doc/INSTALL

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