A successful QMR Qmail installation requires certain packages be installed and certain configurations be present on your server. I've put together this page to provide a general checklist for visitors to use before they begin the installation. Keep in mind that, since setups will vary from server to server, you may find some requirements that are not listed here. This list is by no means a finished list, so if you find a requirement that you feel is vital and is not present on this page, please feel free to let me know.

How much disk space should I have available on my server?

The following is a GENERAL estimate. Acutal needs may vary from person to person and machine to machine.

A safe amount of disk space would be about 80-90MB. This includes the download of the qmailrocks.tar.gz software bundle and it's extraction. After a successfull installation, the total amount of needed space for a safely operating mail server could be brought down to about 15MB after the qmailrocks.tar.gz content is removed.

If your server is multiple partitions:

/ partition: About 70MB.

/var partition: About 10MB

/home partition: About 3MB for starters, although this will change as "/home/vpopmail" will be the place in which all e-mail is stored for all domains.

Some free advise: If the 80-90MB of estimated needed space is asking alot from your server, you might want to reconsider whether or not to use that server as a mail server. A mail server that is tight on disk space is a recipe for trouble. Just my opinion.

What software packages should I already have installed on my server?

1. The Apache Web Server - You can use either version 1.3.x or version 2.x. It shouldn't make that big of a difference.

2. PHP - Version 4.0.6 or higher. You will probably want to make sure that it's either compiled with imap and mysql support, or if you are installing from RPMs, install the php-imap and php-mysql packages alongside the php package.

3. Perl - I use version 5.8.0, but any version of 5 should work.

4. GCC - The gcc compiler. You should already have it installed, but if you don't you'd better.

5. MySQL - MySQL is only REALLY needed if you intend to use it with vpopmail. Also, you may run into trouble installing some packages if you don't have it installed. All in all, it's a good idea to have mysql server installed. Version 4.x works just fine, but 3.x will work too.

6. OpenSSL - Version 0.9.5a or higher.

7. OpenSSL-devel - For Redhat products and Fedora users.

8. libssl-dev, for Debian users.

9. wget - Downloading packages and software is alot easier with wget.

10. patch & patchutils - Available via RPM for Redhat, the ports collection for FreeBSD or apt-get for Debian. You'll need these packages to apply the needed patches along the way during the install.

A SPECIAL NOTE TO FEDORA 3 USERS:

Frequently, Fedora 3 boxes will have the "selinux" package installed. The selinux package interferes with vpopmail and vqadmin's abilitiy to function correctly. If you are installing Fedora 3 yourself, the install will give you a chance to disable selinux. If you are working on a a Fedora 3 box that's already been setup, make sure you disable selinux before proceeding with this installation guide.

What software packages should NOT be installed?

1. Postfix - Redhat 9 often will have Postfix installed by default. If it's installed on your server, you will need to either uninstall it or disable it.

2. Any POP service - This includes Qpopper or any POP service that may be running out of xinetd. If your're server has a POP service running, you will need to disable it.

3. Any SMTP services

What about Sendmail? It's ok to have Sendmail installed, because we'll uninstall it during the qmail installation.

What Perl modules should be installed?

This list may vary depending on your setup, but here goes:

Digest::SHA1
Digest::HMAC
Net::DNS
Time::HiRes
HTML::Tagset
HTML::Parser

I'm am almost positive that someone out there will need more, so if you come across any other needed modules please drop me a line.

I'm running a firewall on my server. What ports should I open?

IMPORTANT NOTE: Keep in mind the the following ports are what are required to be open for only the QMR install. More than likely, a fully functioning webserver is going to have more ports open for various other services. So, do not use the port listing below to construct a NEW firewall without first determining what other ports you will need to open. If you are are interested in constructing a complete firewall for your server, check out the iptables tutorial at http://www.iptablesrocks.org.

Outbound ports (tcp)

25 - SMTP
110 - POP services
143 - IMAP
783 - Spamassassin
993 - IMAPS

Inbound Ports (tcp)

25 - SMTP
80 - HTTP
110 - POP services
143 - IMAP
443 - HTTPS
783 - Spamassassin
993 - IMAPS

proceed to the Qmailrocks.org qmail installation