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README.md

Pony Mail Foal - Backend UI Server

This is the (as of yet incomplete) backend server for the Foal UI.

Progress

What works

  • The "phone book" (front page)
  • Browsing threads on a list
  • Viewing single threads, emails and sources
  • Searching with keywords, quotes, +/- inclusion/exclusion
  • Rudimentary AAA (logged in with an authoritative OAuth gives read access to everyting)
  • Persistent user sessions across restarts of the server
  • OAuth logins (Google, Github + Generic for now)
  • Composing replies
  • Mbox downloads

What doesn't work

  • Preferences
  • Notifications/favorites

While rudimentary AAA works, the backend should not yet be used for private email archives unless restricted behind some form of external/parent authentication mechanism.

How to run:

See the Installation documentation for instructions on how to install Foal.

Once followed, this should fire up a backend server on 127.0.0.1:8080. You can then proxy to that using a web server of your choice. The /api/ URL of your online archive should be passed straight to the backend, while the rest should be served from the webui/ directory in this repository.

An example Apache HTTPd configuration could be (for plain-text HTTP):

<VirtualHost *:80>
    ServerName archives.example.com        
    ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
    DocumentRoot /var/www/foal/webui/
    # PathInfo is needed for threads
    AcceptPathInfo On
    # Also needed for threads to be able to handle message-ids with embedded /:
    AllowEncodedSlashes On # (or NoDecode)
    ProxyPass /api/ http://localhost:8080/api/
    <Directory /var/www/foal/webui/>
        Require all granted
        # MultiViews means you can shorten threads to https://localhost/thread/blablabla
        Options +MultiViews
    </Directory>
</VirtualHost>

Updating Javascript and server versions

The code contains versions for the Javascript and server code which are derived from the commit ids. These have to be determined after the source has been committed. When changing source files for ponymail.js, these need to be committed before running webui/js/source/build.sh and committing the updated files. Similarly for changes to endpoints/, plugins/ or main.py: these should be committed before running server/update_version.sh and committing the version file (if it was changed).