DMailWeb - Installation and Management Guide

NOTE: This product is frozen, and only supported for existing customers, new customers should use WebMail instead.

https://netwinsite.com/webmail

This guide is intended for system administrators who are installing, customizing or managing a DMailWeb site. DMailWeb works in conjunction with a web server and your normal email POP and SMTP servers. DMailWeb can be extensively customized to provide distinctive web based email service for your customers. The web pages the clients see are based on a series of template files which can be modified to suit your particular needs. These template files make use of template variables to refer to all the configuration, user or message specific items. This allows the templates provided to be used as they are, or completely re-written to provide a particular look and feel which matches other web pages from your site. For the users, processing their email from a web-browser has the advantages that they do not need to setup an email client package, and that they can access their email from a web-browser running on any computer located anywhere which has access to the web server.

The following sections describe:

• NT Installation
• Unix Installation
• Configuration settings
• User settings
• Template Files
• Template Commands
• Template Variables
• Updates & Information on Version Changes
• Registering DMailWeb
• User disk use and quotas, trashcan and copies to self
• Address Books:
• Multi-Language Support
• Using Multiple Template Sets
• Supporting virtual hosts or multiple email domains.
• Allowing users to change their passwords
• "HotMail" style systems
• Search DMail / DMailWeb / CWMail Manuals

NT Installation

The self_extracting archive you have downloaded will normally run WMSetup once it has unpacked the files to a temporary directory. All you need to do is answer the questions to complete the installation.
If you want to handle the installation manually use the following instructions:

You must install the DMailWeb CGI on your WEB server, in a directory that you have already set up as containing CGI programs. You should read your web server documentation if you don't currently know how to set up a cgi program. Normally a server will have a special directory for storing CGI's - it may be called something like SERVER_ROOT\cgi-bin     
or c:\inetpub\scripts
or "FrontPage Webs\Content\cgi-bin"

You also need to copy all the template files to a directory on your system, it can be anywhere as long as you define the templates variable in dmailweb.ini to point to the same place. Note: By default the DMailWeb user files are stored below the template directory. Therefore the template directory should not be in the web-pages tree as direct access to user files could be a security risk.

If you plan to customize the template files (most people do :-) then you should probably keep a copy of the original set so that you can later compare them with future releases. This may save you much effort when adding  new features into your customized set.

Example:

    download the self extracting archive from netwinsite

    dmweb10.exe          # Unzip the self extracting archive into tempdir

    cd \dmtemp             # Change to temporary unpack directory

 

    mkdir \dmweb          # Create a directory for templates

    copy * \dmweb        # Copy docs etc to destination

    copy *.tpl \dmweb	 # Copy the templates to destination

    copy *.gif \dmweb	 # Copy the template gifs to destination

    copy dmailweb.exe "inetpub\scripts"   # Copy cgi file

    copy dmailweb.ini "inetpub\scripts"    # Copy ini file (must be with .exe)

    del  \dmtemp                                         # Remove temp files

Now edit dmailweb.ini and define values for the four settings shown below:

• notepad \SERVER_ROOT\cgi-bin\DMailWeb.ini

If you wish, you can tailor the template files to give DMailWeb the same look and feel as your own web pages. It is assumed you know how to edit raw html files, in addition there are some variables that you can use. The list of variables depends on which page DMailWeb is showing. For example the %%h_subject%% variable only works when displaying an item, or directory listing.

Unix Installation

Normally you just download the distribution set uncompress and untar it
and then run the installation setup wizard WMSetup. For example

• download the distribution set from netwinsite to a temp directory
• uncompress dmweb10.tar                      # Uncompress tar file
• tar -xvf dmweb10.tar                           # Extract distribuition files to dmisp sub-directory
• cd dmisp                                            # Change to temporary dmisp sub-directory
• ./wmsetup                                          # Run setup wizard

Then just answer the questions to complete the installation. If you want to perform the installation by hand rather than using the setup wizard use the following instructions:

You must install the DMailWeb CGI on your WEB server, in a directory that you have already set up as containing CGI programs. You should read your web server documentation if you don't currently know how to set up a cgi program. Normally a server will have a special directory for storing CGI's it may be called something like SERVER_ROOT/cgi-bin or "/home/httpd"

You also need to copy all the template files to a directory on your system, it can be anywhere as long as you define the templates variable in dmailweb.ini to point to the same place. Note: By default the DMailWeb user files are stored below the template directory. Therefore the template directory should not be in the web-pages tree as direct access to user files could be a security risk.

If you plan to customize the template files (most people do :-) then you should probably keep a copy of the original set so that you can later compare them with future releases. This may save you much effort when adding  new features into your customized set.

If you happen to be using httpd and it's in /home/httpd then the command file install.sh supplied will do the installation or upgrade for you. Note: It will not overwrite templates or the ini file in case you already have modified ones.

