In category: ← Communication / Email / Mail Transfer Agents

About Maildrop

Disposable email SMTP server, also useful for development.

Github stats:

Commits: 48
87
2
Latest commit: 2022

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Languages/Platforms/Technologies:

Scala

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More about Maildrop

Maildrop

See Maildrop in action.

Maildrop is an open-source, scalable, high-performance version of Mailinator, a "temporary inbox" that you can give out when you don't want to give out your real e-mail address. Maildrop inboxes are designed to be quick and disposable.

The design goals are to be roughly 90% of the speed of Mailinator, while adding additional functionality and the ability to horizontally scale quickly and easily.

Maildrop uses Haraka for its SMTP server, running inside a Docker container. Currently this container is deployed to Amazon ECS and has an auto-scaling policy to allow it to scale elastically.

The website is written as a React application, allowing for deployment to an S3 bucket or other static host. The backend API uses the Serverless framework to create Lambda functions that automatically scale based on usage.

Maildrop is written mainly in Typescript. Functionality includes:

Antispam modules contributed from Heluna for senders and data
90% of all spam attempts rejected
Network blacklists
IP connection and message subject limiting
Reputation-based blocking
SPF checking
Greylisting
Alternate inbox aliases
Strip message attachments
Message size limits
SMTP configuration done in one file
Easy-to-modify website, written in React

Requirements

Installation

Install prerequisites

Install Docker, Node/NPM, Redis, and decide on how you will serve your containers. Maildrop uses Amazon ECS.

Clone the repository into a local directory

This will give you four subdirectories, "api" is the serverless API backend, "infrastructure" is a set of terraform scripts to set up your own infrastructure, "smtp" is the mail transfer agent, and "web" is the website.

(Optionally) Create the AWS infrastructure

First, install Terraform. Then go into "infrastructure" and run "terraform apply". This will guide you through creating your infrastructure.

Create the SMTP server

Go into "smtp" and run "docker build -t your-image:latest". This will create a Docker image of the Maildrop SMTP server.

Create the API backend

Go into "api" and run "npm i" then "npm run compile && npm run deploy". This will generate the Lambda functions needed for the website.

Create the web server

Go into "web" and run "npm start". This will create a directory of the Maildrop website.

To build a production website, run "npm run build".

Changelog

Version 3.0 is a complete rewrite.

The API is now Lambda functions running through API Gateway, written in Typescript.
The infrastructure directory defines all the pieces to run Maildrop, written in Terraform.
The SMTP directory has a customized version of Haraka to run inside a Docker container, written in Javascript.
The web directory is a React app that can be deployed anywhere.