INSTALL

   1 Installing SquirrelMail
   2 =======================
   3
   4 Table of Contents:
   5   0.  (QUICK!)   Quick install guide
   6   1.  (PHP)      Configure your webserver to work with PHP
   7   2.  (IMAP)     Setting up IMAP (not covered)
   8   3.  (INSTALL)  Obtaining and installing SquirrelMail
   9   4.  (RUN)      Running SquirrelMail
  10   5.  (CHARSETS) Russian Charsets
  11   6.  (LOCALES)  Translations of SquirrelMail
  12   7.  (PLUGINS)  Installation of included plugins
  13
  14
  15 0. QUICK INSTALL GUIDE
  16 ----------------------
  17
  18 Each of these steps is covered in detail below.
  19
  20 - Install webserver and PHP (at least 4.1.0).
  21 - Install IMAP server (see docs of that server).
  22 - Unpack the SquirrelMail package in a web-accessible location.
  23 - Select a data-dir and attachment dir, outside the webtree (e.g. in /var).
  24   The data-dir (for user prefs) should be owned by the user the webserver
  25   runs as (e.g. www-data). The attachment dir (for uploading files as
  26   attachments) should be file mode 0730 and in the same group as the
  27   webserver.
  28 - Run config/conf.pl from the command line. Use the D option to load
  29   predefined options for specific IMAP servers, and edit at least the
  30   Server Settings and General Options (datadir).
  31 - Browse to http://www.example.com/yourwebmaillocation/src/configtest.php
  32   to test your configuration for common errors.
  33 - Browse to http://www.example.com/yourwebmaillocation/ to log in.
  34
  35
  36 1. CONFIGURE YOUR WEBSERVER TO WORK WITH PHP
  37 --------------------------------------------
  38
  39   If your webserver does not already have PHP you must configure it
  40   to work with PHP. You need at least PHP v4.1.0. SquirrelMail uses
  41   the standard suffix .php for all PHP files.
  42
  43   You can find PHP at http://www.php.net. See the documentation that
  44   comes with PHP for instructions how to set it up.
  45
  46   The PHP IMAP extension is NOT necessary at all (but won't harm)!
  47   Below is a list of optional PHP extensions:
  48
  49   --with-ldap
  50     Required for LDAP addressbooks
  51
  52   --with-pear and --with-mysql
  53     For MySQL storage of preferences or addressbooks. You will need PHP
  54     compiled with --with-pgsql option, if you want to use PostgreSQL instead
  55     of MySQL. You will need PHP with appropriate database extension, if you
  56     want to use any other database.
  57
  58   --with-openssl
  59     Required for encrypted IMAP or SMTP connections (TLS)
  60
  61   --with-mcrypt
  62     Can be used by SquirrelSpell plugin for encryption of personal
  63     dictionaries
  64
  65   --with-iconv or --with-recode
  66     Can be used by Eastern charset decoding functions
  67
  68   --enable-mbstring
  69     Required for Japanese translation. Optional for translations that
  70     use non-ISO-8859-1 charset
  71
  72   If you want your users to attach files to their mails, make sure
  73   File Uploads in php.ini is set to On.
  74
  75
  76 2. SETTING UP IMAP
  77 ------------------
  78
  79   This depends a lot on the server your choose. See the documentation
  80   that comes with your server.
  81
  82   If you're concerned about people accessing it directly, you can
  83   limit access to only the IP of the webserver.
  84
  85
  86 3. OBTAINING AND INSTALLING SQUIRRELMAIL
  87 ----------------------------------------
  88
  89   SquirrelMail is constantly being improved. Therefore you should always
  90   get the newest version around. Look at http://www.squirrelmail.org
  91   to see what it is. If you want to be bleeding edge you might want to
  92   consider using the latest CVS version (with the latest and most
  93   fashionable bugs).
  94
  95 a. Download SquirrelMail
  96
  97   Get SquirrelMail from the address above if you do not have it or are
  98   uncertain if you have the newest version. Untar (again tar xvfz
  99   filename.tgz) SquirrelMail in a directory that is readable for your
 100   webserver.
 101
 102 b. Setting up directories
 103
 104   SquirrelMail uses two directories to store user configuration and
 105   attachments that are about to be sent. You might want to have these
 106   directories outside of your web tree.
 107
 108   The data directory is used for storing user preferences, like
 109   signature, name and theme. You need to create this directory yourself.
 110   Recommended location is under /var, for example:
 111   /var/local/squirrelmail/data
 112   This directory must be writable by the webserver. If your webserver is
 113   running as the user "nobody" and group "nobody" you can fix this by
 114   running:
 115
 116     $ chown -R nobody:nobody /path/to/your/datadir
 117
 118   Keep in mind that with different installations, the web server could
 119   typically run as userid/groupid of nobody/nobody, nobody/nogroup,
 120   apache/apache or www-data/www-data.  The best way to find out is to read
 121   the web server's configuration file.
