LINUX SQUIRRELMAIL SERVER WITH DOVECOT

A SYNOPSIS REPORT Submitted by

SAKSHI KWATRA 0103IT101096 VIKAS PANDEY 0103IT113D04

SHIV KUMAR JAIN 0103IT101102 VIJAY SHARMA 0103IT101126

in partial fulfillment for award of degree of

BACHELOR OF ENGINEERING (BATCH 2010-2014)

IN
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY under the esteemed guidance of

PUSHPENDRA SINGH TOMAR

Assistant Professor IT Department

LAKSHMI NARAIN COLLEGE OF TECHNOLOGY,BHOPAL

DECEMBER 2013

I.

INTRODUCTION

SquirrelMail is a standards-based webmail package written in PHP. It includes built-in pure PHP
support for the IMAP and SMTP protocols, and all pages render in pure HTML 4.0 (with no JavaScript required) for maximum compatibility across browsers. The two brothers Luke and Nathan Ehresman founded the SquirrelMail Project in 1999.It has very few requirements and is very easy to configure and install. SquirrelMail webmail uses a plugin architecture to accommodate additional features around the core application, and over 200 plugins are available on the SquirrelMail website. It is written in C and is primarily made to provide stateful connections for stateless webmail client software to an IMAP server, thus avoiding new IMAP logins for every client action and in some cases significantly improving webmail performance. Licensed under the GNU General Public License, both SquirrelMail products are free software. The webmail product is currently available in over 50 languages. SquirrelMail webmail is included in the repositories of many major GNU/Linux distributions and is independently downloaded by tens of thousands of people every month.SquirrelMail has all the functionality you would want from an email client, including strong MIMEsupport, address books, and folder manipulation.

Dovecot is an open source IMAP and POP3 email server for Linux/UNIX-like systems, written
with security primarily in mind. Dovecot is an excellent choice for both small and large installations. It's fast, simple to set up, requires no special administration and it uses very little memory. As an IMAP and POP3 server, Dovecot provides a way for Mail User Agents (MUAs) to access their mail. Dovecot configuration primarily consists of mail storage type, mail storage location, user list, and password list. Dovecot allows users to log in and check their email using POP3 and IMAP. When they connect, their passwords are never sent to the server in plain text. Users will have to connect using the ports - 143 for IMAP and 110 for POP3 - and only those ports. Dovecot's LMTP service will function as the MDA and store incoming messages in the proper locations on the server. Dovecot will also be handling all user authentication for mail.

IMAP and POP3 are the two common protocols used by MUAs to communicate with mail storage
servers. POP3 is commonly used by users who do not have a high-speed connection to the mail server. One of POP3s basic principles is that MUAs download mail and store it locally (on the user's computer) - and then delete the mail from the server. IMAP is intended for LANs and high-speed connections. The intent of IMAP is to contact the server each time a given message needs to be read (apart from MUAspecific caching). Dovecot has a number of optimizations for IMAP that make it an exceptionally good performer for most IMAP scenarios

II. OBJECTIVE
The need arose in our organization for the access of email and address books from anywhere in the world. Obviously a web interface is ideal for this, given that the user has access to the Internet. The founding principles of the SquirrelMail Project were aimed at an audience that was looking for a webmail application that would run on low end servers for clients with simple browsers and a small set of expectations & also to avoid dependencies on JavaScript and dynamic HTML. Squirrelmail is the web mail application of the Chennai Mathematical Institute, University of Bristol, Keele University, the Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode, Management Development Institute, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (particularly the CSE department),Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, National Institute of Science Education and Research, Carnegie Mellon University, Dokuz Eyll University,Sharif University of Technology ,University of California, Berkeley as well as other universities. SquirrelMail has been implemented as the official email system of the Prime Minister's Office of the Republic of India for its security advantages over Microsoft's Outlook Express. So the main objective is to expand its use and to implement in our college also.

III. SCOPE
SquirrelMail is stable enough to use in a production system. It is, in fact, already used in several production systems around the world, handling thousands of users per system. There might be some bugs - no project is perfect - but they are most likely minimal. SquirrelMail is known to scale well for large installations with thousands of users. It's recommended to have a lot of free memory available at the web server. In order to meet adequately the expanded needs of our current client base, the basic principles of the SquirrelMail Project must be expanded to include several additional items. The SquirrelMail Project goals are: SquirrelMail must be very easy to install and configure. SquirrelMail must have low server requirements, allowing it to be run on low-end hardware with just a basic Apache and PHP installation. SquirrelMail must have low client requirements, allowing it to be used on low end browsers without requiring any fancy JavaScript, or so forth. SquirrelMail will provide a complete webmail application that can be used as an individual's primary access point to email. SquirrelMail will maintain an architecture that will flex to the needs of a variety of system administrators, server configurations, and web browsers while maintaining efficiencyand speed.

