Installing SquirrelMail

1. Install squirrelmail using the command below.

sudo apt-get install squirrelmail

2. Add SquirrelMail into Apache using the commands below.

sudo cp /etc/squirrelmail/apache.conf /etc/apache2/sites-available/squirrelmail
sudo a2ensite squirrelmail
sudo service apache2 restart

3. If you encounter an error regarding apache being not able to determine the server’s fully qualified domain name, then use the command below to fix it.

echo ServerName $HOSTNAME | sudo tee /etc/apache2/conf.d/servername

4. Launch the SquirrelMail Configuration utility using the command below.

sudo squirrelmail-configure

5. Type in D and press Enter to select the Set pre-defined settings for specific IMAP servers menu. Type in dovecot and press Enter. Save your changes when you are done.

I recommend installing the Retrieve User Data plugin so the user’s name will appear whenever he or she sends an email in SquirrelMail.

6. Launch your browser and type in http://mail.acme.local/squirrelmail. Replace mail.acme.local with your own server name. Type in a valid username and password and click Login.

7. That’s it, it’s working.

If you encounter any problems, check the log file at /var/log/mail.log.

Related Pages

How to customize the login page.

How to secure SquirrelMail using SSL.

How to add a password change utility.

How to add Active Directory/LDAP into the SquirrelMail Addressbook.

Installing SquirrelMail

1. Install the EPEL repository package.

2. Install squirrelmail using the command below.

yum install squirrelmail

3. Start the httpd service. Learn how to start and stop services here.

Configuring SquirrelMail

1. Launch the SquirrelMail Configuration utility using the command below.

/usr/share/squirrelmail/config/conf.pl

If your Terminal window has a white background, make sure that the colors are off by looking for the command Turn color on. If the command is Turn color off, type in C and press Enter to turn the colors off. This will ensure that you will be able to read all of the text.

2. Type in D and press Enter to select the Set pre-defined settings for specific IMAP servers menu. Type in dovecot and press Enter.

3. Type in 2 and press Enter to select the Server Settings menu.

4. Type in 1 and press Enter to select the Domain menu. Type in your domain name and press Enter. Save your changes and quit when you are done.

5. Type the commands below to enable SquirrelMail to function properly under SELinux.

setsebool httpd_can_network_connect on
setsebool httpd_can_sendmail on

I recommend installing the Retrieve User Data plugin so the user’s name will appear whenever he or she sends an email in SquirrelMail.

Testing SquirrelMail

1. Click the browser icon at the top near the System menu to launch the Firefox web browser.

2. In the address box, type in http://localhost/webmail/src/configtest.php and press Enter. Check for any errors.

3. In the address box, type in http://localhost/webmail and press Enter. Type in a valid username and password and click Login.

3. That’s it, it’s working.

If you encounter any problems, check the log file at /var/log/maillog.

Relocating SquirrelMail into the domain root

By default, SquirrelMail is located in the /webmail of your domain. If you prefer to access SquirrelMail from the root of your domain, follow the steps below.

1. Create the file /etc/httpd/conf.d/sqroot.conf containing the lines below.

<VirtualHost *:80>
DocumentRoot /usr/share/squirrelmail
</VirtualHost>

If you are using SSL and you want to force users to use SSL, add the Redirect directive inside the VirtualHost section to redirect browsers to the secured version. See the example below.

redirect permanent / https://mail.acme.local

2. Restart the httpd service. Learn how to restart services here.

3. Now try browsing http://localhost

Related Pages

How to customize the login page.

How to secure SquirrelMail using SSL.

How to add a password change utility.

How to add Active Directory/LDAP into the SquirrelMail Addressbook.

