eilandert/roundcube repository overview

⁠Roundcube — hardened Docker image (Debian / Angie-minimal / PHP-FPM 8.5)

A small, fully-unprivileged, defence-in-depth Docker image for Roundcube⁠ webmail. PID 1 and the whole PHP/web tree run as a non-root user (uid 10001), the container holds zero Linux capabilities, the root filesystem is read-only, and an Angie WAF sits in front of PHP.

You bring an IMAP/SMTP server (your own mail host) and a database; the image brings the webmail front-end. The bundled docker-compose.yml includes a hardened MariaDB so you can be running in two commands.

Just want it running? Jump to Quick start⁠. Curious how it's locked down? See Security & hardening⁠. Want to know which plugins/skins ship? See Bundled plugins & skins⁠.

⁠Links

• Image source / this repo: https://github.com/eilandert/dockerized/tree/master/src/roundcube⁠
• Docker Hub: https://hub.docker.com/r/eilandert/roundcube⁠
• App source (upstream): https://github.com/roundcube/roundcubemail⁠
• Write-up / guided tour: https://deb.myguard.nl/2026/06/hardened-roundcube-docker-image/⁠
• deb.myguard.nl: https://deb.myguard.nl/⁠

⁠What's in the image

⁠Security & hardening

Defence in depth: the runtime is hardened by Snuffleupagus + the FPM pool, the edge by an Angie WAF, and the container by the measures below.

⁠Container / image

• Runs fully unprivileged — no root, anywhere. PID 1 is rootless s6-overlay (S6_READ_ONLY_ROOT=1); it, the Angie and PHP-FPM masters, every worker — all of it runs as the unprivileged roundcube user (USER roundcube:roundcube in the image; user: "10001:10001" in compose). No root process at any point. s6 supervises php-fpm + angie, so a killed master is reaped and restarted instead of leaving a silent outage.
• Zero Linux capabilities — cap_drop: [ALL] with no cap_add. Angie binds a high port (:8080, no CAP_NET_BIND_SERVICE); nothing does runtime setuid/chown (the masters are already unprivileged; writable mounts are pre-owned — see Mount ownership).
• no-new-privileges + AppArmor (apparmor=docker-default).
• Read-only root filesystem (read_only: true). Only the config volume and the /tmp tmpfs are writable; Angie's pid/sockets/temp + the FPM error log are redirected there so the rest of the rootfs stays immutable.
• Codebase read-only to the web/PHP user — owned roundcube:roundcube 0440/0550. The web/PHP processes cannot modify a line of code.
• No baked secrets — the Roundcube des_key and the Snuffleupagus secret_key are each generated on first boot, unique per deployment, persisted on the config volume and never in an image layer (override with a Docker secret or ROUNDCUBEMAIL_DES_KEY / ROUNDCUBEMAIL_SP_SECRET).
• Every setuid/setgid bit stripped at build time.

⁠Runtime (PHP)

• Snuffleupagus with a strict, source-audited Roundcube rulebook (virtual patching, dangerous-function kills, uploaded-file no-exec, secure cookies).
• Hardened PHP-FPM pool (php_admin_*, not overridable by userland): open_basedir jail, expose_php off, allow_url_fopen/allow_url_include off, a wide disable_functions (exec/system/proc_open/passthru/… gone), and Secure+HttpOnly+SameSite=Strict session cookies with 64-char IDs.

⁠Edge (Angie WAF)

• gzip off — closes the BREACH⁠ side-channel on CSRF-token-bearing HTML.
• real_ip from the trusted private proxy ranges (reads X-Forwarded-For) so the throttle + RC's failed-login tracking see the real client.
• Scanner / empty-UA gate return 444 (nikto/sqlmap/nmap/nuclei/wpscan/…).
• Login brute-force throttle (limit_req, 12 r/min + burst) keyed on the real client IP, applied to login POSTs only (an empty-key map keeps normal browsing through index.php un-throttled).
• CSP + HSTS response headers; X-Content-Type-Options, X-Frame-Options.
• PHP execution allow-list — only index.php and static.php ever execute; any other .php (a dropped webshell) returns 404.

⁠Bundled plugins & skins

Pre-installed; enable with ROUNDCUBEMAIL_PLUGINS (comma-separated). Nothing loads unless you list it.

⁠Plugins

Roundcube core plugins (archive, zipdownload, managesieve, password, newmail_notifier, new_user_dialog) ship with RC and are on by default.

⁠Skins

Pick one with ROUNDCUBEMAIL_SKIN (default elastic).

⁠Quick start

curl -fsSLO https://raw.githubusercontent.com/eilandert/dockerized/master/src/roundcube/docker-compose.yml
$EDITOR docker-compose.yml     # set MARIADB_* + ROUNDCUBEMAIL_DB_PASSWORD,
                               # and ROUNDCUBEMAIL_DEFAULT_HOST / SMTP_SERVER
docker compose up -d
# Browse http://localhost:8080/  ->  log in with an IMAP account.

