Now that you've downloaded all the needed packages, we can start the install. At this point you should have a qmailrocks source directory located at /downloads/qmailrocks. If you don't, go back to step 1. This step involves the setup of the very heart of you new qmail server. In this step, we'll install qmail itself, ucspi-tcp and daemontools. These 3 packages are the core of the qmail server and will be the foundation on which we build everything else. So don't screw it up!

(RH 9/RHEL/Fedora/Slackware users: click here before you start.)

To start things off, I've created a handy little shell script that takes care of the first portion of getting qmail, ucspi-tcp and daemontools intalled. Simply run this script from the command prompt of your Solaris box and you should be golden. The script will tell you what it's doing along the way.

/downloads/qmailrocks/scripts/install/qmr_install_linux-s1.script   (click here to view this script)

If all goes well, you should have all the needed user and groups created as well as all the needed directories, permissions and ownership settings needed for the installation of qmail, ucspi-tcp and daemontools

Before we start to compile and install qmail, ucspi-tcp and daemontools, we're going to apply a group of patches to qmail. These patches will build all sorts of cool functionality directly into qmail before we install it. In total, we're going to add around 15 patches, but fortunately John Simpson has combined all but one of these patches into one giant patch file. But it gets even easier because I've thrown together a shell script that applies ALL the patches in one quick step. I'm making this so easy for you it's almost sickening. :)

Here's the basic gist of these patches: All critical patches included in this bundle will be automatically integrated in your qmail server's functioning. However, there are a few non-critical patches that have to be configured in order to work. These non-critical patches are included merely to give you a few extra little goodies that you can play with on your own time. Some of these "extra little goodies" are new to me too, so as I learn more about them I will certainly go into more detail.

So that you're not completely ignorant as to what theses patches are going to be doing to your qmail server, here's a quick list of what patches are included. I have color coded these patches so that you will know which ones are critical and which ones are not.

red patch = critical patch, as far as the QMR install is concerned, that is automatically integrated into your qmail server and requires no additional work on your part.

blue patch = a non-critical patch that merely adds some cool functionality. Blue asterisk patches also will be automatically integrated and require no additional work.

green patch = a non-critical patch that merely add some cool functionality, but which needs to be configured in order to be active.

Ok, so enough talk. Let's apply these mega-patches and get this patching business out of the way...

/downloads/qmailrocks/scripts/util/qmail_big_patches.script   (click here to view this script)

Now we build Qmail...

cd /usr/src/qmail/qmail-1.03

make man && make setup check

./config-fast your_fqdn_hostname (ex: ./config-fast mail.mydomain.com)

OK, qmail itself is now built and installed. Now let's generate a secure certificate that will be used to encrypt your server's TLS encrypted SMTP sessions...

make cert

When you run the above command you will be asked a series of questions regarding the generation of your certificate. They are non-technical questions...such as your location, business name, organaization name, common name and so forth. If you've ever generated an SSL cert before, this should be familiar stuff to you. If you haven't, simply follow the directions. It's easy. If you have trouble following the directions, you might as well give up now because you're a RETARD. Since the cert you are generating is already NOT from a trusted authority such as Verisign or Thawte, the information you provide here is not really THAT important, so don't sweat it.

Here's a sample of my cert cert configs. Don't be an idiot. Substitute in your own information.

Country Name (2 letter code) [GB]:US
State or Province Name (full name) [Berkshire]:Georgia
Locality Name (eg, city) [Newbury]:Atlanta
Organization Name (eg, company) [My Company Ltd]:qmailrocks.org
Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) []:mail
Common Name (eg, your name or your server's hostname) []:mail.qmailrocks.org
Email Address []:postmaster@thisdomain.org

If the cert is successfully generated it will be automatically installed at /var/qmail/control/servercert.pem, along with a symlink to that cert at /var/qmail/control/clientcert.pem

Now we set the right ownership for the newly create cert...

chown -R vpopmail:qmail /var/qmail/control/clientcert.pem /var/qmail/control/servercert.pem

Now we build ucspi-tcp...

cd /usr/src/qmail/ucspi-tcp-0.88/

make && make setup check

If you don't get any errors, that's it for ucspi-tcp!

Now we build the daemontools....

cd /package/admin/daemontools-0.76

package/install

If no errors are reported, you've successfully compiled the daemontools package!

All done for now...

If you run take a look at the running processes on your server at this point, you should see the daemon "svscanboot" running. You can usually do this with a "ps -aux" command. Here's a screenshot of it. If you see "svscanboot" running, you're in good shape.

OK, Qmail is almost totally installed but we're going to pause right here and install a bunch of handy tools and features that will make Qmail pretty and fun! After that, we'll make some final changes to Qmail and then crank it up!

Proceed to Part 3