cannot deliver, with the reason.
What works today
This is early. What is built:
-
survey-- the machine's facts: distribution, init, whether Docker is usable by this user, Node's version, which of the suite's ports are free and what holds the ones that are not, memory, disk, and whether an install is already recorded here. It changes nothing. -
install --dry-run-- the whole plan: every file, unit, container, port, DNS record and credential, and a refusal with a reason when the machine cannot carry out what was asked. -
deps-- what a shape needs that this machine has not got, and, with--install, the doing of it: the Docker daemon from the distribution's own archive, the Compose plugin and Node from their official builds, both pinned by version and checked against a checksum in the source before anything is put in place.install --install-depsdoes the same as part of a run. A missing dependency is an offer, not a refusal. -
install --yes-- carries the plan out, for container shapes: writes the deployment, fetches the images, brings the mail server up in bootstrap mode with a credential that exists only for that step, completes bootstrap, brings the rest up without it, exempts the front ends from the auto-ban, creates the first mailbox, writescredentials.txtanddns.zone, and then checks that all three answer. -
plan -f/apply -f/export-- a whole installation described in one file, however many machines. Each machine acts on its own part and prints the command to run on the others; it never reaches them.plandiffs the file against what is actually installed here and changes nothing;applyconverges to it, adding and removing components;exportwrites the file from what is already here.
Not built yet: host installs, the terminal interface, join, status,
upgrade, uninstall. The design is in the inbuxa specification (§6.1 and
the installer draft); the phases are there too.
inbuxa install --local --domain example.test --install-deps --yes
is the shortest thing that works today: the whole suite on loopback, with no
DNS and no certificates, on a machine that starts with nothing. Without
--local it takes the real ports, puts Caddy in front and obtains
certificates -- which e2e/cases/install-public.sh proves against a private
CA, with no internet and no public name involved.
Building and testing
go build ./cmd/inbuxa
The installer writes units, creates users and takes ports 25 and 443, so it is tested on a throwaway virtual machine rather than on anybody's desk:
e2e/vm/up.sh a Debian 13 machine, in qemu, as you
DISTRO=fedora e2e/vm/up.sh or fedora, rocky9, ubuntu2404, arch, debian12
e2e/vm/run.sh e2e/cases/survey.sh what it says about a machine
e2e/vm/run.sh e2e/cases/deps.sh the offer, and taking it
e2e/vm/run.sh e2e/cases/install-local.sh a whole suite, and signing in to it
e2e/vm/run.sh e2e/cases/install-public.sh the same with real ports and certificates
e2e/vm/run.sh e2e/cases/topology.sh growing and shrinking from a file
e2e/vm/down.sh remove it
Each case starts from a copy of the machine taken when it was new, so a run
is free to break it and a failure is the installer's rather than the last
run's leftovers. e2e/vm/up.sh needs qemu, KVM and xorriso; nothing needs
root on your machine.
License
AGPL-3.0-or-later. Some of this began as ihasmail-oneshot, which is ours and under the same license.