maillayer-installer

One-line installer for maillayer — a self-hosted email marketing platform.

Install on any Linux VPS

Requires Docker + Docker Compose v2 already installed (curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com | sudo sh if not).

curl -fsSL https://install.maillayer.com/install.sh | sudo bash

The script:

1. Generates a unique AUTH_SECRET (saved at /opt/maillayer/.env, mode 600).
2. Pulls the public Docker image ghcr.io/mddanishyusuf/maillayer-pro:1.
3. Starts the service via Docker Compose with a managed volume for your data.
4. Waits for /api/health and prints the URL.

Prefer to read first?

curl -fsSL https://install.maillayer.com/install.sh -o install.sh
less install.sh
sudo bash install.sh

Override defaults

MAILLAYER_PORT=8080 \
MAILLAYER_URL=https://mail.example.com \
MAILLAYER_DIR=/var/lib/maillayer \
  curl -fsSL https://install.maillayer.com/install.sh | sudo bash

Maintenance

After install, manage with normal Docker Compose commands:

# Logs
docker compose -f /opt/maillayer/docker-compose.yml logs -f

# Update to the latest 1.x image
cd /opt/maillayer && docker compose pull && docker compose up -d

# Stop
cd /opt/maillayer && docker compose down

What gets installed

• /opt/maillayer/.env — your AUTH_SECRET and any other operator-set env vars (mode 600).
• /opt/maillayer/docker-compose.yml — the service definition.
• A Docker named volume maillayer_maillayer-data — holds the SQLite database and nightly backups.

Security note

curl | sudo bash runs a remote script as root. The script in this repo:

• Creates a config directory and writes a compose file.
• Pulls a public Docker image from GHCR.
• Generates a random secret via openssl rand -base64 48.
• Starts the container.

It does NOT install Docker itself, modify firewall rules, edit other system services, or make outbound calls beyond pulling the Docker image. Read install.sh before running.

Backup

The encryption key in /opt/maillayer/.env (AUTH_SECRET) decrypts every stored Stripe / Firebase / Supabase / Airtable credential. Back it up alongside your SQLite DB.

# Quick offsite backup of secret + DB volume
tar czf maillayer-backup-$(date +%F).tar.gz \
  /opt/maillayer/.env \
  $(docker volume inspect maillayer_maillayer-data --format '')

Source code

Image source: https://github.com/mddanishyusuf/maillayer-pro (private).