Mailinabox Email Mail-in-a-Box

Name: Mail-in-a-Box API
Brand: Mail-in-a-Box
Availability: InStock

✓ Official Vendor SpecDeveloper ToolsMonitoring Observabilitybasic49 EndpointsREST

For Agents

Administer a self-hosted Mail-in-a-Box server through 49 endpoints — manage mail users, DNS records, SSL certificates, system updates, and backups without SSHing into the box.

Install Jentic One Beta

Connect the Mail-in-a-Box to your agent

Jentic One is a self-hosted execution layer for AI agents. It lets your agent call the Mail-in-a-Box, or any other public or private API you need. You set the rules, the agent never sees your credentials, and every call is logged.

Two steps, two machines. Install the instance in a safe environment, then register your agent from wherever it runs.

Step 1: Jentic One Host machine

# On the machine that will host your Jentic One instance:
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jentic/jentic-one/main/tools/install.sh | sh

Step 2: Agent machine

# On the machine where your agent runs (keep this separate from the instance):
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jentic/jentic-one/main/tools/install.sh | sh
jentic register       # connects your agent to your Jentic One instance

Jentic One is in public beta. The setup above keeps your agent separate from the instance, which is what you want before using real credentials: an agent running as the same OS user as Jentic One can read its stored keys directly. Just evaluating? A single local install is fine to start. See the secure deployment guide for the tiers.

Capabilities

What an agent can do with Mail-in-a-Box API.

Add, remove, and set passwords for mail users on a Mail-in-a-Box server

Grant or revoke admin privileges through the user-privileges endpoints

Manage DNS custom A, MX, TXT, and other records on hosted zones

GET STARTED

Start building with Mail-in-a-Box API

Explore with Jentic

View OpenAPI Document

Use Cases

Patterns agents use Mail-in-a-Box API for, with concrete tasks.

★ Self-Hosted Mail User Provisioning

Provision and deprovision mail users on a self-hosted Mail-in-a-Box server through the admin API rather than the web console. Endpoints under /mail/users cover add, remove, password reset, and privilege grant operations, which lets a small team or homelab manage its mail server from CI or a chat-ops bot. Each call uses HTTP Basic against the admin endpoint at /admin.

POST /mail/users/add with email=alice@example.com and password set to a generated value, then POST /mail/users/privileges/add to grant admin if needed.

DNS and SSL Lifecycle

Manage DNS records and SSL certificates for the domains hosted on a Mail-in-a-Box without leaving the API. The /dns/custom endpoints support add, update, and remove for any record type while /ssl/provision triggers Let's Encrypt provisioning across the hosted domains. POST /dns/update applies pending DNS changes to the live nameserver.

POST /ssl/provision to provision certificates, then GET /ssl/status to confirm every hosted domain has a current certificate.

System Maintenance Automation

Automate routine maintenance on a small fleet of Mail-in-a-Box instances by calling /system/status to gather health, /system/updates to identify pending package updates, and /system/update-packages to apply them. The /system/reboot endpoints schedule a controlled reboot when kernel updates require it.

Call POST /system/status, then if the response flags pending updates, POST /system/update-packages and confirm completion with GET /system/version.

Agent-Driven Mail Server Operations

An AI agent can run end-to-end Mail-in-a-Box operations through Jentic: add a new user, provision an SSL cert, and update the backup config in one chained workflow. The basic-auth credentials live in the Jentic vault and the agent works against the published admin endpoints without ever seeing the raw password.

Add a new mail user via POST /mail/users/add, set their password through POST /mail/users/password, and confirm the addition by checking GET /mail/users.

Key Endpoints

49 endpoints — mail-in-a-box is an open-source self-hosted mail server that bundles smtp, imap, webmail, dns, and tls into a single ubuntu install.

METHOD

PATH

DESCRIPTION

POST

/mail/users/add

Add a mail user

POST

/mail/users/password

Set a mail user password

POST

/dns/custom/{qname}/{rtype}

Add a custom DNS record

POST

/ssl/provision

Provision SSL certificates via Let's Encrypt

POST

/system/update-packages

Update system packages

GET

/system/status

Get full system status

POST

/login

Exchange username and password for a session API key

POST

/mail/users/add

Add a mail user

POST

/mail/users/password

Set a mail user password

POST

/dns/custom/{qname}/{rtype}

Add a custom DNS record

POST

/ssl/provision

Provision SSL certificates via Let's Encrypt

POST

/system/update-packages

Update system packages

Why Jentic?

Three things that make agents converge on Jentic-routed access.

Credential isolation

Mail-in-a-Box admin credentials are stored encrypted in the Jentic vault. Agents receive a scoped basic-auth token at execution time, and MFA tokens (x-auth-token) can be supplied alongside without entering agent context.

Intent-based discovery

Agents search Jentic by intent (e.g., "add a mail user") and Jentic returns POST /mail/users/add with its input schema, so the agent calls the right endpoint without reading the Mail-in-a-Box reference.

Time to first call

Direct integration: 1-2 days to handle basic auth, MFA token, and the 49-endpoint surface. Through Jentic: under 1 hour — search, load, execute.

FAQs

Specific to using Mail-in-a-Box API through Jentic.

What authentication does the Mail-in-a-Box API use?

Mail-in-a-Box uses HTTP Basic authentication via the basicAuth scheme. If MFA is enabled, supply a one-time password in the x-auth-token header alongside Basic credentials. POST /login returns a session API key that can replace the password on subsequent calls. Through Jentic the credentials are stored encrypted in the vault.

Can I add mail users through the API?

Yes. POST /mail/users/add creates a new mail user with email and password fields, and POST /mail/users/privileges/add grants admin rights. POST /mail/users/password resets the password for an existing user, and POST /mail/users/remove deletes the account.

What are the rate limits for the Mail-in-a-Box API?

Mail-in-a-Box is self-hosted, so admin throughput is bounded by the resources of the box itself rather than a vendor-imposed rate limit. The OpenAPI spec does not declare a per-second cap. Long-running operations such as /system/update-packages should be polled rather than retried aggressively.

How do I provision an SSL certificate through Jentic?

Search Jentic for "provision ssl mail in a box" to load POST /ssl/provision, then execute against your admin host. Follow up with GET /ssl/status to confirm a current certificate is in place for every hosted domain.

Is Mail-in-a-Box free?

Yes. Mail-in-a-Box is open-source software released under CC0. There is no licence fee — you only pay for the VPS or hardware that runs the box and any domain or DNS costs.

Can I trigger DNS updates from the API?

Yes. POST /dns/update applies pending DNS changes to the live nameserver, and the /dns/custom endpoints add, update, or remove individual records. Use GET /dns/dump to inspect the full zonefile state for debugging.

Mailinabox Email Mail-in-a-Box

Connect the Mail-in-a-Box to your agent

Capabilities

Start building with Mail-in-a-Box API

Use Cases

Key Endpoints

Why Jentic?

Related APIs

FAQs