1. Install the requirements using the command below.

yum install mysql-server php-pear-DB

2. Start the mysqld service. Learn how to start and stop services here.

3. Launch the MySQL command line tool using the command below.

mysql -u root -p

The default root password of MySQL is a blank password. Next, create a new MySQL database for SquirrelMail using the commands below.

mysql> CREATE DATABASE squirrelmail;
mysql> CREATE USER squirrelmail@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'your_password';
mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON squirrelmail.* TO squirrelmail;
mysql> USE squirrelmail;
mysql> CREATE TABLE address (
  owner varchar(128) DEFAULT '' NOT NULL,
  nickname varchar(16) DEFAULT '' NOT NULL,
  firstname varchar(128) DEFAULT '' NOT NULL,
  lastname varchar(128) DEFAULT '' NOT NULL,
  email varchar(128) DEFAULT '' NOT NULL,
  label varchar(255),
  PRIMARY KEY (owner,nickname),
  KEY firstname (firstname,lastname)
);
mysql> CREATE TABLE global_abook (
  owner varchar(128) DEFAULT '' NOT NULL,
  nickname varchar(16) DEFAULT '' NOT NULL,
  firstname varchar(128) DEFAULT '' NOT NULL,
  lastname varchar(128) DEFAULT '' NOT NULL,
  email varchar(128) DEFAULT '' NOT NULL,
  label varchar(255),
  PRIMARY KEY (owner,nickname),
  KEY firstname (firstname,lastname)
);

4. Configure SquirrelMail the command below.

/usr/share/squirrelmail/config/conf.pl

Select menu 9, Database and update the values of the following.

• DSN for Address Book : mysql://squirrelmail:password@localhost/squirrelmail
• DSN for Global Address Book : mysql://squirrelmail:password@localhost/squirrelmail
• Allow writing into Global Address Book : true
• Allow listing of Global Address Book : true

Then save your changes. Your address book should now be stored in MySQL.

Configuring SquirrelMail

1. From a Terminal window, type in /usr/share/squirrelmail/config/conf.pl and press Enter. This will launch the SquirrelMail Configuration utility.

If your Terminal window has a white background, make sure that the colors are off by looking for the command Turn color on. If the command is Turn color off, type in C and press Enter to turn the colors off. This will ensure that you will be able to read all of the text.

2. Type in 1 and press Enter to select the Organization Preferences menu.

3. Update the options to suit your needs. For the logo, put it into the /usr/share/squirrelmail/images/ directory. Save your changes when you are done.

4. Try out the result.

Install the SquirrelMail Change Password Plugin

1. Install the Poppassd service.

Poppassd should be installed on the same server where dovecot is installed. And if it is not on the same server as SquirrelMail, then open the poppassd port 106.

2. Connect to your SquirrelMail server and note down its version.

3. Download the Change Passwd 4.2f and Compatibility 2.0.x plugins.

4. Extract the downloaded files and put them into the /usr/share/squirrelmail/plugins directory.

The SquirrelMail Change Password and Compatibility archives has to be extracted directly into the SquirrelMail plugin directory to enable Linux to apply the proper SELinux Context into the files. See the SquirrelMail RetrieveUserData plugin if you need help on how to do it.

5. From a Terminal window, type in /usr/share/squirrelmail/config/conf.pl and press Enter. This will launch the SquirrelMail Configuration utility.

If your Terminal window has a white background, make sure that the colors are off by looking for the command Turn color on. If the command is Turn color off, type in C and press Enter to turn the colors off. This will ensure that you will be able to read all of the text.

6. Type in 8 and press Enter to list the Plugins submenu.

7. Install the change_passwd plugin by typing in the number corresponding to it and press Enter. When you are done, type in q and press Enter to quit then type in y and press Enter to save your changes.

8. If your version of SquirrelMail is not 1.4.13 and higher or 1.5.1 and higher, you need to patch your SquirrelMail source. Go to /usr/share/squirrelmail/plugins/compatibility and apply the compatibility patch by typing in the commands below.

cd /usr/share/squirrelmail/plugins/compatibility/
patch -p0 < patches/compatibility_patch-1.4.8.diff

Replace 1.4.8 with your SquirrelMail version.

9. In the /usr/share/squirrelmail/plugins/change_passwd directory, copy the file config.php.sample and save it as config.php. Edit config.php and review the default settings.

