Postal

Postal is a push notification server for various mobile platforms.

Requirements

Add device for notifications.
Remove device from notifications.
Query devices for a particular user id.
Deliver a notification to one or more devices.
Deliver a notification to all devices matching a query.

Features

JSON API over HTTP.
Support for APS devices.
Support for C2DM devices.
Support for GCM devices.
Optimizations in message delivery to coalesce and aggregate when possible.
Doesn't require client side libraries, just use native platform libraries.

Upcoming Features

Avoid duplicate sending of notifications with coallese key.
Queue notification delivery until the devices registered sleep time has elapsed.
Act as a MongoDB server for alternative failover scenarios.

Important Notes

This server is meant to be installed behind your firewall. It does not perform authentication for your users. You do that in your API and then communicate with Postal internally.

Installation

Requirements

gobject >= 2.32
libsoup >= 2.26
json-glib >= 0.14

Optional

hiredis for metrics delivery

Linux

Installation from release

TODO: Update for first release

Installation from git

git clone https://github.com/catch/postal.git
cd postal
./autogen.sh --enable-silent-rules --enable-debug=minimum --enable-trace=no
make
make install

REST API

TODO: Describe REST API.

Add Device

$ cat device.json
{
  "device_type": "aps",
  "device_token": "1212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212",
  "user": "012345678901234567890123"
}
$ curl -i -X PUT http://localhost:5300/v1/users/012345678901234567890123/devices/1212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212 --data-binary @device.json
HTTP/1.1 201 Created
Server: Postal/0.1.0
Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2012 02:46:33 GMT
Location: /v1/users/012345678901234567890123/devices/1212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212
Content-Type: application/json
Content-Length: 217

{
  "device_token" : "1212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212",
  "device_type" : "aps",
  "user" : "012345678901234567890123",
  "created_at" : "2012-12-18T02:46:33Z",
  "removed_at" : null
}

Remove Device

$ curl -i -X DELETE http://localhost:5300/v1/users/012345678901234567890123/devices/1212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212121212
HTTP/1.1 204 No Content
Server: Postal/0.1.0
Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2012 02:49:21 GMT
Content-Type: application/json
Content-Length: 0