How to Install SquirrelMail on Arch Linux

SquirrelMail is a popular web-based email client which can be used to access email stored on an IMAP or POP3 server. In this tutorial, we will see how to install SquirrelMail on Arch Linux.

Prerequisites

Before you start, make sure that your Arch Linux system is up to date:

sudo pacman -Syu

Installing Apache and PHP

SquirrelMail is a PHP-based application and requires a web server to run. We can use Apache web server for this purpose. To install Apache and PHP, run the following commands:

sudo pacman -S apache php php-apache

After the installation, start the Apache web server:

sudo systemctl start httpd

To check if Apache is running, use the following command:

sudo systemctl status httpd

You will see a message "active (running)" if Apache is running.

Installing SquirrelMail

To install SquirrelMail, run the following command:

sudo pacman -S squirrelmail

After the installation, modify the Apache configuration file to include SquirrelMail. Open the /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf file in a text editor and add the following lines at the end of the file:

Alias /squirrelmail /usr/share/webapps/squirrelmail
<Directory /usr/share/webapps/squirrelmail>
Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride All
Require all granted
</Directory>

Save and close the file.

Next, create a symbolic link for SquirrelMail to the Apache document root directory:

sudo ln -s /usr/share/webapps/squirrelmail/ /srv/http/squirrelmail

Restart the Apache web server:

sudo systemctl restart httpd

Now open a web browser and type in the following URL:

http://localhost/squirrelmail

You should see the SquirrelMail login page.

Configuring SquirrelMail

Before you can use SquirrelMail, you need to configure it with the email server settings. To do this, navigate to the config/ directory in the SquirrelMail installation:

cd /usr/share/webapps/squirrelmail/config/

Make a copy of the config_default.php file:

cp config_default.php config.php

Next, edit the config.php file with your email server settings. For example:

$default_host = 'mail.example.com';
$default_port = 993;
$smtp_server = 'smtp.example.com';

Save the changes and you are done.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we have seen how to install SquirrelMail on Arch Linux. SquirrelMail is a powerful web-based email client that you can use to access your email on an IMAP or POP3 server. With a little configuration, you can turn SquirrelMail into a powerful email client for your personal or business use.