ePOST Serverless Email System

A Peer-to-Peer Platform for Reliable, Secure Communication

Introduction

ePOST is a cooperative, serverless email system. Each user contributes a small amount of storage and network bandwidth in exchange for access to email service.  ePOST provides

• A serverless,  peer-to-peer email service
• Secure email emong ePOST users
  
• An organically scaling service that requires no dedicated hardware
• Very high availability and data durability
  
• Compatibility with POP/IMAP clients, SMTP mail servers
  

Why Did We Build ePOST?

Peer-to-peer systems have gained wide popularity, partially due to their self-scaling properties and their resilience to failures. However, most existing peer-to-peer systems provide best-effort services, whose availability is not critical to their users. A question is whether peer-to-peer systems can provide service that users depend on in their daily lives and work. We deployed ePOST to show that a cooperative peer-to-peer system can provide availability, reliability and security that matches or exceeds that of server-based solutions, while reducing hardware cost and administrative overhead.

How Can I Use ePOST?

The ePOST project is no longer under active development. You can still download the ePOST sources and setup your own ring by following the directions on the Download page. ePOST supports Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux running on java versions 1.4.2 or greater.

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