adding phpdoc blocks

[squirrelmail.git] / INSTALL

Installing SquirrelMail
=======================

Table of Contents:
  0.  (QUICK!)   Quick install guide
  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
  6.  (LOCALES)  Translations of SquirrelMail


0. QUICK INSTALL GUIDE
----------------------

Each of these steps is covered in detail below.

- Install webserver and PHP4 (at least 4.1.0).
- Install IMAP server (see docs of that server).
- Unpack the SquirrelMail package in a web-accessible location.
- Select a data-dir and attachment dir, outside the webtree (e.g. in /var).
  The data-dir (for user prefs) should be owned by the user the webserver
  runs as (eg www-data). The attachment dir (for uploading files as
  attachments) should be file mode 0730 and in the same group as the
  webserver.
- Run config/conf.pl from the command line. Use the D option to load
  predefined options for specific IMAP servers, and edit at least the
  Server Settings and General Options (datadir).
- Browse to http://www.example.com/yourwebmaillocation/src/configtest.php
  to test your configuration for common errors.
- Browse to http://www.example.com/yourwebmaillocation/ to log in.


1. CONFIGURE YOUR WEBSERVER TO WORK WITH PHP4
---------------------------------------------

  If your webserver does not already have PHP you must configure it
  to work with PHP. You need at least PHP v4.1.0. SquirrelMail uses
  the standard suffix .php for all PHP4 files.
  
  You can find PHP at http://www.php.net. See the documentation that
  comes with PHP for instructions how to set it up.

  The PHP IMAP extension is NOT neccessary at all (but won't harm)!
  Below is a list of optional PHP extensions:

  --with-ldap     Required for LDAP addressbooks
  --with-mhash    Will improve charset decoding if present
  --with-mysql    For MySQL storage of preferences or addressbooks
  --with-openssl  When you want to use encrypted IMAP connections (TLS)
  
  If you're going to use LDAP in the addressbook, you must compile PHP
  with the LDAP extension. Include the MHASH extension to improve
  performance in character set decoding.

  If you want your users to attach files to their mails, make sure
  File Uploads in php.ini is set to On.


2. SETTING UP IMAP
------------------

  This depends a lot on the server your choose. See the documentation
  that comes with your server.
  
  If you're concerned about people accessing it directly, you can
  limit access to only the IP of the webserver.


3. OBTAINING AND INSTALLING SQUIRRELMAIL
----------------------------------------

  SquirrelMail is constantly being improved. Therefore you should always
  get the newest version around. Look at http://www.squirrelmail.org
  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 bugs).

a. Download SquirrelMail

  Get SquirrelMail from the address above if you do not have it or are
  uncertain if you have the newest version. Untar (again tar xvfz
  filename.tgz) SquirrelMail in a directory that is readable for your
  webserver.

b. Setting up directories

  SquirrelMail uses two directories to store user configuration and
  attachments that are about to be sent. You might want to have these
  directories outside of your web tree.

  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 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:

    $ 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.

  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
  up. It should be owned by another user than the webserver is running
  as (root might be a good choice) and the webserver should have write
  and execute permissions on the directory, but should not have read
  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

  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 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

  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.

  After you've created a configuration, you can use your webbrowser to
  browse to http://your-squirrelmail-location/src/configtest.php.
  This will perform some basic checks on your config to make sure
  everything works like it should.


4. RUNNING SQUIRRELMAIL
-----------------------

  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.


6. TRANSLATIONS
---------------

  In order to use translated versions of SquirrelMail, you need 
  to download and install locale packages that contain translations
  that you want to use with squirrelmail.
  
  Locale packages can be downloaded from SquirrelMail SourceForge
  project page.
  
  http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=311&package_id=110388
  
  Each translation contains install script that copies required files
  into appropriate locations. If you can't run that script, you can extract
  contents of translation packages into your squirrelmail directory.
  
  NOTE No.1: *-src.tar.gz, *-src.tar.bz2 and *-src.zip archives does not contain
  compiled translation files. You will need to run compilelocales script
  in order to get all gettext binary translations.
  
  NOTE No.2: You might need to restart your webserver before using translations.
  If you can't do that, install your translations _before_ you use SquirrelMail.