Apache Pony Mail Foal

Next generation suite of services and tools for Apache Pony Mail (incubating)

Type tests:
Unit tests:

This repository aims to contain the next generation of Apache Pony Mail, a pure Python version of Apache Pony Mail with support for ElasticSearch 7.x and above.

New features in Foal:

Among other things, Foal sports the following new features:

• Improved archiver and import tools
• New, sleeker UI for the end user
• Migration tools for moving to Foal
• 100% Python backend, no Lua required
• In-place editing of emails via web UI

Installation Guide

Please see the installation documentation for setup instructions.

Current setup requirements:

• An operating system, such as:
  • Linux
  • FreeBSD
  • Windows
  • Mac OS
• Python 3.7.3 or higher with dependencies from requirements.txt in tools/ and server/ as needed.
• Web server with proxy capabilities for the UI.
• ElasticSearch 7.x or higher.

Migration disclaimer:

While compatible with the original Pony Mail, this will not be a drop-in replacement. Migration of the old database is required, and most of the older ID generators have been dropped in favor of collision-secure generators.

Known Limitations:

• emails are filed according to the Date: header, rather than arrival time. This can cause emails to appear in the wrong month or year, or even be future-dated.
• Whilst the underlying database can handle any number of emails in a month, the UI and much of the API does not scale well beyond around 10,000 emails per month per list.
• Re-archiving/importing an email that was previously hidden will unhide it in the archive.

Known limitations when migrating from older Pony Mail instances:

• If an email is re-imported or re-archived after a migration, the database entry is currently fully replaced. This can result in loss of attributes such as alternate Permalinks.
• The migration tool can drop Permalinks if two existing entries point to a sufficiently similar email
• The migration tool does not fix up badly-parsed message-ids etc
• There is no longer a 1-to-1 relationship between mbox and source entries. This can result in orphan source entries, with implications for privacy redaction.
• Header parsing is stricter than before; in particular some unusual Message-IDs are not handled correctly. This affects use of Foal as a replacement for Apache mod_mbox mail archives.