+Installing SquirrelMail
+=======================
+
+Table of Contents:
+ 1. (PHP4) Configure your webserver to work with PHP4
+ 2. (IMAP) Setting up IMAP (not covered)
+ 3. (INSTALL) Obtaining and installing SquirrelMail
+ 4. (RUN) Running SquirrelMail
+ 5. (CHARSETS) Russian Charsets
+
+
+
+
1. CONFIGURE YOUR WEBSERVER TO WORK WITH PHP4
---------------------------------------------
to run as CGI under Apache. How you end up doing this is up to you
(your mileage may vary).
+ NOTE: The new plugin architecture required the use of some functions
+ which are not in all versions of PHP4. You will need at least
+ PHP4 v4.0.2. If you need to upgrade please go ahead and install the
+ latest release version of PHP4.
+
a. Obtaining and compiling PHP4
Point your favorite webserver at http://www.php.net/version4/ and
You might also want to read the INSTALL file in the PHP-distribution
:-)
-b. Setting up .php files to use PHP4
+b. Changing php.ini
+
+ PHP defaults to look for php.ini (PHP's configuration file) in
+ /usr/local/lib. However, for security reasons, it is suggested
+ that the location of this file is changed to someplace else. This
+ can be done at configure time with the configuration directive
+ --with-config-file-path=PATH.
+
+ Edit the php.ini file and make sure session.use_cookies is 1. Also
+ be sure to change the session.save_path to someplace that can only
+ be read and written to by the webserver. session.save_path is the
+ location that PHP's session data will be written to.
+
+ Squirrelmail 1.2.x also requires register_globals to be enabled.
+
+ SECURITY WARNING - If a user has access to write PHP scripts on your
+ system and knows the location where PHP stores session data, he
+ could get a listing of the sessions being used and then read a given
+ session's data with his own PHP script. Caution should be used when
+ setting up permissions and locations of php.ini and the session data.
+
+ FILE UPLOADS - Note that sending messages will not work if your
+ "file_uploads" setting is "Off". Squirrelmail requires that setting
+ enabled in order to work.
+
+c. Setting up .php files to use PHP4
You need to create a .htaccess file in you SquirrelMail directory
that looks something like this:
You could also add these lines to your Apache configuration file.
-c. Running into trouble
+d. Running into trouble
Setting up Apache with PHP4 can be a non-trivial task. Read the PHP4
and Apache documentation carefully if you run into trouble. If you
SquirrelMail is still under development. Therefore you should always
get the newest version around. Look at
- http://squirrelmail.sourceforge.net/index.php3?page=5 to see what it
+ http://www.squirrelmail.org/index.php3?page=5 to see what it
is. If you want to be bleeding edge you might want to consider using
the latest CVS version (with the latest and most fashionable of
bugs).
The data directory is used for storing user preferences, like
signature, name and theme. When unpacking the sources this directory
- is created as data/ in you SquirrelMail directory. This directory
+ is created as data/ in your SquirrelMail directory. This directory
must be writable by the webserver. If your webserver is running as
- the user nobody you can fix this by running:
+ the user "nobody" you can fix this by running:
+
+ $ chown -R nobody data
+ $ chgrp -R nobody data
+
+ Keep in mind that with different installations, the web server could
+ typically run as userid/groupid of nobody/nobody, nobody/nogroup,
+ apache/apache or www-data/www-data. The best way to find out is to read
+ the web server's configuration file.
- chown -R nobody data
- chgrp -R nobody data
-
There also needs to be a directory where attachments are stored
before they are sent. Since personal mail is stored in this
directory you might want to be a bit careful about how you set it
permissions. You could do this by running these commands (still
granted that the webserver is running as nobody/nobody)
- cd /var/some/place
- mkdir SomeDirectory
- chgrp -R nobody SomeDirectory
- chmod 730 SomeDirectory
+ $ cd /var/some/place
+ $ mkdir SomeDirectory
+ $ chgrp -R nobody SomeDirectory
+ $ chmod 730 SomeDirectory
If you trust all the users on you system not to read mail they are
not supposed to read change the last line to chmod 777 SomeDirectory
- or simply use /tmp as you attachments directory. If a user is
- aborting a mail but has uploaded som attachments to it the files
- will be lying around in this directory forever if you do not remove
- them.
+ or simply use /tmp as you attachments directory.
+
+ If a user is aborting a mail but has uploaded some attachments to it
+ the files will be lying around in this directory forever if you do not
+ remove them. To fix this, it is recommended to create a cron job that
+ deletes everything in the attachment directory. Something similar
+ to the following will be good enough:
+
+ $ cd /var/attach/directory
+ $ rm -f *
+
+ However, this will delete attachments that are currently in use by people
+ sending email when the cron job runs. You can either (1) make sure that
+ the cron job runs at an obscure hour and hope that nobody gets upset, or
+ (2) you can run a modified version of the commands above. Check out the
+ man pages for other commands such as 'find' or 'tmpreaper'.
+
+ One sample script you could set up that would erase all attachments, but
+ wouldn't erase preferences, address books, or the like (just in case your
+ attachment directory is the same as your data directory) might look like
+ this:
+
+ $ rm `find /var/attach/directory -atime +2 | grep -v "\." | grep -v _`
+
+ Remember to be careful with whatever method you do use, and to test out
+ the command before it potentially wipes out everyone's preferences.
c. Setting up SquirrelMail
- All configuration directives you need to worry about in SquirrelMail
- is in the file config/config.php in you SquirrelMail directory. This
- file is pretty well commented.
+ There are two ways to configure Squirrelmail. In the config/ directory,
+ there is a perl script called conf.pl that will aid you in the
+ configuration process. This is the recommended way of handling
+ the config.
+
+ You can also copy the config/config_default.php file to config/config.php
+ and edit that manually.
4. RUNNING SQUIRRELMAIL
-----------------------
- Point your browser at the URL at which SquirrelMail is installed. It
- should be pretty stright forward to use. Some more documentation
- might show up onbe day or another.
+ Point your browser at the URL at which SquirrelMail is installed. A
+ possible example of this is:
+ http://www.yourdomain.com/squirrelmail
+
+ It should be pretty straight forward to use. Some more documentation
+ might show up one day or another.
+
+
+5. RUSSIAN CHARSETS
+-------------------
+
+ For information on how to make SquirrelMail work with Russian
+ Apache, see the README.russian_apache in the doc/ subdirectory.