Support #474
Updated by Daniel Curtis over 9 years ago
One of the core services of the Internet is email, and as such I needed to setup a mail server for one of my projects. Rather than setting up postfix, dovecot, spamassassin, etc. by hand, I found the useful open source project iRedMail. Unfortunately, this project currently is not in the port tree, however the install script uses the ports tree to install each of the necessary packages. This guide uses a FreeBSD 9.2 jail created using FreeNAS, so it should work on a bare metal setup as well; also this guide assumes that SSH has been enabled and a separate user used to run administrative commands has been created.
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h2. Update the system
* Login as root:
<pre>
su -
</pre>
* Update the ports tree
<pre>
portsnap fetch extract
</pre>
* Install portupgrade
<pre>
cd /usr/ports/ports-mgmt/portupgrade
make install clean
</pre>
* Upgrade the base system
<pre>
portupgrade -a
</pre>
* Check the current hostname:
<pre>
hostname -f
</pre>
> mx.example.com
On FreeBSD, hostname is set in two files: /etc/rc.conf, /etc/hosts.
* Add or modify the /etc/rc.conf file:
<pre>
hostname="mx.example.com"
</pre>
* Add or modify the /etc/hosts file:
<pre>
127.0.0.1 mx.example.com mx localhost localhost.localdomain
</pre>
h2. Install iRedMail
* Install bash
<pre>
cd /usr/ports/shells/bash
portupgrade -Np
</pre>
* Fetch and extract the iRedMail installer:
<pre>
cd
fetch https://bitbucket.org/zhb/iredmail/downloads/iRedMail-0.8.7.tar.bz2
tar xjf iRedMail-0.8.7.tar.bz2
cd iRedMail-0.8.7
</pre>
* Run the iRedMail Installer:
<pre>
bash iRedMail.sh
</pre>
* *NOTE*: On newer FreeBSD systems apache22 is deprecated, and this will break the iRedMail installer since it depends on apache22. In order to fix this problem, edit /etc/make.conf and make the following change:
<pre>
DEFAULT_VERSIONS+=python=2.7 python2=2.7 apache=2.2
</pre>
* *NOTE*: During the install I came across the following error:
> apache22-2.2.29_2 AUTHN_DBD and DBD requires APR-util to have DBD support build in. Please rebuild APR at last with one DBD backend (MYSQL, PGSQL or SQLITE).
#* In order to fix this, I needed to reinstall apr1 (this is to compile the modules required for the database backend):
<pre>
cd /usr/ports/devel/apr1
make reinstall clean
</pre>
* Rerun the iRedMail Installer:
<pre>
cd ~/iRedMail-0.8.7
bash iRedMail.sh
</pre>
h3. Configure iRedMail
The install process will pull in all the required packages during installation. Since each mail server is a little different, my setup uses the following parameters:
* Default mail storage path: */var/vmail*
* Preferred backend used to store mail accounts: *MySQL*
* First virtual domain name: *example.com*
* Optional components:
#* DKIM signing/verification
#* iRedAdmin
#* Roundcubemail
#* phpMyAdmin
#* Awstats
When the installation finishes, all the login information and URLs will be placed in the *iRedMail.tips* file.
h2. Install Getmail
* Install getmail
<pre>
cd /usr/ports/mail/getmail
portupgrade -Np
</pre>
h3. Configuring Getmail
* Unlock the vmail user
<pre>
chsh -s /bin/sh vmail
</pre>
* Switch to the vmail user
<pre>
su - vmail
</pre>
* Set up the getmail configuration
<pre>
cd
mkdir .getmail
cp /usr/local/share/examples/getmail/getmailrc-examples .getmail/getmailrc
</pre>
For user john, with an email address of john@example.com, email user name john, a password of 1234, and an ISP whose pop server name is pop.example.com, we would like our getmailrc to look like this.
> [options]
> verbose = 0
> read_all delete = false
> delete read_all = false
>
> [retriever]
> type = SimplePOP3Retriever
> server = pop.example.com
> username = john
> password = 1234
>
> [destination]
> type = MDA_external
> path = /usr/local/libexec/dovecot/deliver
> arguments = ("-e", "-f", "%(sender)", "-d", "john@example.com")
h3. Testing Getmail
* To test getmail simply type at a command prompt
<pre>
getmail -v
</pre>
If all is set up successfully, you should see it polling your pop server and retrieving your mail.
h3. Automating Getmail
Unlike fetchmail, getmail doesn't have a daemon option, so if you want it to poll your server at regular intervals, you will have to add a crontab entry. The man 5 crontab page explains things rather clearly, but a quick example.
* On most systems, a user can edit his own crontab. So as user john you would do
<pre>
crontab -e
</pre>
And add the following
<pre>
*/2 * * * * /usr/local/bin/getmail
</pre>
#* This will run getmail every 2 minutes.
h2. Resources
* http://www.iredmail.org/docs/install.iredmail.on.freebsd.html
* http://www.iredmail.org/download.html