README.md
1<sup>master: </sup>[](https://travis-ci.com/cyrusimap/cyrus-imapd)
2<sup> stable(3.4): </sup>[](https://travis-ci.com/cyrusimap/cyrus-imapd)
3
4-----
5
6Welcome
7=======
8
9This is the Cyrus IMAP Server, version series 3.0.x.
10
11No further development work will progress on anything older than version 2.3.
12Versions 2.3 and 2.4 still receive security updates, but new features or
13non-security bugfixes are unlikely to be backported. Version 2.5 still
14receives security updates and non-security bugfixes. Version 3.0 is under
15active development.
16
17What is Cyrus
18=============
19
20Cyrus is an IMAP server, where IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol)
21is a protocol for accessing mail.
22
23The Cyrus IMAP server differs from other IMAP server implementations in
24that it is generally intended to be run on "sealed" servers, where
25normal users are not permitted to log in. The mailbox database is stored
26in parts of the filesystem that are private to the Cyrus IMAP system.
27All user access to mail is through the IMAP, NNTP, or POP3 protocols.
28
29The private mailbox database design gives the server large advantages in
30efficiency, scalability, and administrability. Multiple concurrent
31read/write connections to the same mailbox are permitted. The server
32supports access control lists on mailboxes and storage quotas on mailbox
33hierarchies.
34
35Cyrus goals
36===========
37
38To be the best open source secure, scalable mail server, providing
39breadth and depth of functionality across email, contacts, calendar
40and related messaging services!
41
42How to get Cyrus
43================
44
45Cyrus comes in three flavours:
46
471. Our release source tarballs from https://github.com/cyrusimap/cyrus-imapd/releases
48 * Recommended for most users.
49 * These are packaged by the Cyrus team.
50 * The docs are pre-built for you in doc/html.
51 * They're definitively tagged to a particular release version with up to date release notes.
522. Raw source from https://github.com/cyrusimap/cyrus-imapd
53 * Use this if you need a version of Cyrus that contains an unreleased patch/fix/feature.
54 * These bundles require a lot more dependencies to build than a packaged tarball.
553. Operating System distribution packages.
56 * Cyrus IMAP packages are shipped with every major distribution, including but not limited to Fedora, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, CentOS, Scientific Linux, Debian, Ubuntu, openSUSE, Gentoo, Mageia and ClearOS.
57 * Please be aware that we don't maintain these packages and as such, some distributions are out of date.
58 * If you run into problems with a packed distribution, please contact the source of the distribution.
59
60How to install Cyrus from packaged releases
61===============================================
62
63Please be sure to read the documentation. The latest version is online
64at http://www.cyrusimap.org, but the version current for this
65distribution can be found in the doc/ subdirectory.
66
67For Cyrus tarball releases, the basic installation instructions are:
68
69 $ ./configure
70 $ make
71 $ sudo make install
72
73For more detailed instructions see: doc/html/imap/installation.diy.html#from-tarball
74
75How to install Cyrus from git source
76============================================
77
78The Cyrus source is available at:
79
80https://github.com/cyrusimap/cyrus-imapd
81
82For version 3.0 or later, please first build Cyrus main dependencies
83from source (see next section).
84
85The latest development code is on the branch called 'master',
86and the latest code destined for the stable release is on
87the branch 'cyrus-imapd-$major.$minor'. So the current
88stable release is called cyrus-imapd-3.0
89
90Unlike releases, the git repository doesn't have a pre-built
91./configure script. You need to generate it with autoreconf:
92
93 $ autoreconf -i
94 $ ./configure
95 $ make
96 $ sudo make install
97
98If you need to build a local copy of the docs current to the version of the code, these need to be built: see doc/README.docs
99
100Read through doc/html/imap/developer.html for more detailed instructions on building and contributing. The latest version is online at https://www.cyrusimap.org/imap/developer.html
101
102How to install Cyrus libraries from git source
103==============================================
104For version 3.0 or later, it is recommended to also build the main
105dependencies from source.
106
107If you intend to use Xapian for search, we strongly recommend to use the
108custom Xapian fork in cyruslibs. However, if this is not an option
109in your environment, please fetch the latest stable upstream Xapian release.
110Cyrus will omit custom features such as word boundary analysis for Chinese,
111Japanese and Korean.
112
113The Cyrus dependencies source is available at:
114
115https://github.com/cyrusimap/cyruslibs
116
117To build and install the libraries, run
118
119 $ ./build.sh
120
121By default, all dependencies are installed in /usr/local/cyruslibs.
122Before compiling Cyrus from git source, make sure to update your environment
123variables, accordingly. For example:
124
125 $ export CYRUSLIBS=/usr/local/cyruslibs
126 $ export PKG_CONFIG_PATH="$CYRUSLIBS/lib/pkgconfig:$PKG_CONFIG_PATH"
127 $ export LDFLAGS="-Wl,-rpath,$CYRUSLIBS/lib -Wl,-rpath,$CYRUSLIBS/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu"
128
129For Xapian, either make sure to add $CYRUSLIBS/bin to your PATH, or call
130Cyrus ./configure script as follows:
131
132 $ ./configure XAPIAN_CONFIG="$CYRUSLIBS/bin/xapian-config-1.5" [...]
133
134(If you do not use Xapian from cyruslibs, you'll need to locate the
135`xapian-config` binary and substitute `XAPIAN_CONFIG` accordingly).
136
137Then continue to install Cyrus.
138
139Are you upgrading?
140==================
141
142Read doc/legacy/install-upgrade.html
143
144Think you've found a bug or have a new feature?
145===============================================
146
147Fantastic! We'd love to hear about it, especially if you have a patch to
148contribute.
149
150The best way to make contributions to the project is to fork
151it on github, make your changes on your fork, and then send
152a pull request.
153
154Check https://github.com/cyrusimap/cyrus-imapd/issues/ for any
155outstanding bugs. Old bugs can be found at
156https://bugzilla.cyrusimap.org/
157
158Our guide at https://www.cyrusimap.org/support.html has all the
159information about how to contact us and how best to get your change accepted.
160
161Licensing Information
162=====================
163
164See the COPYING file in this distribution.
165
166Contact us
167==========
168
169Whether you have a success story to share, or a bug to file, or a
170request for help or a feature to add or some documentation to contribute
171or you'd just like to say hi, we want to hear from you! See
172https://www.cyrusimap.org/support.html for various ways you can get hold
173of us.
174
175
176
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