# VNCmail+ — Architecture

VNCmail+ is VNC's fork of [Bulwark](https://github.com/bulwarkmail/webmail), a
Next.js (App Router) webmail client that speaks JMAP to **Stalwart** (the mail
server — SMTP/IMAP/JMAP, source of truth for all mail/calendar/contacts/files).
VNCmail+ holds no mail data itself; it's a UI + a thin server-side JMAP proxy.

This doc is the map. For day-to-day sandbox work see
[SANDBOX-DEV-MANUAL.md](SANDBOX-DEV-MANUAL.md); for going live at scale see
[PRODUCTION-SCALE-OUT-PLAN.md](PRODUCTION-SCALE-OUT-PLAN.md).

## System diagram

```mermaid
flowchart TB
    subgraph Clients
        Browser["Web browser"]
        Electron["Electron desktop\n(+ local SQLite/FTS5 search index)"]
        Mobile["vncmail-native (React Native)\n+ vncmail-relay (push)"]
    end

    subgraph "dev-k8s-1/2/3 — dev cluster"
        direction TB
        TraefikDev["Traefik ingress"]
        AppDev["VNCmail+ pod(s)\nnamespace: vncmail"]
        ArgoCD["ArgoCD\n(GitOps controller)"]
        TraefikDev --> AppDev
    end

    subgraph "node1/2/3 — prod HA cluster"
        direction TB
        TraefikProd["Traefik ingress"]
        AppProd["VNCmail+ pod(s)\nnamespace: vncmail-prod\n(not live yet)"]
        Ceph["rook-ceph\n(RWX storage, once wired)"]
        TraefikProd --> AppProd
        AppProd -.-> Ceph
    end

    subgraph "Mail backend (per environment)"
        Stalwart["Stalwart\nSMTP/IMAP/JMAP server\n(source of truth)"]
    end

    subgraph "S/MIME internal CA — namespace vnc-ca, isolated"
        EJBCA["EJBCA\n(cert issuance/enrolment)"]
    end

    subgraph "GitLab (gitlab.vnc.biz) — canonical repo"
        MR["MR into dev\n(verify: typecheck/lint/test/build)"]
        Registry["Container registry\nregistry.gitlab.vnc.biz/.../vncmail-plus"]
    end

    Browser --> TraefikDev
    Electron --> TraefikDev
    Mobile --> TraefikDev
    Browser -.->|"later, once real"| TraefikProd

    AppDev -->|"JMAP over HTTPS\n(proxy.ts, server-side only)"| Stalwart
    AppProd -.->|JMAP| Stalwart
    AppDev -.->|"S/MIME enrolment\n(RA client cert, port 8443)"| EJBCA

    MR -->|merge to dev| Registry
    Registry -->|"bump-dev job pins the tag"| ArgoCD
    ArgoCD -->|"sync (auto)"| AppDev
    Registry -.->|"bump-prod pins the tag\n(no rebuild)"| ArgoCD
    ArgoCD -.->|"sync — MANUAL, permanent gate"| AppProd
```

