Self-hosting

Run the same image in your own AWS account. You hold the keys, and you check the running build with the same command everyone else uses.

What you run

The image build and Terraform are in infra/ in the public repository.

Part	What it does
Network load balancer	Passes TCP straight through, with no TLS termination, so it never sees plaintext
EC2 parent instance	Carries encrypted bytes to the enclave, and is treated as untrusted
Nitro Enclave	Runs everything that can see plaintext mail: TLS, the SMTP receiver, provider clients, the rule engine, the OAuth server, the MCP server, the REST API, webhooks and the web app
AWS KMS	Releases keys only to approved measurements
Postgres and S3	Store ciphertext only

What you take on

You’re the operator now, so what the trust model says about the operator applies to you.

• The keys. Pin the KMS policy to the image measurement, PCR0, not the signing certificate. A signing certificate would mean trusting whoever signs.
• The account. Anyone who controls your AWS account can change the key policy. CloudTrail records it, so watch those records.
• Upgrades. Every release changes the measurement. Check that a new one is in the public release log before it receives keys.
• AWS. It stays in the trusted base, as it does on the hosted service.

Connect your mailboxes

Bring your own Google or Microsoft app registration, so the connection belongs to your organisation.

• Google Workspace. Register an internal app in your own Workspace and point it at your deployment. Google’s user data policy says its requirements don’t apply to an app used only within your own domain. Have your legal team confirm how that applies to you.
• Microsoft 365. RBAC for Applications in Exchange Online lets an admin grant an app access to a chosen set of mailboxes. Scoped roles add to any unscoped grant in Entra ID, so remove any unscoped grant first. One left in place cancels the scoping.

Reading employee mail has legal limits

Many countries restrict it, and works councils may have a say. Permaily narrows access and keeps a record, and it doesn’t replace legal advice.

Check your deployment

It’s the same image, so the same command compares it against the same public release log.

permaily verify permaily.example.com

Never run production in debug mode. AWS zeroes the measurements in debug mode, so the check rejects them. See Verifying the build.

Cost

Companies pay to self-host, so talk to us about a plan. You also pay AWS for what you run, and Nitro Enclaves add no charge beyond EC2 and related services.