Now that we have Qmail running with IMAP, we can install a webmail client to make mail accessible via a web browser. My choice for this was Squirrelmail. Squirrelmail is both easy to install and it has lots of nice plugins to broaden its abilities. I know that a lot of people out there like to use Horde. I like Horde myself and I've installed it on my Qmail server alongside Squirrelmail. However, Horde is a major pain in the ass to install. Anyone who's ever intalled it will tell you that. I just don't want to take the responsibility for it on this site. Some people also like to use SQwebmail. No offense, but I don't like SQwebmail.

Anyway, let's install Squirrelmail...

The first order of business to make sure PHP is installed and correctly configured. So let's get that out of the way...

In order for Squirrelmail to work correctly, you'll need to check a couple things about your PHP installation:

1. First of all, make sure some rendition of PHP 4 is installed. If it's not, kick yourself in the ass and then go install it. Sorry, I'm not going to give a PHP installation tutorial. To be safe, you will want the following config options to be active in your PHP installation.

--enable-track-vars
--enable-force-cgi-redirect
--with-gettext
--with-mysql

2. Make sure you have PHP uploads turned ON. This is done by editing a line in your php.ini file. The location of the php.ini file can vary, but it's usually located at /usr/local/etc/php.ini. If it's not, don't panic. Just run the old "locate php.ini" command. ;) Here's the line you will want to check/edit:

file_uploads = On

That's it for the PHP setup. Now let's download Squirrelmail...

You can download the latest stable version of Squirrelmail from: http://www.squirrelmail.org/download.php

I recommend downloading the .tar.gz version of the latest release.

Now change directories to the web directory of the website you want to serve Squirrelmail off of. In my case, I used /var/www/html

tar zxvf /path/to/squirrelmail-x.x.x.tar.gz (enter whatever version you downloaded)

Now rename the untarred folder to something more friendly...

mv squirrelmail-x.x.x webmail

And now let's configure Squirrelmail...

mkdir /var/sqattachements

chown -R www:www /var/sqattachements (or whatever user apache runs as)

cd webmail

chown -R www:www data (or whatever user apache runs as)

cd config

./conf.pl

This will run the Squirrelmail setup script which will allow you to customize the installation as well as set your server settings. Most of the important settings are in area #2, which is dubbed "Server Settings". Here are the specs I recommend:

General
-------
1. Domain : 1.2.3.4 (Enter the IP of your server here. Don't be an idiot and actually use 1.2.3.4)
2. Invert Time : false
3. Sendmail or SMTP : SMTP

IMAP Settings
--------------
4. IMAP Server : localhost
5. IMAP Port : 143
6. Authentication type : login
7. Secure IMAP (TLS) : false
8. Server software : other
9. Delimiter : detect

SMTP Settings
-------------
4. SMTP Server : localhost
5. SMTP Port : 25
6. POP before SMTP : false
7. SMTP Authentication : login
8. Secure SMTP (TLS) : false

Depending on what version of Squirrelmail you are installing, the setup menu may differ slightly. But you get the idea. If you like, there a several other features of Squirrelmail you can customize that, while not critical, are sometimes fun. Also, check out Squirrelmail's site for tons of cool plugins. Make sure you save all settings before exiting the configuration menu.

Once you've configured Squirrelmail to your liking, go test it!.....

http://www.yourdomain.com/webmail

We'll sign in with the postmaster account under the domain you should have created earlier using Vqadmin...

Username: postmaster@yourdomain.com

Password: your_password

If all has gone well, Squirrelmail should log your right into your account! From here you will be able to both send and receive mail as well as a host of other additional functions. Again, Squirrelmail has tons of really cool plugins, and you can check them out at Squirrelmail's plugins page. Installing the plugins is pretty easy and their site can help you out. Now that was nice and painless, wasn't it? If I had tried to explain installing Horde instead, you would probably be holding a gun to your head right now, wishing for quick end to the misery. OK, I'm only kidding. :)

Proceed to Part 14