IV. PROJECT CATEGORY

NETWORKING OS

V. PROCESS DESCRIPTION

DNS is configured with proper MX record. All necessary packages/ softwares are installed. Configure sendmail sever. Configure apache server.

Download all required software Install web server and PHP (version 4.1.0 or above) Unpack and install Apache Unpack and install PHP Unpack and install PHP Restart Apache and check if PHP is working Unpack and install IMAP server Prepare SquirrelMail directories Unpack SquirrelMail Configure SquirrelMail Configure access to SquirrelMail in Apache Log into SquirrelMail

DOVECOT IMAP SERVER Use of the Dovecot IMAP server speeds up SquirrelMail for even very large folders without migrating to mail id format. You can switch from UW-IMAP using m-box format directly to Dovecot and turn an almost unusable SquirrelMail into a fast system. Dovecot uses indexing which significantly speeds up header listing, etc. Set the IMAP, POP3, and LMTP protocols Define the mail location Configure needed sockets for authentication and LMTP

SQUIRRELMAIL DIRECTORY LAYOUT

SquirrelMail files are split into subdirectories according to file type and provided functions. squirrelmail/ class/ config/ contrib/ data/ doc/ functions/ decode/ encode/ help/ images/ locale/ plugins/ po/ src/ templates/ themes/ css/

DOVECOT CONFIGURATION FILES

etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf - Dovecot's main configuration file. /etc/dovecot/dovecot-ldap.conf.ext - Dovecot's LDAP authdb/userdb module configuration file. /etc/dovecot/dovecot-sql.conf.ext - Dovecot's SQL authdb/userdb module configuration file. /etc/dovecot/dovecot-dict-sql.conf.ext - Dovecot's dict configuration with SQL-backend. /etc/dovecot/conf.d/auth-*-conf.ext - Configuration files of different authentication modules. /etc/dovecot/conf.d/*.conf - Configuration files of different services and settings.

VI. REQUIREMENTS
SOFTWARE: LINUX OS (preferably REDHAT 6)
Apache 2.2 and up PHP 4 and up Dovecot IMAP server 4 rev 1 SquirrelMail 1.4.0 and up

SERVER REQUIREMENTS
There are only two requirements for SquirrelMail: i. A web server with PHP installed. PHP needs to be at least 4.1.0. PHP 4, PHP 5 and PHP 6 are all supported. ii. Access to an IMAP server which supports IMAP 4 rev 1.

CLIENT REQUIREMENTS
Cookies must be enabled in your browser. It might be hard to use SquirrelMail on a display smaller then 15" and with less resolution than 1024 x 768, and some customizations are required to make it usable

VII. FUTURE SCOPE

New releases of the stable SquirrelMail product are made as needed to address any bugs or security issues which may be discovered. Development of new features and enhancements is concentrated on the development product, which, in time, will itself become the stable product. The SquirrelMail 1.5 Roadmap outlines some of the features slated for the next developmental release, including: A templating system A RPC interface for use by other applications as well as AJAX-enabled SquirrelMail template sets (skins) A new initialization system Faster login times due to improved message header caching Security enhancements, such as HTTPOnly cookies Improved usability/accessibility

VIII. CONCLUSION
We conclude that SquirrelMail is stable enough to use in a production system.And it will be very useful in composing, sending and receiving emails,mail filtering,Folders,Address books,Calendars,Threading,Automatic forwarding,Multiple mailboxes,LDAP Address Book support,it works with any Mail Transfer Agent via SMTP. This project will help us in understanding the client server architecture,the working of a mail server,knowlegde of IMAP and POP3 protocols,and administration of linux operating system.

IX. REFERENCES
[1] http://www.linuxlinks.com/article/20080723150903317/SquirrelMail.html [2] http://squirrelmail.org/docs/admin/admin.html [3] http://squirrelmail.org/docs/user/user.html [4] http://squirrelmail.org/about/ [5] http://squirrelmail.org/screenshots.php [6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SquirrelMail [7] http://www.dovecot.org/ [8] http://wiki2.dovecot.org/MailServerOverview