⁠docker-compose.yml

services:
  db:
    image: docker.io/eilandert/mariadb:debian
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      MARIADB_DATABASE: roundcube
      MARIADB_USER: roundcube
      MARIADB_PASSWORD: change-me
      MARIADB_ROOT_PASSWORD: change-me-too
    volumes:
      - db:/var/lib/mysql
    networks: [rc]
    security_opt:
      - no-new-privileges:true
    cap_drop: [ALL]
    cap_add: [CHOWN, SETUID, SETGID, DAC_OVERRIDE]
    deploy:
      resources:
        limits:
          memory: 512M
          pids: 256
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD", "healthcheck.sh", "--connect", "--innodb_initialized"]
      interval: 10s
      timeout: 5s
      retries: 12

  roundcube:
    image: docker.io/eilandert/roundcube:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    depends_on:
      db:
        condition: service_healthy
    # Unprivileged: cap_drop ALL -> the container CANNOT chown, so the config
    # mount must already be owned 10001:10001 (a named volume inherits it).
    user: "10001:10001"
    environment:
      TZ: Europe/Amsterdam
      # ---- IMAP (reading mail) ----
      ROUNDCUBEMAIL_DEFAULT_HOST: ssl://imap.example.org
      ROUNDCUBEMAIL_DEFAULT_PORT: 993
      # ---- SMTP (sending mail) ----
      ROUNDCUBEMAIL_SMTP_SERVER: tls://smtp.example.org
      ROUNDCUBEMAIL_SMTP_PORT: 587
      # TLS to your mail server is VERIFIED by default. If the cert won't match:
      #   pin a CA: ROUNDCUBEMAIL_SSL_CA=/etc/ssl/mail-ca.pem (mount it :ro)
      #   trusted LAN only (allows MITM): ROUNDCUBEMAIL_SSL_VERIFY: 0
      # ---- database (points at the bundled `db` service) ----
      ROUNDCUBEMAIL_DB_TYPE: mysql
      ROUNDCUBEMAIL_DB_HOST: db
      ROUNDCUBEMAIL_DB_PORT: 3306
      ROUNDCUBEMAIL_DB_USER: roundcube
      ROUNDCUBEMAIL_DB_PASSWORD: change-me      # must match MARIADB_PASSWORD
      ROUNDCUBEMAIL_DB_NAME: roundcube
      # ---- app ----
      ROUNDCUBEMAIL_PLUGINS: archive,zipdownload,managesieve,newmail_notifier,password,new_user_dialog,contextmenu,persistent_login
      ROUNDCUBEMAIL_UPLOAD_MAX_FILESIZE: 25M
      ROUNDCUBEMAIL_SKIN: elastic
      CLEAN_INACTIVE_USERS_DAYS: 365
    ports:
      # Loopback only — :8080 trusts X-Forwarded-For from private ranges, so do
      # not expose it to an untrusted network; terminate TLS at your edge proxy.
      - "127.0.0.1:8080:8080"
    networks: [rc]
    # ---- hardening ----
    read_only: true        # rootfs is immutable; writes go to the mounts below
    volumes:
      - conf:/var/roundcube/config
    tmpfs:
      - /tmp:uid=10001,gid=10001,mode=1770,noexec,nosuid,nodev
      - /run:uid=10001,gid=10001,mode=0750,exec,nosuid,nodev   # s6 scratch — exec REQUIRED
    security_opt:
      - no-new-privileges:true
      - apparmor=docker-default
    cap_drop: [ALL]        # angie binds :8080 -> ZERO capabilities required
    ulimits:
      nofile:
        soft: 10240
        hard: 10240
    deploy:
      resources:
        limits:
          memory: 512M
          pids: 256
    logging:
      driver: json-file
      options:
        max-size: "10m"
        max-file: "3"

networks:
  rc:

volumes:
  db:
  conf:

The compose file bundles a hardened MariaDB; point ROUNDCUBEMAIL_DEFAULT_HOST / ROUNDCUBEMAIL_SMTP_SERVER at your own IMAP/SMTP servers. Run behind TLS in production (terminate at your edge proxy, forward the real client IP via X-Forwarded-For). The container listens on :8080 only.

⁠Mount ownership (because the container can't chown)

cap_drop: [ALL] removes CAP_CHOWN, so any writable mount must already be owned by uid 10001:

• Named volumes — nothing to do, they inherit it.
• Host bind mounts — sudo chown -R 10001:10001 /your/bind/dir.
• tmpfs — set it inline: --tmpfs /tmp:uid=10001,gid=10001,mode=1770,noexec,nosuid,nodev.

A Permission denied on boot = a writable mount not owned 10001:10001. The fix is always the chown — never add a capability back. (The container prints these same instructions in its startup logs.)

⁠Configuration

Driven by ROUNDCUBEMAIL_* env vars (IMAP/SMTP hosts+ports, DB DSN, plugin list, skin, upload size, TLS verification). Per-deployment PHP overrides go in a phpfpm.conf.override in the config volume; extra Roundcube config in a config.inc.php.user. TLS to your mail server is verified by default — set ROUNDCUBEMAIL_SSL_CA to pin a private CA, or (trusted LAN only, allows MITM) ROUNDCUBEMAIL_SSL_VERIFY=0.