really simple mailing lists

a small, self-hosted mailing list system.

rsml is a mailing list manager system written in python built with minimalism in mind, it does not try to be a GNU Mailman competitor but rather a simpler alternative.

features

• toml-based configuration (rsml.toml) (rsml.config)
• RFC 4155 and mboxrd compliant .mbox file generator (rsml.mbox)
• mailing list posting via LMTP
• two-step subscription via /list/subscribe and /list/verify
• /list/archive endpoint for .mbox archive retrieval of the mailing list
• one-click unsubscribe with List-Unsubscribe and List-Unsubscribe-Post (RFC 8058)

quick start

rsml can be run directly with python or as a container using an OCI-compatible runtime.

1. create a configuration

cp rsml.toml.example rsml.toml # copy the example configuration
${EDITOR:-nano} rsml.toml # modify the configuration file

at minimum, configure the server secret. see rsml.toml.example for the available options.

2. run rsml

2.1 with python

pip install rsml # install rsml and dependencies

start the http server:

rsml http

in a separate process, start the lmtp server:

rsml lmtp

2.2 with a container

alternatively, rsml can be run from its OCI container image using podman, docker, or another OCI-compatible runtime.

example (with podman)

podman run --rm -it \
  -p 8080:8080 \
  -v "$PWD/rsml.toml:/home/rsml/rsml.toml:ro" \
  ghcr.io/juanvel4000/rsml:latest \
  http

and for the lmtp server

podman run --rm -it \
  -p 8024:8024 \
  -v "$PWD/rsml.toml:/home/rsml/rsml.toml:ro" \
  ghcr.io/juanvel4000/rsml:latest \
  lmtp

3. configure your mta

rsml receives mailing-list messages through LMTP. configure your mta to deliver messages destined for the mailing list to the rsml lmtp server.

set relay_host and relay_port in rsml.toml to the hostname and port of the mta used by rsml for outgoing mail.

dependencies

rsml requires at least

• a python >=3.11-compatible interpreter

a complete deployement requires

• an mta capable of receiving mail and delivering messages to rsml over LMTP

runtime dependencies include

• aiosmtpd/aiosmtplib: for asynchronous SMTP/LMTP operations
• flask: for the http server
• email-validator: to validate email addresses

development-time dependencies include:

• pytest/pytest-asyncio: to execute the unit tests

usage

pip install -e . # install rsml and dependencies
cp rsml.toml.example rsml.toml # edit server_secret, etc.
rsml http # start the http server
rsml lmtp # start the lmtp server

rsml is intended to run single-threaded.

Storage's sqlite3 connection is not safe for concurrent usage across threads.

running the test suite can be done with pytest

pip install -e ".[dev]" # install dev dependencies
pytest -vs . # run the unit tests

redis support for the rate limiter requires the redis optional dependency set to be installed

pip install -e ".[redis]"

spec

a document outlining the technical specifications of the project can be found in this repository as SPEC.md

project status

rsml is in active development. it is functional and moving toward stability, though some interfaces might still change before a 1.0 release.

• CHANGELOG.md -- release history
• CONTRIBUTING.md -- how to report bugs and send patches

license

BSD-3-Clause -- see LICENSE