1.  Atmail Webmail Client - System Requirements

As a WebMail Client, users can access Atmail via any browser or wireless device. Requests are handled by the Webserver (Apache) which runs the Atmail application.

User settings, Address Book, Scheduler tasks, profiles and account information are stored in a MySQL database. If using an IMAP account, all email messages will remain on the remote-mailserver. For POP3 accounts, the account Inbox will remain on the mailserver, messages moved from the Inbox to a local folder via WebMail will be stored in the mySQL database.

1.1  Hardware Requirements

Recommended:

 Pentium Class, 1Ghz+
 512MB RAM
 80GB HDD

Minimum:

 Pentium Class 500Mhz
 128MB RAM
 10GB HDD

1.2  Software Requirements

• Operating System - Since Atmail is based on PHP, it can be ported into any platform that supports and/or compiles PHP. Currently, Atmail supports the following environments:

 * Linux ( RedHat Enterprise, Fedora, Mandrake, Suse, Debian, Slackware),
 * Unix ( Solaris, HP-UX, FreeBSD )

• MySQL Server - required for Atmail SQL database data. Packages can be downloaded from the MySQL site (http://www.mysql.com). It is recommended that you have the following installed:

 * MySQL-server
 * MySQL-devel
 * MySQL-client

• Apache/HTTPD - Apache is required and is usually installed by default with most Linux Distributions and Unix Variants
• PHP (PHP 5.0+ required) - PHP is required and is usually installed by default with most Linux Distributions and Unix Variants. Note that you will also need to have the following packages installed:

 * DB/DB-devel or GDBM/GDBM-devel - required by Courier-IMAP
 * GCC 3.4++/make

2.  Atmail WebMail Client - Installation

This document will explain how to install your Atmail WebMail Client software utilizing it's simple, web-based, installation script. The Atmail WebMail Client should be installed when you wish to use Atmail's WebMail software with your existing mail services.

NOTE: You must have an existing POP3 and/or IMAP server, and an existing SMTP server to run the WebMail Client software.

If you wish to setup Atmail as a complete mail server, please refer to the Server Installation Guide.

Before you install please check to see that your system meets the minimum Requirements.

Once you have installed any required software, you may proceed to installing Atmail WebMail Client on your web server.

2.1  Download and extract Atmail WebMail Client

Next you must place the Atmail WebMail Client files on your web server.

SSH web server access

Download the Atmail archive and extract it.

  tar zxf atmailphp5.tgz -C /tmp

Move the webmail directory under your web server's DocumentRoot, or VirtualHost directory (these can be found in your apache configuration file. Here is a rough guide to a few distribution defaults:

• Red Hat based distributions : /var/www/html(default user is apache)
• SUSE based distributions : /srv/www/htdocs(default user is wwwrun)
• Debian based distributions : /var/www/apache2-default(default user is www-data)

 mv /tmp/atmail/ /path/to/document/root/atmail/

Next, change the ownership of the directory to the web server user. This is required for Atmail to save configuration files via the web and used during the install process. For example:

 chown -R apache /path/to/documntroot/atmail/

FTP web server access

Extract the Atmail archive onto your local machine, then FTP the entire atmail directory to your server's DocumentRoot or VirtualHost directory.

2.2  Installation Wizard

You are now ready to access your website and begin the installation process. Point your browser to your webserver http://yourdomain.com/atmail/ (replace yourdomain.com with your actual domain)

This will bring up the installation wizard screen:

Note: Before encountering the first screen of the web-based installer, you may see the message Please ensure that /var/www/html/atmail is writable by webserver user. See the installation documentation for the complete tutorial on installing Atmail This is caused when the directory of Atmail is not owned by the web server user, which is required for the installer to be able to save the global configuration file. To change the permissions run on the command-line: chown -R [webserveruser] /var/www/html/atmail Where [webserveruser] is the user which runs Apache ( Generally user apache, nobody or www ) You can try to find out the correct user that your web server runs under with one of these commands:

 ps auxw | grep httpd 
 or
 ps auxw | grep apache

2.3  Atmail Pre-installation check

At the Atmail Pre-installation check screen, you will be shown information any problems with needed server software and PHP settings. You may end up needing to make some changes to your /etc/php.ini file, or find that you need to install various software dependencies.

When you are ready, select Continue to proceed with the installation.

2.4  Select Language and License

Please select a default language and read through the license agreement. Select Yes I agree to the above license and Continue once you are happy with the license agreement and language.

2.5  SQL Server Setup

Next, select the Mysql database details.

If possible use a non-privileged mysql account, not the default root user. The default database name is atmail. If this is a new installation, you should see check boxes that allow you to create the Atmail database and it's tables.

NOTE: If you are re-installing Atmail with an existing database make sure to remove any check mark in the database creation options.

Select Continue when you are ready to proceed.

Troubleshooting

If you have PHP installed, but without the Mysql database extensions, the installer will alert these are missing. To proceed you must install the PHP mysql extension, for example using Fedora run:

    root# yum install php-mysql

Once installed, restart Apache for changes to take effect

    service httpd restart

Then refresh the installer page to continue with the mysql installation.

If you receive the error message “Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock'”, make sure mysql is installed and running on the localhost or specified server.

If running RH Fedora, you can validate the mysql-server is installed by running:

    yum install mysql-server

Then start the service:

    service mysqld start

2.6  SMTP and Admin Email Configuration

Next, you must define the SMTP hostname for Webmail to send outgoing messages. By default the localhost SMTP server is used, you may need to define another SMTP server if one is not running on the local server.

Make sure you have access to relay messages via the SMTP server and that the IP address of your server is allowed to send messages. Next, define the administrative email-address, this address will be used in the WebMail interface to notify end users of who to contact for support.

Select Continue when you are ready to proceed.

Troubleshooting

If you receive the error message 'Could not connect to the specified SMTP server', verify the SMTP hostname is correct, and you have access to relay messages.

2.7  Register software license

You must register your copy of Atmail. Please follow the links to generate a new serial key so as to most accurately reflect this installation.

Select Continue when you are ready to proceed.

2.8  Secure the Webadmin and Atmail

Atmail includes an administration panel which is used to control users, modify system settings, view logs and run system maintenance tasks. You should specify the username and password you wish to use for the WebAdmin panel. The installer will create an Apache .htaccess file to password-protect the directory.

NOTE: You may not need to insert the line that starts with AccessFileName if this setting is already present in your Apache configuration.

NOTE: Most hosted sites already have the AccessFileName and AllowOverride parameters set correctly. If you do not have access to the Apache server configuration, you can just continue, and check after the installation that you do receive a password prompt when accessing webadmin. If you do not receive a password prompt, you should contact your hosting provider to adjust these settings for you.

If possible/necessary, edit your httpd.conf (or appropriate .conf file for Apache) and insert these lines:

 AccessFileName .htaccess
 AllowOverride All

If you made changes to Apache configuration, you will need to restart the service. For most systems, one of the following lines will work:

 /etc/init.d/httpd restart
 /etc/init.d/apache restart
 /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

When you are sure that .htaccess files will work properly on your web server, select Edit httpd.conf, then Continue.