status-go/MAILSERVER.md

# Description

A poorly named "Mailserver" is essentially a Whisper node that stores message history in either a LevelDB or PostgreSQL database.

A Status app user can run their own Mailserver for faster message retrieval or additional security.

# Service Ports

* `30303` TCP/UDP - [DevP2P](https://github.com/ethereum/devp2p) wire protocol port. Must __ALWAYS__ be public.
* `8545` TCP - [JSON RPC](https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/json-rpc) management port. Must __NEVER__ be public.
* `9090` TCP - [Prometheus](https://prometheus.io/docs/concepts/data_model/) metrics port. Should not be public.

# Setup methods

This document describes the two alternative ways to start a Status Mailserver:

* [Docker Compose](https://docs.docker.com/compose/) - More self-contained and portable
* [Systemd Service](https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/systemd/) - More local and configurable

## Docker Compose

The simplest way is to just use:
```
make run-mailserver-docker
```
This will generate the necessary config, compose and then start the container.

For more details read the [README](_assets/compose/mailserver/README.md).

## Systemd Service

The other way is to run the `mailserver` under `systemd`:
```
make run-mailserver-systemd
```
This will generate the necessary config, define and then start a user service.
Use `sudo` if you want it to be a system service.

For more details read the [README](_assets/systemd/mailserver/README.md).

# Service Healthcheck

There's two simple ways to verify your Mailserver is up and running.

## Query Metrics

By making an HTTP request to the metrics port(`9090` by default) you can check if you Mailserver is receiving envelopes:
```sh
 > curl -sS localhost:9090/metrics | grep '^waku_envelopes_received_total'
waku_envelopes_received_total 123
```
Or numbers and types of peers connected:
```sh
 > curl -sS localhost:9090/metrics | grep '^p2p_peers_count'
p2p_peers_count{platform="linux-amd64",type="Statusd",version="v0.79.0"} 3
```

## JSON RPC Calls

The JSON RPC port (`8545` by default) allows you to manage your node.
You can list connected peers by doing:
```sh
 > export RPC_HOST=localhost RPC_PORT=8545
 > _assets/scripts/rpc.sh admin_peers | jq -r '.result[].network.remoteAddress'
34.68.132.118:30305
134.209.136.123:30305
178.128.141.249:443
```
Where [`rpc.sh`](./_assets/scripts/rpc.sh) is simply a thin wrapper around `curl`.

You can use it to easily add peers too:
```sh
 > _assets/scripts/rpc.sh admin_addPeer enode://7aa648d6e855950b2e3d3bf220c496e0cae4adfddef3e1e6062e6b177aec93bc6cdcf1282cb40d1656932ebfdd565729da440368d7c4da7dbd4d004b1ac02bf8@178.128.142.26:443
{"jsonrpc": "2.0", "id": 1, "result": true}
```