Help with Multiple Postal Instances on Same Server - Container Conflicts & SMTP Binding

[arshiyaaara]

I'm setting up multiple Postal instances on the same server in /opt/postal with separate directories for each instance (postal1, postal2, postal3). Each has its own install and config folders. I've configured MariaDB and RabbitMQ on different ports (3306, 3307, etc.) and initialized each instance with postal1 initialize and postal1 make-user.Also I have done postal setup multiple times but this is my first time setting up with multiple instances.

Problem:
When I run postal1 start, the containers (SMTP, Web, Worker) start fine.
However, when I try to start postal2 or postal3, Docker recreates the postal1 containers instead of starting new ones and crashes with this error:


Even when using the -p flag for isolated projects, it still starts postal1 containers but crashes.
postal1.yml:
version: 2

postal:
web_hostname: xxxxxxxx.ai
web_protocol: https
smtp_hostname: xxxxxxxx.ai

main_db:
host: 127.0.0.1
username: root
password: StrongDBPass123
database: postal1

message_db:
host: 127.0.0.1
username: root
password: StrongDBPass123
prefix: postal1

smtp_server:
default_bind_address: "::"

dns:
mx_records:
- mx.xxxxxxxx.ai.ai
spf_include: spf.xxxxxxxx.ai.ai
return_path_domain: rp.xxxxxxxx.ai.ai
route_domain: routes.xxxxxxxx.ai.ai
track_domain: track.xxxxxxxx.ai.ai

smtp:
host: 127.0.0.1
port: 2525
username: # Complete when Postal is running and you can
password: # generate the credentials within the interface.
from_name: Postal
from_address: xxxxxxxx..ai

docker-compose.yml
version: "3.9"
services:
web:
container_name: postal1_web
image: ghcr.io/postalserver/postal:3.3.5
command: postal web-server
network_mode: host
volumes:
- /opt/postal/postal1/config:/config
restart: unless-stopped

smtp:
container_name: postal1_smtp
image: ghcr.io/postalserver/postal:3.3.5
command: postal smtp-server
network_mode: host
cap_add:
- NET_BIND_SERVICE
volumes:
- /opt/postal/postal1/config:/config
restart: unless-stopped

worker:
container_name: postal1_worker
image: ghcr.io/postalserver/postal:3.3.5
command: postal worker
network_mode: host
volumes:
- /opt/postal/postal1/config:/config
restart: unless-stopped

runner:
container_name: postal1_runner
profiles: ["tools"]
image: ghcr.io/postalserver/postal:3.3.5
command: postal
network_mode: host

Note: My other postal.yml and docker-compose.yml files are similar but have slight variations in instance names (e.g., postal2, postal3).

Issues:

1. Container Conflicts: Why does it recreate postal1 containers when starting postal2 or postal3?
2. SMTP Binding: How can I bind SMTP for each Postal instance to a unique IP and avoid conflicts with postal1?whether its port 25 or any port used for web server

[willpower232]

1. I'm not sure but it depends what postal1, postal2, and postal3 are. If they are symlinks to the right things, are they definitely not duplicated? There might be some conflict over /opt/postal/config but I'm not sure

2. This can be configured in the config, either in the file or the environment variables. If your server provider has given you multiple IP addresses, then you should be able to see them with ip a.

postal/doc/config/yaml.yml

Lines 104 to 105 in d532922

	# The default bind address the SMTP server should listen on unless overriden by the BIND_ADDRESS environment variable
	default_bind_address: ::