Topic: Web based email with E-Smith

[Mike Stoddart]

Has anyone installed a web based interface to the smtp/pop3 servers on E-Smith? If so, which one did you use?

Thanks

[Joseph Morrison]

Mike Stoddart wrote:

> Has anyone installed a web based interface to the smtp/pop3
> servers on E-Smith? If so, which one did you use?

We've heard good things about:

http://www.horde.org/imp/

If you get it working, please let us know how you did it! Or if you're really brave, perhaps you could try to create an e-smith add-on module for it.

Best regards,
- Joe

[Dan]

I did it, and it works fine, but as yet, it's a bit of a process.  The biggest problem for me was that I couldn't find a suitable RPM of PHP, so I needed to compile it.  Here's roughly what I did to install IMP 2.0.11:

1.  Install an IMAP server and the development headers for that (I used one I found linked from www.qmail.org; the one that ships with RedHat 6.0 doesn't recognize the maildir format used by qmail on e-smith).

2.  Install MySQL and MySQL-devel (both available from www.mysql.com, this is used to store user preferences and the address book).

3.  Install apache-devel from a RedHat 6 CD (needed to link PHP to Apache as a module, I think).

4.  Install make, egcs, egcs-c++, libc-devel, glibc-devel, and kernel-devel from the RedHat 6 CD (general development tools).

5.  Install bison from the RedHat 6 CD (needed to build PHP).

6.  Built PHP 3.0.12 from sources (./configure --with-imap --with-mysql --with-apxs=/wherever/it/is;make;make install).

7.  Install horde and IMP per the included documentation.

    Horde/IMP installation, by itself, is pretty simple.  The problem is that it relies on everything else to be working properly, and it's not always clear what's causing a problem when there is one.

    I'm now running IMP 2.2.0-pre10, and I like it a lot.  I do, however, have a problem with creating and using folders, which seems to be related to the IMAP server--and I'm not really sure where to start troubleshooting that.

    If e-smith included IMAP and PHP, setup would be pretty simple--so much better if it also included PostgreSQL, which would work as an alternative to MySQL and is open-source.

[Mike Stoddart]

Hmmm, I don't want to go through a big hassle to install something like that. It took me months to finally get my server installed, and configured to my liking so I don't want to ruin it. Besides I don't have an method of backup

I've looked at a LOT of web mail programs, but none seem to fit the bill yet.

Does anyone know and understand what is involved in serving Java applets? I've seen a few that use Java, but I know nothing about Java.

[Dan]

Mike Stoddart wrote:

> Does anyone know and understand what is involved in serving
> Java applets? I've seen a few that use Java, but I know nothing
> about Java.

    Are you sure they use Java, and not Javascript?  If it's the latter, there's nothing involved on the server side at all.  If it is the former, I dunno...

[Dan]

Mike Stoddart wrote:

> Hmmm, I don't want to go through a big hassle to install
> something like that. It took me months to finally get my server

    I hear you on that.  Really, the biggest hassle is getting PHP installed and communicating properly with MySQL, IMAP, and everything else it needs to communicate with.  Even this isn't (in my experience) difficult, but it does involve installing lots of stuff which e-smith doesn't include (because it's not intended to be a development platform).  If there were a suitable RPM of PHP, the IMP installation process would be pretty straightforward.

[Charlie Brady]

Dan wrote:

> I did it, and it works fine, but as yet, it's a bit of a
> process.  The biggest problem for me was that I couldn't find
> a suitable RPM of PHP, so I needed to compile it.  Here's
> roughly
> what I did to install IMP 2.0.11:
>
> 1.  Install an IMAP server and the development headers for
> that (I used one I found linked from www.qmail.org; the one
> that ships with RedHat 6.0 doesn't recognize the maildir
> format used by qmail on e-smith).

There is a suitable RPM with the beta releases of e-smith 4.0, and I've had a suitable one at http://e-smith.gormand.com.au/ for quite a while.

> 2.  Install MySQL and MySQL-devel (both available from
> www.mysql.com, this is used to store user preferences and the
> address book).
>
> 3.  Install apache-devel from a RedHat 6 CD (needed to link
> PHP to Apache as a module, I think).
>
> 4.  Install make, egcs, egcs-c++, libc-devel, glibc-devel, and
> kernel-devel from the RedHat 6 CD (general development tools).

[etc]

This is one of the reasons that we recommend that development
work be done on a seperate RedHat system, rather than on an E-smith server. The other reason is security - the system is a little bit more secure with no development tools installed, and with user accounts with interactive login.

Any of you out there doing development work, please join the E-smith developers mailing list - others can help you, and you can help them.

Hopefully in the relatively near future there will be webmail tools for E-smith which are not too hard to install. In the meantime Dan, thanks for sharing your experiences.

Regards

Charlie

[David Evans]

I have been thinking about this too, and found a work-around of sorts. CGI.resourceindex.com has lots of web based email products, and one which seemed right was QD-pop(http://qdpop.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/qdpop.htm).

This seems to connect straight to your standard mail server, and gives the appearance of web based mail, but isn't really. Not much different though - the only thing is you will have to add the addresses yourself, no Hotmail style web add-user interface.

I'm going to try it now, I'll tell you tomorrow if it works.

[Dan]

> There is a suitable RPM with the beta releases of e-smith 4.0, and I've had a
> suitable one at http://e-smith.gormand.com.au/ for quite a while.

    How does this server deal with IMAP folders?  It seems to be the same one I'm using, and in most respects it works fine, but Netscape and Outlook Express both choke when I try to create folders.  IMP lets me create the folders without complaints, but it won't copy or move messages there, and I'm kind of stumped.  No errors are logged anywhere.

[Mike Stoddart]

I've tried sooo many of these web based email programs that my head is spinning. Most don't seem to fulfill my needs - what's wrong with expecting a hotmail like application for free??

Seriously, I have tried a lot of them, but none have really caught my attention yet. I'll let you know how I get on.

[Jacob Mohogany]

Where is the kernel-devel located on the Redhat 6 CD, I don't see it.

[David Phillips]

I have installed MailMan from Endymion Corp., a CGI script package on our Cobalt Qube (That I plan to replace with an e-smith).

It has worked well for us.

[Mike Stoddart]

David Phillips wrote:

> I have installed MailMan from Endymion Corp., a CGI script
> package on our Cobalt Qube (That I plan to replace with an
> e-smith).
>
> It has worked well for us.


Does it let you use folders and addressbooks and is it free? THose are the important things for me.

thanks