Example:

    download the distribution set from netwinsite to a temporary directory

    uncompress dmweb10.tar          # Uncompress tar file

    tar -xvf dmweb10.tar            # Extract distribuition files to dmisp sub-directory

    cd dmisp                        # Change to temporary dmisp sub-directory



    mkdir /var/spool/dmweb                 # Create a directory for template files etc.

    chown nobody /var/spool/dmweb          # Set appropriate ownership

    cp -i ./tpl/* /var/spool/dmweb         # Copy template files over

    cp * /var/spool/dmweb                  # Copy docs etc.

    cp dmailweb.cgi /home/httpd/cgi-bin    # Copy cgi

    cp -i dmailweb.ini /home/httpd/cgi-bin # Copy ini file  

    rm -r -f ../dmisp                      # Remove the temp files

Note:  .ini must be with .cgi 

Now edit dmailweb.ini and define values for the four settings listed below:

• vi /SERVER_ROOT/cgi-bin/DMailWeb.ini

If you wish, you can tailor the template files to give DMailWeb the same look and feel as your own web pages. It is assumed you know how to edit raw html files, in addition there are some variables that you can use. The list of variables depends on which page DMailWeb is showing. For example the %%h_subject%% variable only works when displaying an item, or directory listing.

Address Books:

CWMail/DMailWeb supports both private and shared address books and a pick list of recently used email addresses. The address books themselves are simple text files with one substituion per line.  The following are example lines:

bill=bill@sitcom.co

john=MrJohn@vet.doc.uk

friends=bill@whatsit,john@the.uni,dad@home

When processing to, cc and bcc lines the translations are made. For each entry in a to line which does not contain an @ symbol the following sequence of searches are performed.

1. Search each of the users private address books for a match (ie those in addr_books)
2. Search each of the public address books this user has entered in gadd_books
3. Just add the local domain on

The search stops on the first match. So if bill is found in my own address book it takes preference. If no entry is found in any address book then the name is assumed to be for a local user and @localdomain  is added to the entry.

Public address books are just normal user address books but with the prefix public_

So if user john@netwin.co wants to share his home address book with pete he just stores it with the name public_home and then Pete can make an entry in his pick list page: john@netwin.co/public_home

If you as system administrator want to give everyone access to a company address book then you need to pick a user to administer it, eg. admin@my.company.co and then create the address book, say public_company then set in default.dat and/or use the system administrator page to add the line:

gaddr_books admin@my.company.co/public_company

The files used for address books always have an extension .abk and can only be stored in user directories.

Supporting Virtual Hosts or multiple email domains.

If you have multiple groups of users you can support them with CWMail in a variety of different ways. The method you choose will depend largely on the POP and SMTP server you have an how they support virtual domains.

Let's consider two groups of users; domain.one and domain.two. They both have a user called fred.

If you only have a few virtual domains you can just duplicate the CWMail cgi and ini file and run multiple copies specifying different pophost, smpthost and domain settings.

You can make users enter a pop-host as part of the login page. Either as a seperate field or as part of the username. Eg username ralph@domain2

The most powerful method is to use the vhost vend ini settings (requires version 2.1h or later). After all the common settings in the in file you can have sections for different virtual hosts. So if users from domain one use the url http://domain.one/cgi-bin/cwmail.cgi and users from domain two user the url http://domain.two/cgi-bin/cwmail.cgi both access the same copy of cwmail.cgi  but will be kept seperate by the vhost sections of cwmail.ini.

A typical example might be

vhost domain.one
domain domain.one
pophost pop.domain.one
vhost domain.two
domain domain.two
pophost pop.domain.two
vend

In the line
    vhost xxx
the xxx is matched against the host name in the url. (This is usually taken from the cgi environment variable SERVER_NAME but you can match against anything else - say HTTP_HOST by adding an ini setting vhost_match HTTP_HOST)

If the same pophost is to be used but with a username suffix the above would be changed to:

vhost domain.two
suffix /d2            or          suffix @domain.two
vend

The vhost - vend can bracket any ini settings to be applied to users from that domain, so for example to use different templates for domain one we might have:

vhost domain.two
suffix /d2            or          suffix @domain.two
templates \cwmail\domain2
vend

Using multiple template sets.

DMailWeb can be setup to use multiple sets of templates. You might choose to do this to allow for the use of multiple languages or just to allow individual users to select a set of templates they like working with. For example you might have a very simple set for use by young children or those new to computing, and an extended set for advanced users.

As an example the addition of a second set of templates referred to as Nicks Templates is described below. These can be retrieved from our website and then unpacked.

For NT, download   the self extracting archive dmw_ntpl10.exe and unpack it then follow the directions below.

For Unix, download the file dmw_ntpl10.tar.Z and then

uncompress dmw_ntpl10.tar

tar -xvf dmw_ntpl10.tar

then follow the directions below:

Nick's DMailWeb Templates Version 1.0 1/12/98
-------------------------------------------

This is an additional set of templates for use with DMailWeb
It can be used as a second set of templates which individual users may select at login time or from the config page. ALternatively it can replace the original set of templates.

