DoveFetch a Self-Hosted Email Fetcher and IMAP/SMTP Server

This project provides a containerized email solution that fetches emails from an external email provider using POP3 and serves them locally through a Dovecot IMAP server. It’s designed to function as a full IMAP/SMTP server and local mail storage solution. The external email provider acts only as a temporary relay, while all emails are permanently stored and managed locally.

Features

• Fetches emails from a remote server via POP3.
• Monitors for new emails using IMAP IDLE.
• Stores emails in a local Maildir format.
• Serves emails locally using a Dovecot IMAP server.
• User and password management via an interactive shell.
• Encrypts user passwords in the database.
• Nginx reverse proxy for SMTP.
• Stunnel for SSL/TLS encryption.
• Multi-domain support.
• Webmail access via Roundcube.

Supported Email providers.

• Disroot
• Help me add your email provider by posting an issue or by giving a pr (oauth2 is not supported currently)

How it Works

The application runs in a container (e.g., Docker or Podman).

• On the first run, it generates a new encryption key and creates a SQLite database to store user information.
• For subsequent runs, it requires the encryption KEY to be provided as an environment variable to decrypt the stored credentials.
• Starts a background process (fetcher) that monitors remote email servers for each configured user. It primarily uses IMAP to detect mailbox changes in real time, with periodic polling as a fallback to ensure no messages are missed.
• It configures and runs a Dovecot IMAP server, allowing local email clients to connect and read the fetched emails.
• An interactive shell is provided in the container's terminal for managing user accounts.
• Nginx is used as a reverse proxy for SMTP, and it uses an authentication proxy to validate users.
• Stunnel is used to provide SSL/TLS encryption for the SMTP connection.

Getting Started

⚠️ It's best to use this in a container-network or in a trusted network

Prerequisites

• A container runtime like Docker or Podman.

First Run

1. Clone the repository and change directory:

   git clone git@github.com:JianZcar/DoveFetch.git
   cd DoveFetch

2. Build the main container:

   podman build -t dovefetch .

3. Create a directory to store mail data:

   mkdir mail

4. Run the container for the first time:

   podman run -it -v ./mail:/mail:Z -p 143:143 -p 993:993 -p 25:25 -p 465:465 --name dovefetch dovefetch

5. On the first run, a new encryption KEY will be generated and printed to the console. Save this key! You will need it for all future runs.

   Example output:

   key: your-newly-generated-key
   Created (or verified) DB at: /mail/sqlite.db
   ...
   

Subsequent Runs

To start the container again after the initial setup, you must provide the saved key as an environment variable.

podman run -it -v ./mail:/mail:Z -p 143:143 -p 993:993 -p 25:25 -p 465:465 -e KEY="your-saved-key" --name dovefetch dovefetch

User Management

Once the container is running, you will be dropped into an interactive shell (MailShell) to manage users. The userid and password should correspond to the credentials of the external email account you want to fetch mail from.

• Add a user:

  mail> add_user <userid> <password>
  

• List users:

  mail> list_users
  

• Delete a user:

  mail> delete_user <userid>
  

• Exit the shell:

  mail> exit
  

Webmail (Roundcube)

This project includes a separate Docker container for Roundcube webmail.

Building and Running Roundcube

1. Build the Roundcube container:

   podman build -t roundcube -f roundcube/Containerfile .

2. Run the Roundcube container:

   podman run -d -p 8080:80 --name roundcube roundcube

   This will start Roundcube on http://localhost:8080.

Running both DoveFetch and Roundcube

1. Create a network

   podman network create mailnet

2. Run DoveFetch (setting the ip 10.89.0.10 is required for secure connection to work between to container)

   podman run -dit --name dovefetch \
                  --network mailnet --ip 10.89.0.10 \
                  -v /path/to/Maildir:/mail:Z \
                  -e KEY=YOUR_KEY \
                  dovefetch

3. Run Roundcube

   podman run -d --name roundcube \
              --network mailnet \
              -p 8080:80 \
              -e ROUNDCUBEMAIL_DEFAULT_HOST=ssl://10.89.0.10 \
              -e ROUNDCUBEMAIL_DEFAULT_PORT=993 \
              -e ROUNDCUBEMAIL_SMTP_SERVER=ssl://10.89.0.10 \
              -e ROUNDCUBEMAIL_SMTP_PORT=465 \
              roundcube
   
   

Configuring Roundcube

1. Access Roundcube at http://localhost:8080.
2. On the login page, click on the gear icon to open the server settings.
3. Configure the IMAP and SMTP server settings as follows:
   • IMAP Server: host.containers.internal (or the IP address of the machine running the dovefetch container)
   • IMAP Port: 143
   • SMTP Server: host.containers.internal (or the IP address of the machine running the dovefetch container)
   • SMTP Port: 25
   • Username: The <userid> you added via the shell.
   • Password: The <password> you added for that user.

Connecting an Email Client

IMAP (Incoming Mail)

You can connect any standard email client (like Thunderbird, Outlook, or K-9 Mail) to the local Dovecot server.

• IMAP Server: localhost (or the IP address of the machine running the container)
• Port: 143 (No SSL/TLS) or 993 (SSL/TLS)
• Username: The <userid> you added via the shell.
• Password: The <password> you added for that user.

SMTP (Outgoing Mail)

• SMTP Server: localhost (or the IP address of the machine running the container)
• Port: 25 (No SSL/TLS) or 465 (SSL/TLS)
• Username: The <userid> you added via the shell.
• Password: The <password> you added for that user.

Planned Features

• Oauth2
• Thinking for more ^v^

Contribution

• Feel free to leave an issue or pr

⚠️ Use at your own risk, I'm not liable for any data loss.