 122
 123   There also needs to be a directory where attachments are stored
 124   before they are sent. Since personal mail is stored in this
 125   directory you might want to be a bit careful about how you set it
 126   up. It should be owned by another user than the webserver is running
 127   as (root might be a good choice) and the webserver should have write
 128   and execute permissions on the directory, but should not have read
 129   permissions. You could do this by running these commands (still
 130   granted that the webserver is running as nobody/nobody)
 131
 132     $ cd /var/some/place
 133     $ mkdir SomeDirectory
 134     $ chgrp -R nobody SomeDirectory
 135     $ chmod 730 SomeDirectory
 136
 137   If you trust all the users on you system not to read mail they are
 138   not supposed to read, you can simply use /tmp as you attachments
 139   directory.
 140
 141   If a user is aborting a mail but has uploaded some attachments to it
 142   the files will be lying around in this directory forever if you do not
 143   remove them.  To fix this, it is recommended to create a cron job that
 144   deletes everything in the attachment directory.  Something similar
 145   to the following will be good enough:
 146
 147     $ cd /var/local/squirrelmail/attach
 148     $ rm -f *
 149
 150   However, this will delete attachments that are currently in use by people
 151   sending email when the cron job runs.  You can either (1) make sure that
 152   the cron job runs at an obscure hour and hope that nobody gets upset, or
 153   (2) you can run a modified version of the commands above.  Check out the
 154   man pages for other commands such as 'find' or 'tmpreaper'.
 155
 156   One sample script you could set up that would erase all attachments, but
 157   wouldn't erase preferences, address books, or the like (just in case your
 158   attachment directory is the same as your data directory) might look like
 159   this:
 160
 161     $ rm `find /var/local/squirrelmail/attach -atime +2 | grep -v "\." | grep -v _`
 162
 163   Remember to be careful with whatever method you do use, and to test out
 164   the command before it potentially wipes out everyone's preferences.
 165
 166 c. Setting up SquirrelMail
 167
 168   There are three ways to configure SquirrelMail.  In the config/ directory,
 169   there is a perl script called conf.pl that will aid you in the
 170   configuration process.  This is the recommended way of handling
 171   the config.
 172
 173   There's also a plugin called 'administrator' for the webinterface but you'll
 174   have to be able to at least log in to SquirrelMail first.
 175
 176   You can also copy the config/config_default.php file to config/config.php
 177   and edit that manually.
 178
 179   After you've created a configuration, you can use your webbrowser to
 180   browse to http://your-squirrelmail-location/src/configtest.php.
 181   This will perform some basic checks on your config to make sure
 182   everything works like it should.
 183
 184
 185 4. RUNNING SQUIRRELMAIL
 186 -----------------------
 187
 188   Point your browser at the URL at which SquirrelMail is installed.  A
 189   possible example of this is:
 190      http://www.example.com/squirrelmail
 191
 192   It should be pretty straight forward to use. Some more documentation
 193   might show up one day or another.
 194
 195
 196 5. RUSSIAN CHARSETS
 197 -------------------
 198
 199   For information on how to make SquirrelMail work with Russian
 200   Apache, see the russian_apache.txt in the doc/ subdirectory.
 201
 202
 203 6. TRANSLATIONS
 204 ---------------
 205
 206   In order to use translated versions of SquirrelMail, you need
 207   to download and install locale packages that contain translations
 208   that you want to use with SquirrelMail.
 209
 210   Locale packages can be downloaded from SquirrelMail SourceForge
 211   project page.
 212
 213      http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=311&package_id=110388
 214
 215   Each translation contains an install script that copies the required files
 216   into their appropriate locations. If you can't run that script, you can
 217   extract the contents of a translation package into your SquirrelMail
 218   directory.
 219
 220   NOTE No.1: *-src.tar.gz, *-src.tar.bz2 and *-src.zip archives do not contain
 221   compiled translation files. You will need to run the "compilelocales" script
 222   in order to get all gettext binary translations.
 223
 224   NOTE No.2: You might need to restart your webserver before using translations.
 225   If you can't do that, install your translations _before_ you use SquirrelMail.
 226
 227
 228 7. PLUGINS
 229 ----------
 230
 231   The SquirrelMail package includes some standard plugins. These plugins can be
 232   enabled in the SquirrelMail configuration script.
 233
 234   Included plugins can use additional configuration files:
 235   * change_password
 236     configuration file is required. Without it plugin defaults to invalid
 237     backend. See plugins/change_password/README
 238   * filters, fortune, mail_fetch, newmail, translate
 239     configuration files are optional. See README files in plugin directories.
 240   * squirrelspell
 241     configuration is stored in plugins/squirrelspell/sqspell_config.php
 242     Default configuration might not work on your server.
 243   * administrator
 244     plugin must be setup correctly in order to detect administrative user.
 245     See plugins/administrator/INSTALL