WebMail Setup

The following is the list of questions most people ask about WebMail when setting up WebMail.

		What do I Need

WebMail requires two programs to work correctly, A Mail server and a Web Server.   WebMail supports the following mail server protocols:   IMAP4, IMAP4rev1, POP3 and SMTP   The most common used Web Server on linux machine is appache.

		Hardware Estimates

Determining what hardware you need to run Webmail is very hard as it depends on many factors. The main factors are: how many users, which determines how much hard drive space you need, and how your users use WebMail. If your users only use WebMail to check their mail while they are holiday or while they are away from the office, the hardware required is much less than if your most of your customers use WebMail daily.   So to give you a very simple guideline the amount of hard drive space I suggest that you use the following simple formula.   POP  -  Number of users * (Max Disk Space / 2) IMAP  -  Number of users * 200k   So for 10,000 users with say 5 Megs of space using POP I would suggest about 25Gigs. While using IMAP WebMail would need about 2Gig. These are only guidelines, but I would say these are minimums you would want.   The reason why POP requires more disk space is that all folders (excluding the INBOX) are stored locally within WebMail. So the more space you allow users, the more space WebMail will allow users to use. While using IMAP all the folders are stored on the mail server and only the cache of the information is stored within WebMail.   Next is how much memory, CPU's and speed does the system need to have. While the diskspace is determined by the number of users you have, the hardware specifications determine how many WebMail users can access WebMail at the same time. The better the hardware specifications the more concurrent connections you can get. For this is it always better to over-spec the machine and provide a fast system than under-spec and provide an ok system when under low load, but slow system under heavy load.   Below is a table of guidelines of what system specifications would be suitable for how many concurrent connections.   Concurrent   Suggested Specs 1-10  -  1x700MHz Processor, 512 Meg Memory 11-20  -  2x1000MHz Processor, 1 Gig Memory 20-40  -  2x2000MHz Processor, 1 Gig Memory 40+  -  You should be looking at Multiple Servers   You might be wondering, if I have 10,000 users, wouldn't I have 40+ concurrent processors?   It is unlikely. More likely to be about 11-20. The number of concurrent connections is the number of people that click on a button in WebMail at the same time, as this causes WebMail to run, process the command and return back an HTML page. Once done the connection is dropped. Most commands are processed very quickly.   When setting up a large system their are a few concerns that you should check, as these will have a large impact on WebMail's speed and performance.   1. Are there any IMAP/POP connection limits? Ensure that any limits are large enought to account for your expected peak WebMail connections, including any other mail clients your customers are using. 2. Are there any Web Server connection limits? Ensure that any limits are large enough to account for your expected peak WebMail connections, including any other web server connections, like image downloads and other site activities. 3. How fast is your harddrive? Since all of the webmail cache is stored on the harddrive the faster the harddrive is the better the performance. We suggest that you use SCSI Drives. For small systems high speed IDE drives will be ok. 4. What O/S are you planning to use? The main two O/S types are Windows and Unix'ish systems. We suggest that on large systems you should use Unix'ish operating system, about 100,000+ user systems. If you are planning to use Windows you should only use the server version and not client/workstations version.   The above are only to help give a guide to what you might need, and only suggested minimums. It is always better to allow room for your system to grow.

		WebMail Test Page

WebMail has a built in test page that allows you to check the most common tests to ensure that WebMail can operate correctly. Here is how to run this test page.   http://your.domain.here/cgi-bin/webmail.cgi?cmd=test   The screen will look something like this:     This shows various types of information to assist in determining if there is any problems with WebMail Setup. The screen should show all successes or options failures. The main important bits are:   Key  -  This shows you if your key is registered, if it's a temp key and how long you have before it runs out. Disk Space  -  If this gets too low WebMail will start having problems, so when the disk space starts getting low the users will start seeing an error screen saying Disk Space is running low Template/Workarea  -  The CGI need to have read/write access to the workarea and template directories. If it does not, unexpected problems can occur. If any of these fail, it is a sign that there is a permission issue. Workarea Time  -  This only effects systems that are using NFS or some other file system which is over a network harddrive. If the machines are not in sync, locking issues will occur and cause unexpected problems. IMAP/POP/SMTP  -  These are needed to be successful for WebMail to work correctly. You only need to have either POP or IMAP working.

		Customizing WebMail

One of the major features of WebMail is the ease with which you can change the graphics and the general layout. If you are using the default templates that come with WebMail, then you can simply go to the WebMail customization page. This page will provide A few simple changes without having to take a look at the WebMail template files. The customize page is accessed by adding "?cmd=custom" to the URL you use to access WebMail, eg:   http://your.domain.here/cgi-bin/webmail.cgi?cmd=custom   The above are the simple changes you can do. You can also change the complete look and feel of WebMail. To see what some of our customers have done, you are welcome to take a look at our gallery at:   https://netwinsite.com/webmail/gallery.htm   When WebMail is installed you should have 3 differnet types of templates to give you an idea what is available. Each template set will have a separate directory off your workarea.   /var/spool/webmail/panel /var/spool/webmail/marble   In these directories are files with the extension .tpl, these are the template files that WebMail uses to generate the HTML pages that are returned to the webserver and then to the user's browser. For a quick explanation of what each template is used for, try the following link:   https://netwinsite.com/webmail/templates.htm   Each template file is in HTML format with labels like the one below throughout:   '||xxxxx||'   The CGI replaces these labels with the correct information. For more details about what each label means, look here:   Adding a WebMail Banner If you are using the default templates that come with WebMail, then you can simply go to the WebMail customisation page and enter the addresses of the image and link you wish to use. The customise page is accessed by adding "?cmd=custom" to the URL you use to access WebMail, eg:   http://your.domain.here/cgi-bin/webmail.cgi?cmd=custom   Switching to IMAP The default installation of WebMail uses your POP server. To change WebMail to use your IMAP server you need to change 1 ini setting:   pophost   pop.domain.com to: imaphost   imap.domain.com   If you have users that have already logged in before you change this setting they will still default to use your POP server. To stop this you need to add this ini setting:   bypass_last_default_port   true   This will then make all user accounts use your IMAP server.