Installing MailForm on Debian

MailForm is a lightweight web application written in Ruby that allows you to create and send HTML forms via email. In this tutorial, we will learn how to install MailForm on the latest version of Debian.

Prerequisites

  • A Debian server with root access.
  • Ruby (version 1.9.3 or higher).
  • Bundler gem.

Step 1: Git Installation

The first step is to install Git, which is a widely used version control system. You can install Git using the following command:

apt-get install git

Step 2: Clone the MailForm repository

Next, you need to clone the MailForm repository from GitHub using the following command:

git clone https://github.com/Feuerhamster/mailform.git

This will create a copy of the MailForm code in a directory named mailform.

Step 3: Install Dependencies

MailForm uses several dependencies, such as the Sinatra web framework and the Pony email library. To install these dependencies, you need to use the Bundler gem.

If you haven't installed Bundler yet, you can do so by running the following command:

gem install bundler

After installing Bundler, navigate to the mailform directory and run the following command to install the dependencies:

bundle install

This will download and install all the required gems.

Step 4: Configure MailForm

MailForm uses a configuration file named config.yml to set up the email options. You can create a new configuration file by copying the sample configuration file using the following command:

cp config.sample.yml config.yml

Now, open the config.yml file in a text editor and configure the email settings according to your preferences. For example, you can set the SMTP server, port, username, password, and recipient address.

Step 5: Start MailForm

Once you have configured MailForm, you can start the web application using the following command:

ruby app.rb

This will start the web server on the default port (4567). You can access the web application by opening a web browser and navigating to:

http://localhost:4567

Conclusion

That's it! You should now have a working installation of MailForm on your Debian server. With MailForm, you can create and send HTML forms via email without any third-party services.