Inbox

Features

• Complete Mail Server: MTA, MDA, MSA etc.
• Calendar Sync via CalDav
• Contacts Sync via CardDav
• Transactional Email API via GraphQL

Architecture

• HTTP Server (GraphQL API + WebDav / CalDav / CardDav etc.)
• SMTP Server (25) - Mail Transfer (Incoming)
• SMTP Server (587) - Mail Submission (Outgoing)
• IMAP Server

SMTP Configuration

The server now loads SMTP and mail-auth configuration from environment variables:

SERVER_HOSTNAME=mail.example.com
SERVER_BIND_ADDR=0.0.0.0

SMTP_TRANSFER_PORT=25
SMTP_SUBMISSION_PORT=587

SMTP_OUTBOUND_PORT=25
SMTP_OUTBOUND_REQUIRE_STARTTLS=false
SMTP_OUTBOUND_ALLOW_INVALID_CERTS=false
SMTP_OUTBOUND_ALLOW_PLAINTEXT_FALLBACK=true
SMTP_OUTBOUND_TLS_MODE=required
SMTP_OUTBOUND_DANE_MODE=prefer
SMTP_OUTBOUND_DNSSEC_VALIDATE=true
SMTP_OUTBOUND_MTA_STS_ENFORCE=true
SMTP_TLS_REPORT_DIR=data/tlsrpt
SMTP_OUTBOUND_TIMEOUT_SECS=30
SMTP_OUTBOUND_QUEUE_ENABLED=true
SMTP_OUTBOUND_QUEUE_POLL_INTERVAL_SECS=2
SMTP_OUTBOUND_QUEUE_CLEANUP_INTERVAL_SECS=300
SMTP_OUTBOUND_QUEUE_BATCH_SIZE=100
SMTP_OUTBOUND_QUEUE_LEASE_SECS=120
SMTP_OUTBOUND_RETRY_BASE_DELAY_SECS=30
SMTP_OUTBOUND_RETRY_MAX_DELAY_SECS=3600
SMTP_OUTBOUND_MAX_ATTEMPTS=10
SMTP_OUTBOUND_TTL_SECS=86400
SMTP_OUTBOUND_DEAD_JOB_RETENTION_SECS=604800
SMTP_OUTBOUND_DELIVERY_RETENTION_SECS=2592000

SMTP_INBOUND_MAX_RCPT_TO=100
SMTP_MAX_MESSAGE_BYTES=26214400
SMTP_RATE_LIMIT_ENABLED=true
SMTP_RATE_LIMIT_WINDOW_SECS=60
SMTP_RATE_LIMIT_TRANSFER_CONNECTIONS_PER_WINDOW=240
SMTP_RATE_LIMIT_SUBMISSION_CONNECTIONS_PER_WINDOW=120
SMTP_RATE_LIMIT_TRANSFER_MESSAGES_PER_WINDOW=240
SMTP_RATE_LIMIT_SUBMISSION_MESSAGES_PER_WINDOW=120
SMTP_RATE_LIMIT_FAIL_OPEN_ON_DB_ERROR=true

SMTP_REQUIRE_SPF_PASS=true
SMTP_REQUIRE_DKIM_PASS=false
SMTP_REQUIRE_DMARC_PASS=false
SMTP_AUTH_ALLOW_HEADER_OVERRIDE=false

# Optional DKIM signing for outbound submission (PKCS8 RSA private key in base64)
SMTP_DKIM_DOMAIN=example.com
SMTP_DKIM_SELECTOR=mail
SMTP_DKIM_PRIVATE_KEY_B64_PKCS8=
SMTP_DKIM_HEADERS=From,To,Subject,Date

# Optional S3-compatible object storage (Cloudflare R2 via S3 API)
S3_ENDPOINT=https://<accountid>.r2.cloudflarestorage.com
S3_REGION=auto
S3_BUCKET=inbox-mail
S3_ACCESS_KEY_ID=
S3_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=
S3_FORCE_PATH_STYLE=false

# Optional parsed body-part blob uploads for Standard tenants
INBOX_STORE_PARSED_PARTS=false

OTEL_ENABLED=false
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT=http://localhost:4318/v1/traces
OTEL_SERVICE_NAME=inbox
OTEL_SAMPLE_RATIO=1.0
OTEL_CONSOLE_LOGS=true

