obviusowl/roundcube

Roundcube docker deployment

Docker container deployment project for roundcube web mail.

The Dockerfile is available on https://github.com/ObviusOwl/roundcube-docker

Do not use this project blindfold, but make sure you understand docker, the traditional roundcube deployment and the content of this project.

The docker image requires a volume mounted at /data. The following directories will be created at startup:

• /data/config
• /data/logs
• /data/temp

Set the environment variable ENABLE_INSTALLER to "yes" to enable the roundcube installer. Complete the installer and save the configuration file. Do not forget to initialize the database.

Disable the installer once done, the installer will leak all sensitive informations if it is not disabled in the config file. As a precaution unset the environement variable too so that the installer will be deleted on container start up.

The configuration file is saved in /data/config/config.inc.php and can be edited from outside the container.

The start up script runs automatically the roundcube update script.

The container crashes on start up if the database is not available. If started at the same time as the database container, the roundcube container is expected to restart until the database is ready.

Only the MySQL database driver is installed, other drivers can be installed by extending the Dockerfile. Similarly, only English and German spellchecking is installed.

Technical Details

Roundcube is installed into /roundcube. Only the subdirectories installer and config are writable. The directories /data/logs and /data/temp are symlinked to the correspondent directories in the roundcube installation. temp is used to store uploads.

The start up script removes the content of /roundcube/installer if the environment variable ENABLE_INSTALLER is not set to "yes".

If the config file /data/config/config.inc.php exists it is symlinked into /roundcube/config so that roundcube can use it.

The installer writes the config file to /roundcube/config/config.inc.php, roundcube is patched to move the file into /data/config and create the symlink right after writing the file.

If the file /data/config/mimetypes.php exists it is symlinked to /roundcube/config/mimetypes.php replacing the default one.

Roundcubes update script relies on input about the previous version number. If no input is given, roundcube checks the installation directory ( program/include/iniset.php ), which however is part of the container's root image and thus is always the latest. The version is kept in the database and updated by the start up script. Oddly enough roundcube itself keeps already the database schema version number (different from the program version number) in the database.

The database has a table named system. The program version is saved with the key docker_app_version, roundcube uses roundcube-version for the database schema.

The default log driver is patched to be "stdout" instead of "file". If a existing config file is used, check the setting, as docker containers should not log to files.

The URL path /.health points to a html file containing only the word "OK". This bypasses roundcube's session management and does not produce apache httpd log entries. Use this URL for health/readiness probes in kubernetes. It is still recommended to check the roundcube login page with a slower paced monitoring system (e.g. icinga) to also catch database problems.

Be careful with scaling the container to multiple instances, the start up script is not tested with concurrency and probably will create race conditions.