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Distribution Plan

Internal reference for packaging and distribution channels.

Current Channels

Channel Status Notes
Homebrew Ready brew install rustmailapp/rustmail/rustmail
Docker Ready smyile/rustmail:latest
GitHub Releases Ready Multi-platform binaries via release workflow
Source Ready make build (requires Node + pnpm + Rust)
crates.io Not used All crates yanked. Binary can't be published (embedded UI requires Node build step)

Homebrew

Phase 1: Homebrew Tap (when ready to publish)

A tap is a self-hosted formula repository. Users install with:

brew install rustmailapp/rustmail/rustmail

Setup:

  1. Create repo rustmailapp/homebrew-rustmail on GitHub
  2. Add Formula/rustmail.rb pointing to a tagged release tarball
  3. Formula builds from source using depends_on "rust" => :build and depends_on "node" => :build
  4. Optionally use pre-built binaries from GitHub Releases instead of building from source

Example formula (build from source):

class Rustmail < Formula
  desc "Self-hosted SMTP mail catcher with web UI, REST API, and CI assertions"
  homepage "https://github.com/rustmailapp/rustmail"
  url "https://github.com/rustmailapp/rustmail/archive/refs/tags/v0.1.0.tar.gz"
  sha256 "<sha256 of tarball>"
  license "MIT OR Apache-2.0"

  depends_on "rust" => :build
  depends_on "node" => :build

  def install
    system "corepack", "enable"
    system "pnpm", "--dir", "ui", "install", "--frozen-lockfile"
    system "pnpm", "--dir", "ui", "build"
    system "cargo", "install", "--locked", "--root", prefix, "--path", "crates/rustmail-server"
  end

  test do
    assert_match "rustmail", shell_output("#{bin}/rustmail --version")
  end
end

Tools that can auto-generate formulas from GitHub release assets:

Phase 2: homebrew-core (75+ stars)

Submission to the official Homebrew repository requires:

  • >=75 GitHub stars (or >=30 forks, or >=30 watchers)
  • Project age >30 days
  • Stable tagged release
  • Someone other than the author submits the PR (community member)
  • Builds on latest 3 macOS versions (ARM + x86_64) + x86_64 Linux
  • No unpatched security vulnerabilities

Process:

  1. Meet thresholds above
  2. A community member submits PR to Homebrew/homebrew-core
  3. brew test-bot CI builds bottles (pre-compiled binaries) for all platforms
  4. Homebrew maintainers review (typically 1-4 weeks)

Precedent: ripgrep, bat, fd, hyperfine, delta (all Rust CLI tools in homebrew-core). Mailpit (Go, same problem space) is also in homebrew-core.

Reference: https://docs.brew.sh/Acceptable-Formulae

Future Channels (not planned yet)

  • AUR (Arch Linux) — PKGBUILD, straightforward for Rust binaries
  • Nix — nixpkgs PR, similar community process to Homebrew
  • Scoop (Windows) — JSON manifest in a bucket repo
  • Snap / Flatpak — lower priority, Docker covers Linux well