| 1 | $Id$ |
| 2 | |
| 3 | |
| 4 | Storing private addressbooks and preferences in a database |
| 5 | ========================================================== |
| 6 | |
| 7 | |
| 8 | On sites with many users you might want to store your user data in a |
| 9 | database instead of in files. This document describes how to configure |
| 10 | SquirrelMail to do this. |
| 11 | |
| 12 | Methods for storing both personal addressbooks and user preferences in |
| 13 | a database is included as a part of the distribution. |
| 14 | |
| 15 | |
| 16 | |
| 17 | Configuring PEAR DB |
| 18 | ------------------- |
| 19 | |
| 20 | For this to work you must have the PEAR classes installed, these are |
| 21 | part of PHP. Once these are installed you must have sure the directory |
| 22 | containg them is a part of your PHP include path. See the PHP |
| 23 | documentation for information on how to do that. |
| 24 | Under Mandrake Linux the PEAR classes are installed as part of the |
| 25 | php-devel package and under FreeBSD they are installed as part of |
| 26 | the mod_php4 or php4 port/package. In Debian, you can install the |
| 27 | php4-pear package. I'm afraid I have no information on |
| 28 | other systems at the present time. |
| 29 | |
| 30 | |
| 31 | Configuring addressbooks in database |
| 32 | ------------------------------------ |
| 33 | |
| 34 | First you need to create a database and a table to store the data in. |
| 35 | Create a database user with access to read and write in that table. |
| 36 | |
| 37 | For MySQL you would normally do something like: |
| 38 | |
| 39 | (from the command line) |
| 40 | # mysqladmin create squirrelmail |
| 41 | |
| 42 | (from the mysql client) |
| 43 | mysql> GRANT select,insert,update,delete ON squirrelmail.* |
| 44 | TO squirreluser@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'sqpassword'; |
| 45 | |
| 46 | The table structure should be similar to this (for MySQL): |
| 47 | |
| 48 | CREATE TABLE address ( |
| 49 | owner varchar(128) DEFAULT '' NOT NULL, |
| 50 | nickname varchar(16) DEFAULT '' NOT NULL, |
| 51 | firstname varchar(128) DEFAULT '' NOT NULL, |
| 52 | lastname varchar(128) DEFAULT '' NOT NULL, |
| 53 | email varchar(128) DEFAULT '' NOT NULL, |
| 54 | label varchar(255), |
| 55 | PRIMARY KEY (owner,nickname), |
| 56 | KEY firstname (firstname,lastname) |
| 57 | ); |
| 58 | |
| 59 | and similar to this for PostgreSQL: |
| 60 | CREATE TABLE "address" ( |
| 61 | "owner" varchar(128) NOT NULL, |
| 62 | "nickname" varchar(16) NOT NULL, |
| 63 | "firstname" varchar(128) NOT NULL, |
| 64 | "lastname" varchar(128) NOT NULL, |
| 65 | "email" varchar(128) NOT NULL, |
| 66 | "label" varchar(255) NOT NULL, |
| 67 | CONSTRAINT "address_pkey" PRIMARY KEY ("nickname", "owner") |
| 68 | ); |
| 69 | CREATE UNIQUE INDEX "address_firstname_key" ON "address" |
| 70 | ("firstname", "lastname"); |
| 71 | |
| 72 | |
| 73 | Next, edit your configuration so that the address book DSN (Data Source |
| 74 | Name) is specified, this can be done using either conf.pl or via the |
| 75 | administration plugin. The DSN should look something like: |
| 76 | |
| 77 | mysql://squirreluser:sqpassword@localhost/squirrelmail or |
| 78 | pgsql://squirreluser:sqpassword@localhost/squirrelmail |
| 79 | |
| 80 | From now on all users' personal addressbooks will be stored in a |
| 81 | database. |
| 82 | |
| 83 | Global address book uses same table format as the one used for personal |
| 84 | address book. You can even use same table, if you don't have user named |
| 85 | 'global'. |
| 86 | |
| 87 | Configuring preferences in database |
| 88 | ----------------------------------- |
| 89 | |
| 90 | This is done in much the same way as it is for storing your address |
| 91 | books in a database. |
| 92 | |
| 93 | The table structure should be similar to this (for MySQL): |
| 94 | |
| 95 | CREATE TABLE userprefs ( |
| 96 | user varchar(128) DEFAULT '' NOT NULL, |
| 97 | prefkey varchar(64) DEFAULT '' NOT NULL, |
| 98 | prefval BLOB DEFAULT '' NOT NULL, |
| 99 | PRIMARY KEY (user,prefkey) |
| 100 | ); |
| 101 | |
| 102 | and for PostgreSQL: |
| 103 | CREATE TABLE "userprefs" ( |
| 104 | "username" varchar(128) NOT NULL, |
| 105 | "prefkey" varchar(64) NOT NULL, |
| 106 | "prefval" text, |
| 107 | CONSTRAINT "userprefs_pkey" PRIMARY KEY ("prefkey", "username") |
| 108 | ); |
| 109 | |
| 110 | Next, edit your configuration so that the preferences DSN (Data Source |
| 111 | Name) is specified, this can be done using either conf.pl or via the |
| 112 | administration plugin. The DSN should look something like: |
| 113 | |
| 114 | mysql://squirreluser:sqpassword@localhost/squirrelmail or |
| 115 | pgsql://squirreluser:sqpassword@localhost/squirrelmail |
| 116 | |
| 117 | Note that when using the above PostgreSQL schema, you also need to change |
| 118 | the prefs_user_field variable in config.php from the default 'user' to |
| 119 | 'username'. |
| 120 | |
| 121 | From now on all users' personal preferences will be stored in a |
| 122 | database. |
| 123 | |
| 124 | Default preferences can be set by altering the $default array in |
| 125 | db_prefs.php. |
| 126 | |
| 127 | Troubleshooting |
| 128 | --------------- |
| 129 | 1. Oversized field values. Preferences are not/can't be saved |
| 130 | |
| 131 | Database fields have size limits. Preference table example sets 128 |
| 132 | character limit to owner field, 64 character limit to preference key |
| 133 | field and 64KB (database BLOB field size) limit to value field. |
| 134 | |
| 135 | If interface tries to insert data without checking field limits, it |
| 136 | can cause data loss or database errors. Table information functions |
| 137 | provided by Pear DB libraries are not accurate and some database |
| 138 | backends don't support them. Since 1.5.1 SquirrelMail provides |
| 139 | configuration options that set allowed field sizes. |
| 140 | |
| 141 | If you see oversized field errors in your error logs - check your |
| 142 | database structure. Issue can be solved by increasing database field |
| 143 | sizes. |
| 144 | |
| 145 | If you want to get more debugging information - check setKey() function |
| 146 | in dbPrefs class. Class is stored in functions/db_prefs.php |