Mailtrain

Mailtrain is a self hosted newsletter application built on Node.js (v5+) and MySQL (v5.5+ or MariaDB).

Features

Mailtrain supports subscriber list management, list segmentation, custom fields, email templates, large CSV list import files, etc.

Subscribe to Mailtrain Newsletter here (uses Mailtrain obviously)

Cons

• Alpha-grade software. Might or might not work as expected
• Awful code base, needs refactoring
• No tests
• No documentation

Requirements

• Nodejs v5+
• MySQL v5.5 or MariaDB
• Redis (optional, used for session storage only)

Installation

1. Download and unpack Mailtrain sources
2. Run npm install in the Mailtrain folder to install required dependencies
3. Copy config/default.toml as config/production.toml and update MySQL Settings in it
4. Import SQL tables by running mysql -u MYSQL_USER -p MYSQL_DB < setup/mailtrain.sql
5. Run the server NODE_ENV=production npm start
6. Open http://localhost:3000/
7. Authenticate as admin:test
8. Navigate to http://localhost:3000/settings and update service configuration
9. Navigate to http://localhost:3000/users/account and update user information and password

Running behind Nginx proxy

Edit mailtrain.nginx (update server_name directive) and copy it to /etc/nginx/sites-enabled

Running as an Upstart service in Ubuntu 14.04

Edit mailtrain.conf (update application folder) and copy it to /etc/init

Bounce handling

Mailtrain uses webhooks integration to detect bounces and spam complaints. Currently supported webhooks are:

• AWS SES – create a SNS topic for complaints and bounces and use http://domain/webhooks/aws as the subscriber URL for these topics
• SparkPost – use http://domain/webhooks/aws as the webhook URL for bounces and complaints
• SendGrid – use http://domain/webhooks/sendgrid as the webhook URL for bounces and complaints
• Mailgun – use http://domain/webhooks/mailgun as the webhook URL for bounces and complaints

License

GPL-V3.0