Below are settings in config.php you may wish to change

• $minimumPasswordLength - Minimum length of the password.
• $changePasswdInLogin - Change password from the login form.

Test the SquirrelMail Change Password

1. Login to SquirrelMail and go to the Options page. You should see the new Change Password section.

2. Click the Change Password link to view the new Change Password page.

If you encounter a blank page, check the log file at /var/log/httpd/error_log.

Install the SquirrelMail Postfix Admin Plugin

1. Download the squirrelmail-postfixadmin plugin.

2. Double click the downloaded file to launch the Archive Manager.

3. Click the Extract button to launch the Extract window.

4. Change the destination folder by clicking on Desktop. In the popup menu, select Other….

5. Click the notepad button and in the Location field type in /usr/share/squirrelmail/plugins/ and click Open.

6. Click the Extract button to start extracting.

The SquirrelMail PostfixAdmin archive has to be extracted directly into the SquirrelMail plugin directory to enable Linux to apply the proper SELinux Context into the files.

Configure the SquirrelMail Postfix Admin Plugin

If you are not actually using Postfix Admin, make sure you have configured the domain in SquirrelMail.

1. From a Terminal window, type in /usr/share/squirrelmail/config/conf.pl and press Enter. This will launch the SquirrelMail Configuration utility.

If your Terminal window has a white background, make sure that the colors are off by looking for the command Turn color on. If the command is Turn color off, type in C and press Enter to turn the colors off. This will ensure that you will be able to read all of the text.

2. Type in 8 and press Enter to list the Plugins submenu.

3. Install the postfixadmin plugin by typing in the number corresponding to it and press Enter. When you are done, type in q and press Enter to quit then type in y and press Enter to save your changes.

4. Type in the command below to install the required dependency for this plugin.

yum install php-pear-MDB2-Driver-mysql

5. In the /usr/share/squirrelmail/plugins/postfixadmin directory, copy the file config.php.sample and save it as config.php. Edit config.php and set the items below to the same values as your PostfixAdmin configuration.

$CONF['database_host']
$CONF['database_user']
$CONF['database_password']
$CONF['database_name']

The settings $AllowForwarding and $AllowChangePass can be set to true only if you are using Postfix Admin to manage your Postfix mail server.

6. Login to SquirrelMail and click Options, you should now see the new Auto Response section.

7. Congratulations, it works.

The plugin only sets the vacation message of the user, Postfix has to be configured to handle vacation messages.

History

Version 0.9-1.4.3

Released on July 25, 2009
[ download ]

• Fixed the bug that occurs when RetrieveUserData is used with the ChangePassword plugin.

Version 0.9-1.4.2

Released on June 7, 2009
[ download ]

• Domain name for Linux system accounts are now retrieved from the setting in SquirrelMail instead of being derived using the hostname command.
• Added option to disable LDAP referral chasing.

Version 0.9-1.4.1

Released on November 15, 2008
[ download ]

• Fixed Linux system account retrieval by detecting the domain name hostname command.
• Added option to set LDAP protocol version.
• Optimized the settings saving by.

Howtos

How to install the Retrieve User Data plugin in SquirrelMail

Configuring Apache for SSL

1. Generate a certificate using the genkey tool.

2. Edit the file /etc/httpd/conf.d/ssl.conf and edit the lines below.

DocumentRoot /usr/share/squirrelmail
ServerName mail.acme.local:443
SSLCertificateFile /etc/pki/tls/certs/mail.acme.local.cert
SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/pki/tls/private/mail.acme.local.key

If you are using Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 or CentOS 6, the generated certificate file will have a .crt extension instead of .cert.

If you are not using Red Hat Enterprise Linux or CentOS, make sure the lines below are present.

LoadModule ssl_module modules/mod_ssl.so
Listen 443

3. Restart the httpd service. Learn how to restart services here.

4. Try accessing SquirrelMail using https instead of http.

You can force browsers to always use the SSL version. See Relocating SquirrelMail into the domain root.