Tutorial: How to Install Roundcube on Elementary OS Latest

Introduction

Roundcube is an open-source webmail application that allows users to check and send emails from a web interface. In this tutorial, we'll walk you through the steps to install Roundcube on Elementary OS Latest.

Prerequisites

Before we get started with the installation process, you need to have the following requirements:

  • A running instance of Elementary OS Latest
  • SSH Access to your server
  • Root or sudo privileges

Step 1: Update packages

The first step is to update the packages on your server. You can do this by running the following command:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

Step 2: Install LAMP stack

Roundcube requires a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) stack to function properly. If you don't have a LAMP stack installed, you can install it by running the following command:

sudo apt install apache2 mysql-server php7.4 php7.4-mysql php7.4-curl php7.4-mbstring php7.4-intl php7.4-gd php7.4-xml

Once the installation is complete, start the Apache and MySQL services and enable them to start at boot:

sudo systemctl start apache2
sudo systemctl start mysql
sudo systemctl enable apache2
sudo systemctl enable mysql

Step 3: Install Roundcube

Download Roundcube

Download the latest version of Roundcube from the official website:

wget https://github.com/roundcube/roundcubemail/releases/latest/download/roundcubemail-x.y.z.tar.gz

Replace x.y.z with the version number you want to install.

Extract Roundcube

Extract the downloaded archive to the Apache document root directory:

sudo tar -zxvf roundcubemail-x.y.z.tar.gz -C /var/www/html/

Rename the extracted directory to a simpler name like webmail:

sudo mv /var/www/html/roundcubemail-x.y.z /var/www/html/webmail

Create Roundcube Database

Log in to the MySQL server using the root user:

sudo mysql -u root -p

Create a new database and user for Roundcube:

CREATE DATABASE roundcube_db;
CREATE USER 'roundcube_user'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'your_password';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON roundcube_db.* TO 'roundcube_user'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;

Configure Roundcube

Copy the sample configuration file to the config directory:

sudo cp /var/www/html/webmail/config/config.inc.php.sample /var/www/html/webmail/config/config.inc.php

Edit the configuration file and set the database parameters:

sudo nano /var/www/html/webmail/config/config.inc.php

$config['db_dsnw'] = 'mysql://roundcube_user:your_password@localhost/roundcube_db';
$config['default_host'] = 'localhost';
$config['smtp_server'] = 'localhost';
$config['smtp_user'] = '';
$config['smtp_pass'] = '';
$config['support_url'] = '';
$config['product_name'] = 'Webmail';
$config['smtp_port'] = 25;
$config['des_key'] = 'random_key';

Save and close the configuration file.

Step 4: Access Roundcube

Open your web browser and go to http://localhost/webmail/. Roundcube should now be installed and ready to use.

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we showed you how to install Roundcube on Elementary OS Latest. We went through the installation of the LAMP stack, downloading and extracting Roundcube, creating a database, and configuring Roundcube. With Roundcube installed, you can now manage your emails through a web interface.