Mailtrain is an open-source self hosted newsletter app built on Node.js and MySQL/MariaDB. Mailtrain's source is on GitHub. This guide will show you how to install Mailtrain on a fresh Fedora 28 Vultr instance.
Requirements
- Software Requirements:
- Node.js v7 or greater
- MariaDB
- Nginx
- Redis (optional)
- Hardware Requirements:
Check the Fedora version.
cat /etc/fedora-release
# Fedora release 28 (Twenty Eight)
Create a new non-root
user account with sudo
access and switch to it.
useradd -c "John Doe" johndoe && passwd johndoe
usermod -aG wheel johndoe
su - johndoe
NOTE: Replace johndoe
with your username.
Ensure that your system is up to date.
sudo dnf check-upgrade || sudo dnf upgrade -y
Set up the timezone.
timedatectl list-timezones
sudo timedatectl set-timezone 'Region/City'
Install required tools and packages.
sudo dnf groupinstall -y 'Development Tools'
sudo dnf install -y unzip ImageMagick gcc-c++
For simplicity, disable SELinux and Firewall.
sudo setenforce 0 ; sudo systemctl stop firewalld ; sudo systemctl disable firewalld
Install Node.js and npm
Install Node.js and npm.
sudo dnf install -y nodejs
Check the versions.
node -v && npm -v
# v8.11.3
# 5.6.0
Install MariaDB
Install MariaDB.
sudo dnf install -y mariadb-server
Check the version.
mysql --version
Start and enable MariaDB.
sudo systemctl start mariadb.service
sudo systemctl enable mariadb.service
Run the mysql_secure installation
script to improve security.
sudo mysql_secure_installation
Connect to the MariaDB shell as the root user.
mysql -u root -p
# Enter password:
Create an empty database and user, and remember the credentials.
CREATE DATABASE dbname;
GRANT ALL ON dbname.* TO 'username' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
exit
Install Nginx
Install Nginx.
sudo dnf install -y nginx
Check the version.
nginx -v
Start and enable Nginx.
sudo systemctl start nginx.service
sudo systemctl enable nginx.service
Configure Nginx as an HTTP
or HTTPS
(if you use SSL) reverse proxy for Mailtrain. Run sudo vi /etc/nginx/conf.d/mailtrain.conf
and add the following configuration.
server {
listen [::]:80;
listen 80;
server_name example.com;
charset utf-8;
client_max_body_size 50M;
location / {
proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:3000;
proxy_http_version 1.1;
proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
proxy_next_upstream error timeout http_502 http_503 http_504;
}
}
Test the configuration.
sudo nginx -t
Reload Nginx.
sudo systemctl reload nginx.service
Install Mailtrain
Create an empty document root folder where Mailtrain should be installed.
sudo mkdir -p /var/www/mailtrain
Navigate to the document root folder.
cd /var/www/mailtrain
Change ownership of the /var/www/mailtrain
folder to user johndoe
.
sudo chown -R johndoe:johndoe /var/www/mailtrain
Download and unzip Mailtrain.
wget https://github.com/Mailtrain-org/mailtrain/archive/master.zip
unzip master.zip
rm master.zip
mv mailtrain-master/* . && mv mailtrain-master/.* .
rmdir mailtrain-master
Run npm install --production
in the Mailtrain folder to install required dependencies.
Copy config/default.toml
as config/production.toml
and update MySQL and any other settings in it.
cp config/default.toml config/production.toml
vi config/production.toml
Run the server.
NODE_ENV=production npm start
Installation is complete. Login with the username admin
and the password test
. Once logged in, update the user information and password via the Mailtrain web interface. For more information, visit Mailtrain Github wiki page.