SMTP Behavior

• Port 25 (transfer): accepts incoming SMTP mail, verifies SPF/DKIM/DMARC, applies policy from SMTP_REQUIRE_*, and stores accepted RFC822 messages in S3-compatible storage when S3_* vars are set.
• Object key layout:
  • raw source (encrypted): msg/{org}/{mailbox}/{message_id}.eml
  • attachments (encrypted): att/{org}/{mailbox}/{message_id}/{part_id}
  • optional parsed body parts (encrypted): part/{org}/{mailbox}/{message_id}/{mime_path}
• Without S3_* config, inbox stores the same key hierarchy under local INBOX_INCOMING_DIR (default data/incoming).
• Port 587 (submission): accepts SMTP submissions and queues outbound jobs in DB (outbound_queue), then worker delivery claims jobs with DB leases (queued -> processing) for distributed-safe execution across instances.
• Outbound hard limits (fixed, non-configurable): message size 25 MB (full RFC822 payload) and attachment payload 18 MB per part.
• Queue leasing controls:
  • SMTP_OUTBOUND_QUEUE_BATCH_SIZE
  • SMTP_OUTBOUND_QUEUE_LEASE_SECS
• Queue retries and expiry:
  • exponential backoff (SMTP_OUTBOUND_RETRY_*)
  • max attempts (SMTP_OUTBOUND_MAX_ATTEMPTS)
  • TTL (SMTP_OUTBOUND_TTL_SECS)
• Queue cleanup controls:
  • SMTP_OUTBOUND_QUEUE_CLEANUP_INTERVAL_SECS
  • SMTP_OUTBOUND_DEAD_JOB_RETENTION_SECS
  • SMTP_OUTBOUND_DELIVERY_RETENTION_SECS
• SMTP rate limiting is configurable by env (SMTP_RATE_LIMIT_*) and enforced per source IP for connection and message acceptance using DB-backed window buckets (distributed-safe across instances).
• Multi-tenant: per-domain DKIM and auth policy are resolved from SurrealDB table has_domain (IN organization, OUT domain) with optional override fields on the edge.
• Tenant encryption options on has_domain:
  • enc_mode: standard or e2ee
  • enc_sse_c_key_b64: SSE-C key used for S3 PutObject in standard
  • enc_wrapped_dek_customer: customer-wrapped key metadata for e2ee
  • outbound_dnssec_validate: optional per-domain override for DNSSEC-validated TLSA lookup (true/false)
  • quota controls (optional): quota_max_recipients_per_message, quota_hourly_send_limit, quota_daily_send_limit, quota_max_queued_jobs
• Search indexing stays metadata-only in e2ee mode (no server-side parsed body blobs).
• Full TLS posture defaults:
  • SMTP_OUTBOUND_TLS_MODE=required enforces TLS delivery only (no plaintext fallback)
  • SMTP_OUTBOUND_DANE_MODE=prefer discovers TLSA records and prioritizes DANE-protected MX hosts (require enforces TLSA presence)
  • SMTP_OUTBOUND_DNSSEC_VALIDATE=true requires DNSSEC-validated TLSA lookup chain for DANE trust (can be overridden by has_domain.outbound_dnssec_validate)
  • DANE hosts are cryptographically verified against TLSA records (usage/selector/matching) before SMTP DATA
  • SMTP_OUTBOUND_MTA_STS_ENFORCE=true forces TLS when _mta-sts.<domain> TXT advertises v=STSv1
  • TLS failures are appended as JSONL reports in SMTP_TLS_REPORT_DIR
• OpenTelemetry tracing export can be enabled with OTEL_ENABLED=true and sent to OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT.
• Delivery failures that expire or exceed attempts are marked dead in outbound_queue; DSN .eml artifacts are written under data/bounces/.
  • outbound delivery skips suppressed recipients via suppression table (scope=address|domain)
  • queue worker applies suppression upserts using deterministic bounce classification (address/domain policy)
  • queue worker emits structured tracing events for deliver/retry/dead-letter outcomes

GraphQL Send API

send_email now performs real SMTP delivery:

mutation Send {
  sendEmail(
    from: "sender@example.com"
    to: ["user@example.net"]
    subject: "Hello"
    textBody: "Hi from Inbox"
    htmlBody: "<p>Hi from Inbox</p>"
    idempotencyKey: "send-2026-02-10-001"
  )
}