doc/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://example.com/yourwebmaillocation/src/configtest.php
  32   to test your configuration for common errors.
  33 - Browse to http://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://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   It is highly advised to NOT turn on register_globals, as this can lead
  73   to security holes. If you must use register_globals for some applications,
  74   turn it on locally for only those directories, or turn it off for the
  75   SquirrelMail folder.
  76   If you want your users to attach files to their mails, make sure
  77   File Uploads in php.ini is set to On.
  78
  79
  80 2. SETTING UP IMAP
  81 ------------------
  82
  83   This depends a lot on the server your choose. See the documentation
  84   that comes with your server.
  85
  86   If you're concerned about people accessing it directly, you can
  87   limit access to only the IP of the webserver.
  88
  89
  90 3. OBTAINING AND INSTALLING SQUIRRELMAIL
  91 ----------------------------------------
  92
  93   SquirrelMail is constantly being improved. Therefore you should always
  94   get the newest version around. Look at http://squirrelmail.org
  95   to see what it is. If you want to be bleeding edge you might want to
  96   consider using the latest SVN version (with the latest and most
  97   fashionable bugs).
  98
  99 a. Download SquirrelMail
 100
 101   Get SquirrelMail from the address above if you do not have it or are
 102   uncertain if you have the newest version. Untar (again tar xvfz
 103   filename.tgz) SquirrelMail in a directory that is readable for your
 104   webserver.
 105
 106 b. Setting up directories
 107
 108   SquirrelMail uses two directories to store user configuration and
 109   attachments that are about to be sent. You might want to have these
 110   directories outside of your web tree.
 111
 112   The data directory is used for storing user preferences, like
 113   signature, name and theme. You need to create this directory yourself.
 114   Recommended location is under /var, for example:
 115   /var/local/squirrelmail/data
 116   This directory must be writable by the webserver. If your webserver is
 117   running as the user "nobody" and group "nobody" you can fix this by
 118   running:
 119
 120     $ chown -R nobody:nobody /var/local/squirrelmail/data
 121
 122   Keep in mind that with different installations, the web server could
 123   typically run as userid/groupid of nobody/nobody, nobody/nogroup,
 124   apache/apache or www-data/www-data.  The best way to find out is to read
 125   the web server's configuration file.
 126
 127   There also needs to be a directory where attachments are stored
 128   before they are sent. Since personal mail is stored in this
 129   directory you might want to be a bit careful about how you set it
 130   up. It should be owned by another user than the webserver is running
 131   as (root might be a good choice) and the webserver should have directory
 132   write and execute permissions, but should not have read
 133   permissions. You could do this by running these commands (still
 134   granted that the webserver is running as nobody/nobody):
 135
 136     $ cd /var/local/squirrelmail/
 137     $ mkdir attach
 138     $ chgrp -R nobody attach
 139     $ chmod 730 attach
 140
 141   If you trust all the users at your system not to read mail they are
 142   not supposed to read, you can simply use /tmp as you attachments
 143   directory.
 144
 145   If a user is aborting a mail but has uploaded some attachments to it
 146   the files will be lying around in this directory forever if you do not
 147   remove them.  To fix this, it is recommended to create a cron job that
 148   deletes everything in the attachment directory.  Something similar
 149   to the following will be good enough:
 150
 151     $ cd /var/local/squirrelmail/attach && rm -f *
 152
 153   However, this will delete attachments that are currently in use by people
 154   sending email when the cron job runs.  You can either (1) make sure that
 155   the cron job runs at an obscure hour and hope that nobody gets upset, or
 156   (2) you can run a modified version of the commands above.  Check out the
 157   man pages for other commands such as 'find' or 'tmpreaper'.
 158
 159   One sample script you could set up that would erase all attachments, but
 160   wouldn't erase preferences, address books, or the like (just in case your
 161   attachment directory is the same as your data directory) might look like
 162   this:
 163
 164     $ find /var/local/squirrelmail/attach -type f -atime +2 -exec rm {} \;
 165
 166   Remember to be careful with whatever method you do use, and to test out
 167   the command before it potentially wipes out everyone's preferences.
 168
 169 c. Setting up SquirrelMail
 170
 171   There are three ways to configure SquirrelMail.  In the config/ directory,
 172   there is a perl script called conf.pl that will aid you in the
 173   configuration process.  This is the recommended way of handling
 174   the config.
 175
 176   There's also a plugin called 'administrator' for the webinterface but you'll
 177   have to be able to at least log in to SquirrelMail first.
 178
 179   You can also copy the config/config_default.php file to config/config.php
 180   and edit that manually.
 181
 182   After you've created a configuration, you can use your webbrowser to
 183   browse to http://your-squirrelmail-location/src/configtest.php.
 184   This will perform some basic checks on your configuration to make sure
 185   everything works like it should.
 186
 187
 188 4. RUNNING SQUIRRELMAIL
 189 -----------------------
 190
 191   Point your browser at the URL at which SquirrelMail is installed.  A
 192   possible example of this is:
 193      http://example.com/squirrelmail
 194
 195   It should be pretty straight forward to use. Some more documentation
 196   might show up one day or another.
 197
 198
 199 5. RUSSIAN CHARSETS
 200 -------------------
 201
 202   For information on how to make SquirrelMail work with Russian
 203   Apache, see the russian_apache.txt in the doc/ subdirectory.
 204
 205
 206 6. TRANSLATIONS
 207 ---------------
 208
 209   In order to use translated versions of SquirrelMail, you need
 210   to download and install locale packages that contain translations
 211   that you want to use with SquirrelMail.
 212
 213   Locale packages can be downloaded from SquirrelMail SourceForge
 214   project page.
 215
 216      http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=311&package_id=110388
 217
 218   Each translation contains an install script that copies the required files
 219   into their appropriate locations. If you can't run that script, you can
 220   extract the contents of a translation package into your SquirrelMail
 221   directory.
 222
 223   NOTE No.1: *-src.tar.gz, *-src.tar.bz2 and *-src.zip archives do not contain
 224   compiled translation files. You will need to run the "compilelocales" script
 225   in order to get all gettext binary translations.
 226
 227   NOTE No.2: You might need to restart your webserver before using translations.
 228   If you can't do that, install your translations _before_ you use SquirrelMail.
 229
 230
 231 7. PLUGINS
 232 ----------
 233
 234   The SquirrelMail package includes some standard plugins. These plugins can be
 235   enabled in the SquirrelMail configuration script.
 236
 237   Included plugins can use additional configuration files:
 238   * change_password
 239     configuration file is required. Without it plugin defaults to invalid
 240     backend. See plugins/change_password/README
 241   * filters, fortune, mail_fetch, newmail, translate
 242     configuration files are optional. See README files in plugin directories.
 243   * squirrelspell
 244     configuration is stored in plugins/squirrelspell/sqspell_config.php
 245     The default configuration might not work at your server.
 246   * administrator
 247     plugin must be setup correctly in order to detect administrative user.
 248     See plugins/administrator/INSTALL