## Components

| Component | What it is | Where |
|---|---|---|
| **VNCmail+** (this repo) | Next.js 16 App Router webmail UI + server-side JMAP proxy (`proxy.ts`, `app/api/*`). Stateful: writes settings/admin/telemetry to `/app/data/*` — see storage note below. | Container, `vncmail` (dev) / `vncmail-prod` (prod, not live) namespaces |
| **Stalwart** | External JMAP/SMTP/IMAP mail server. Owns all mail/calendar/contact/file data. VNCmail+ never touches a database directly — every read/write goes over JMAP. | `stalwart.sandbox.vnc.de` (dev; prod instance doesn't exist yet) |
| **EJBCA** (`deploy/k8s/ca/`) | Internal CA issuing S/MIME certs for the S/MIME plugin. Deliberately isolated: own namespace `vnc-ca`, own MariaDB, `NetworkPolicy` allows only the `vncmail` namespace to call its REST API. Root-key ceremony is a manual, human-only runbook — never automated. | `vnc-ca` namespace |
| **Electron desktop client** | Same Next.js app, packaged with `electron-builder`, standalone server spawned as a child process. Adds a local encrypted SQLite/FTS5 search index (`lib/mail-index/`) — event-driven, refreshed off the same JMAP push connection, for AI/RAG-style "search your mail" queries. Unsigned builds today (no Apple/Windows code-signing cert yet). | Desktop, not cluster-hosted |
| **vncmail-native** (separate repo) | React Native/Expo mobile app, forked from upstream `bulwarkmail/native`. Full JMAP delta-sync engine + local mail replica (bodies, not just the search excerpt Electron keeps) + an FTS5 index over it. **The replica is UNENCRYPTED today** — `STORE_FORMAT = 'sqlite-plain'`, no SQLCipher dependency exists; encryption is a documented future native-build flip, not a shipped property. Do not describe this as encrypted. | Mobile (Android emulator; iOS pending) |
| **vncmail-relay** (separate repo) | Push notification relay for the mobile app (forked from `bulwarkmail/relay`). | — |
| **GitLab CI** (`.gitlab-ci.yml`) | Builds+pushes container images, bumps a git-tracked image tag. **Never touches any cluster** — no cluster credentials in CI at all. | Runs on a GitLab Runner |
| **ArgoCD** | GitOps controller, already installed on `dev-k8s` (found idle with zero Applications when this pipeline was built — more idiomatic than having CI run `kubectl` directly). Watches this repo, applies `deploy/k8s/overlays/{dev,prod}`. `vncmail-dev` = automated sync (once bootstrapped); `vncmail-prod` = **permanently manual sync** — that's the Vercel-style "promote to production" gate. | `argocd` namespace on `dev-k8s`; UI at `https://argo.devcluster.vnc.de` |

## The two clusters

| | `dev-k8s-1/2/3` | `node1/node2/node3` |
|---|---|---|
| Role | dev / sandbox | production (HA) |
| Storage | `microk8s-hostpath` only (node-local, single-replica-only) | `rook-ceph`: `ceph-rbd` (RWO, default) **and `ceph-cephfs` (RWX, distributed)** |
| Ingress | Traefik | Traefik |
| cert-manager issuer | `letsencrypt-staging` | **none configured yet** |
| ArgoCD | yes, installed | no — not registered as an ArgoCD-managed cluster yet |
| Live workloads today | none (fresh) | none (fresh) |

Both were confirmed empty when this was written — no `vncmail`, `vnc-ca`, or
`stalwart` anything on either cluster. Any reference elsewhere in this repo's
history to a "live sandbox at vncmail.sandbox.vnc.de" was aspirational
(manifests + docs existed, nothing was ever actually applied).

## The storage coupling — the one fact that shapes the scale-out plan

`base/deployment.yaml` mounts 4 PVCs, all `ReadWriteOnce`, `strategy:
Recreate`:

| Dir | Contents | Write pattern |
|---|---|---|
| `settings` | Per-user encrypted settings (AES-256-GCM, keyed by `hash(username:serverUrl)`) — `lib/settings-sync.ts` | Read+write, per-user |
| `admin` (config) | Operator-authored: `config.json`, `policy.json`, admin password hash, plugins, themes, branding uploads | Write-once-ish — can be mounted `:ro` after initial setup (`ADMIN_CONFIG_READONLY=true`, already a supported mode — `lib/admin/paths.ts`) |
| `admin-state` | Runtime mutations: login timestamps, audit log, setup token | Always read-write, low volume |
| `telemetry` | Version-check / usage state | Read+write, low volume |

**This is why the app is single-replica today.** RWO + `Recreate` means one
pod, one node, ever. It's not a bug — it's the correct choice for a
single-sandbox deployment — but it's the first thing that has to change to
run more than one replica, which is why it's the opening move in
[PRODUCTION-SCALE-OUT-PLAN.md](PRODUCTION-SCALE-OUT-PLAN.md).
