Install Reacher in 20min

Reacher is designed for seamless self-hosting, giving you full control over its operation on your infrastructure. This guide demonstrates how to install and run Reacher on your local computer in under 20 minutes, using a Dockerfile that is provided you as part of the Commercial License Trial.

Prerequisites

• An account on https://reacher.email (required for the Commercial License Trial and access to the Dockerfile).

• Docker installed on your system (follow the Docker installation guide for your OS).

Tutorial Scope: Install Reacher on your local computer

Reacher’s stateless architecture enables easy horizontal scaling by deploying multiple containers, each running a Reacher instance for parallel email verifications. However, for simplicity, this tutorial focuses on a local installation. A further section focuses on Scaling for Production.

The provided Dockerfile includes a pre-configured proxy, resolving the common ISP restriction on outgoing requests to port 25 used by Reacher to perform SMTP verifications.

Understand the features and limitations of the Commercial License Trial.

The Dockerfile provided as part of the Commercial License Trial is designed to enable quick setup for email verifications. Below are its key features and limitations:

• Built-in Proxy Configuration: we use Proxy4Smtp, a 3rd-party proxy with carefully maintained IPs optimized for SMTP verifications. This ensures reliable email verification even in cloud environments with restricted SMTP access. Learn more in Proxies.

• Daily Verification Limit: capped at 60 per minute at 10,000 per day.

• Usage Tracking: verification results are anonymized and sent back to Reacher, and used to monitor daily usage and detect potential abuse.

You can also read more in Commercial License Trial.

Step-by-Step Tutorial

1. Navigate to the Commercial License Trial tab of your Reacher Dashboard (go there directly). You'll see a command to run Reacher's latest (v0.10) Docker image:

docker run -e RCH__COMMERCIAL_LICENSE_TRIAL__API_TOKEN=<YOUR_UNIQUE_TOKEN> -p 8080:8080 reacherhq/commercial-license-trial:latest # v0.10

Replace <YOUR_UNIQUE_TOKEN> with your unique API token shown in the dashboard.

Expected output:

2024-09-19T12:58:32.918254Z  INFO reacher: Running Reacher version="0.10.0"
Starting ChromeDriver 124.0.6367.78 (a087f2dd364ddd58b9c016ef1bf563d2bc138711-refs/branch-heads/6367@{#954}) on port 9515
Only local connections are allowed.
Please see https://chromedriver.chromium.org/security-considerations for suggestions on keeping ChromeDriver safe.
ChromeDriver was started successfully.
2024-09-19T12:58:32.976589Z  INFO reacher: Server is listening host=0.0.0.0 port=80

If you see an error message, such as Error: missing field `api_token`, double-check the -e RCH__COMMERCIAL_LICENSE_TRIAL__API_TOKEN flag you passed. If you see other errors, either try Debugging Reacher or send an email to [e-mail].

Advanced users can also set additional Reacher Configuration.

1. Verify an email by running the following command in another terminal.

curl -X POST \
	-H'Content-Type: application/json' \
	-d'{"to_email":"[e-mail]"}' \
	http://localhost:8080/v1/check_email

Advanced users can pass additional configuration fields to the /v1/check_email endpoint.

1. If successful, you'll see JSON object with an is_reachable field.

{
    "input": "[e-mail]",
    "is_reachable": "safe",
    // --snip--
}

You can read more about all the fields in Understanding "is_reachable".

If this step hangs for a long time, or returns a JSON result with is_reachable="unknown", see Debugging Reacheron how to fix this.

If you go back to check the terminal with the Docker command, you should see corresponding logs:

// --snip--
2024-12-15T11:33:36.169891Z  INFO reacher: Starting verification email="[e-mail]"
2024-12-15T11:33:45.015130Z  INFO reacher: Done verification email="[e-mail]" is_reachable=Safe

Congratulations! You just successfully verified an email from your computer. Now it's time to think about Scaling for Production.

Troubleshooting

If you have any issue in one of the steps above, you can try Debugging Reacheryourself, or send me an email [e-mail].