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Install it · 1 of 8

Quick start

inbuxa on one machine with the installer: the mail server, the console and the webmail, with certificates and a first mailbox, in about half an hour.

Who needs this: Anyone starting from nothing on one machine: a home lab, a family, a small office. Moving from another mail server? Start at Coming from Stalwart or Coming from another server instead.

3 min read

On this page

One machine is a supported setup, not a lesser one. It fits up to a few hundred people, and it can grow into more later without starting again.

This page uses the installer, which does every step on the by-hand pages in one run. It shows you the whole plan, every file, port, DNS record and credential, before it changes anything.

What you need

  • A Linux machine, amd64 or arm64, with a public address. 2 cores, 4 GB of memory and an SSD with room for the mail, plus a quarter (sizing). Docker is optional: the installer offers to add it.
  • A provider that lets it send on port 25. Many cheap hosts and most home connections block it. Ask before you start. A server at home can still receive and send through inbuxa Relay on a small cloud machine.
  • A domain whose DNS you can change. The examples use example.com.
  • Ports 25, 465, 993, 80 and 443 reachable from the internet.

1. Point the names at the machine

Make three DNS records, each pointing at the machine's address: mail, admin and webmail under your domain. An A record for IPv4, and an AAAA record too if the machine has IPv6.

They don't have to resolve before you install, but certificates can't be issued until they do. Doing this first means they are ready when the installer needs them.

2. Get the installer

Download it and check it against the release's checksums:

V=v2026.11.6 # the newest is at git.coffeylabs.org/inbuxa/inbuxa-installer/releases
curl -fLO https://git.coffeylabs.org/inbuxa/inbuxa-installer/releases/download/$V/inbuxa-linux-amd64
curl -fLO https://git.coffeylabs.org/inbuxa/inbuxa-installer/releases/download/$V/SHA256SUMS
sha256sum --check --ignore-missing SHA256SUMS
sudo install -m 755 inbuxa-linux-amd64 /usr/local/bin/inbuxa

On an ARM machine, use inbuxa-linux-arm64 in both places.

3. Look at the plan, then install

sudo inbuxa install --domain example.com --install-deps --dry-run

That prints everything it would do and stops. Read it. When it looks right, run the same command with --yes in place of --dry-run:

sudo inbuxa install --domain example.com --install-deps --yes

It brings up the mail server, completes its first boot, starts the console and the webmail with Caddy in front for certificates, and creates the first mailbox. Running sudo inbuxa on its own does the same through a full-screen interface, if you'd rather click through it.

It ends by writing two files in /var/lib/inbuxa:

  • credentials.txt: the administrator's and the first mailbox's sign-ins. Only root can read it. Keep it, and put a copy in your password manager: nothing else holds the administrator's password.
  • dns.zone: the records your domain needs for mail, DKIM included.

4. Publish the DNS records

Copy the records from dns.zone into your DNS host. Mail sent to your domain goes nowhere until the MX record is there, and mail you send is likely to land in spam until the SPF, DKIM and DMARC records are. Most of them can then be kept up to date by the server itself.

Set the machine's reverse DNS, its PTR record, to mail.example.com too. That one is set with your hosting provider, not your DNS host.

5. Check it works

  • Sign in to the console at https://admin.example.com with the administrator from credentials.txt.
  • Sign in to the webmail at https://webmail.example.com with the first mailbox.
  • Send a message to an address at another provider, and reply to it. If it arrives in spam, check the records from step 4 with that provider's "show original" view: SPF, DKIM and DMARC should each say pass.

sudo inbuxa status shows what is installed and whether it is running as installed.

Next

You have a working mail server. These are the things worth doing in the first week, in this order:

  1. Add the people who will use it, in the console under Directory › Accounts.
  2. Set up phones and mail apps. The webmail installs on a phone's home screen (On a phone). A mail app signs in with an app password of its own.
  3. Make a backup you have tested: Backups and undelete.
  4. Know how to update. A newer installer brings newer releases, and sudo inbuxa upgrade archives the data first: Updating.

Everything else can wait until you need it. The Run it pages cover running a server day to day. Extend it and For organizations are for later, or never: a household needs none of them.