In this tutorial, we will outline the simple steps that you can follow to install SquirrelMail on MXLinux operating system. SquirrelMail is an open-source web-based email client that can be used to access your emails from anywhere in the world. The following steps will guide you through the process:
Before getting started with the installation process, make sure you have the following prerequisites:
Once you have the above-mentioned prerequisites, you are good to go with the installation process.
The first step in installing SquirrelMail is to install an Apache web server for your MXLinux system. Apache is required to run the webmail client. To install Apache server, run the following command in the terminal:
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install apache2
After installing Apache server, the next step is to install PHP, which is a server-side scripting language that is required to run SquirrelMail. Run the following command to install PHP:
$ sudo apt-get install php7.4 php7.4-imap php7.4-mbstring php7.4-ldap php7.4-mysql php7.4-tidy php7.4-xml
Visit the SquirrelMail website - https://squirrelmail.org and download the latest version of SquirrelMail. Extract the downloaded file in the /var/www/html directory.
$ cd /var/www/html
$ wget https://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/squirrelmail/stable/1.4.23/squirrelmail-webmail-1.4.23.zip
$ unzip squirrelmail-webmail-1.4.23.zip
After extracting files in the /var/www/html/squirrelmail-webmail-1.4.23 directory, rename the directory to webmail using the following command.
$ mv squirrelmail-webmail-1.4.23/ webmail/
To configure SquirrelMail, navigate to the webmail directory and run the ./configure command.
$ cd /var/www/html/webmail/
$ sudo ./configure
The following message will be prompted. Press Y to accept.
SquirrelMail Configuration : Read:
Config file version: 1.4.0
Config file last modified: 21 December 2004 10:32:48
Checking PHP version
version 7.4.15 OK.
Checking PHP extensions.
Checking for session_start() in PHP...
Session functions are not available.
Please make sure session support is enabled in your PHP configuration.
Checking that php.ini has the session.save_path directive set.
session.save_path seems to be set to /var/lib/php/sessions
Checking that you have an IMAP server installed and running..
ERROR:
ERROR: Unknown IMAP response. Raw response:\* OK [CAPABILITY IMAP4rev1 LITERAL+ SASL-IR LOGIN-REFERRALS ID ENABLE AUTH=PLAIN] Dovecot ready.
**ERROR**: Could not complete request.
Query: CAPABILITY
Reason Given: Command unrecognized: "CAPABILITY"
Do you want to continue with SMTP support enabled? (y/n)
In the above message, as there is an error with the IMAP server, press N to continue with the process.
After accepting the prompt, a new configuration file (config.php) will be created in /var/www/html/webmail/config directory. Run the SquirrelMail again using the following command.
$ sudo /var/www/html/webmail/config/conf.pl
Press Enter to accept the default settings.
To make the configuration directory accessible to the web server, create a symbolic link to the /etc/squirrelmail/apache.conf directory.
$ sudo ln -s /var/www/html/webmail/config/apache.conf /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/000-default.conf
Restart the Apache server using the following command:
$ sudo systemctl restart apache2
To access SquirrelMail, open your web browser and type your server IP address or domain name in the address bar followed by /webmail. Example:
http://192.168.1.100/webmail
This will launch the SquirrelMail web interface. Provide the login credentials to access your email account.
Conclusion
In this tutorial, you have learned how to install SquirrelMail on MXLinux. After following the above-mentioned steps, you should now have a fully functional SquirrelMail web interface that can help you access your emails from anywhere in the world.
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