To replace the original set of templates just copy the full contents of this directory into your existing templates directory and copy the .gif, .wav and .jpg files into your nwimg directory.

Alternatively if you have DMailWeb version 2.0h or later you can copy this directory to a directory like \dmailweb\ntpl, copy the .gif .wav and .jpg files to nwimg directory and then add a line to dmailweb.ini as follows
tpl_set 2 \dmailweb\ntpl

Individual users can then choose to use these templates from the login or configuration page.

To allow selection from the login page you add a line like this to login.tpl in the main templates directory.
<input type="checkbox" name="tpl_set2" value="ON">Use template set 2
Using this method of selection requires the choice to be made at each login.

An alternative is to allow the selection to be made from the config page. To allow this add the following line to the form in the login page.
<input type="hidden" name="tpl_set" value="config">

Allowing Users to change their passwords

The config.tpl page from version 2.1b onwards allows users to change their password by pressing a change password button. Note; at present this function is only available if the particular pop host also supports the poppassd protocol. See poppassd for an example of the unix source for poppassd.

Multi-Language Support:

The template files can be edited to provide an interface in a language other than English. In addition, the names of folders such as Trash, Copies to Self, etc. can be changed using ini file settings.

To translate error and informational messages place the following line in the ini file

language_file lang.dat

Then edit the lang.dat file as required. This contains two lines for each error or informational message contained in the package. Lines begining with a # are considered comments. The lines look like this:

I23 %d of %d users from %s user directories deleted successfully
Translation of: I23 %d of %d users from %s user directories deleted successfully

The I23 identifies the particular message, normally I is used for information and E for errors, W for warnings. The second of each pair of lines should be replaced with a translation into whatever language you want to use. When editing the line be careful not to remove the %d %s parts of the line as these are replaced at run time with relevant information. In the example above the actual message shown might be:

I23: 1 of 1234 users from c:\dmweb\u_* user directories deleted successfully

Diskuse and Diskquotas

One feature of DMailWeb is that it does not keep users message files on the web server and hence you do not need to worry about managing user disk space on the machine it runs on. For each user it keeps a small file with the users configuration options in it. This is a text file that you can edit directly or with a command script of some form.

With Version 1.4 of DMailWeb you can provide your users with a 'trashcan' and a 'copies to self' box. This allows them to restore deleted messages and to check and view messages they have sent without the overhead of always sending a cc to themselves. However, these two new features also mean the user is storing message files on your server. If you don't want them to be able to do this:

• For trashcan you can include one of two settings in the ini file:
  1. no_trash true This will prevent user from putting anything in the trash. You would also need to remove references in the templates to trashcan so they don't think they have one.
  2. empty_trash_on_exit This will force an empty of trashcan on logout and login ( after 12 hours)
• For the copies to self, just remove the references to this feature from the template files and they will not be able to use it.
• Don't use the pop_delete_default true setting. This automatically removes messages from pop host after download BUT also means cache of new messages is not deleted on logout.

If you do want to use these features then:

• include no_trash false setting in the ini file
• You can limit the maximum disk space each user can make use of. If they exceed this limit they will no longer be able to put messages into either of these areas until they have emptied the trash or deleted messages from the 'copies to self' area. A setting in dmailweb.ini for default_quota which is copied into each user's user.dat file when they first use the system. You can either modify this global setting or the quota setting in individual user.dat files. The value is given in kilobytes.

Template Files:

Here is a list of the key template files, and a brief description of each. Each file may optionally have a frame version which has the same name with the suffix f for frames. For a frame login frame.tpl is loaded and menubar.tpl is placed in the top frame.

There are also other example sets of template files available. If you create a particularly nice set you might like to share them with others. If so send them to netwin@netwinsite.com and we will add them to this list.

Download Page

Template Commands

The template files contain ordinary html plus %%variables%% plus various commands to the cgi. The commands may take the form of a submit button with a particular name or a defined variable of the form cmd=xyz. Most commands can be used in either format.   Normally if the command is used as a button name in a form, hidden fields are used to include other required information such as the user token and folder.

Example:

<form  name="List" method="POST" action="||b_action||" >
<input type=hidden name="utoken" value="||utoken||">
<input type=hidden name="fld" value="||fld||">
<input type=input name="list" value="Show New Mail Folder">

The same function can be used as an href, thus:

<a href="||b_action||?cmd=list&utoken=||utoekn||&fld=||fld||&&">Show New Mail Folder</a>

For common functions a preformatted version of this href is available. For example, the list new mail href  can be used thus:

<a href=||b_list||>Show New Mail Folder</a>

In addition a variable of the form set_xyz=abc or name="set_xyz" value="abc"
can be used to create a template variable with a value abc for the template page which is to be returned. Thus for example send message form could be changed to add the following variable
<input type=hidden name="fred" value="send message page">

In a similar way a form can contain a hidden value to perform the same function as in:

<input type="hidden" name="set_fred" value="bill">

The error.tpl page could then include :
Error processing ||fred||
to add send page specific information to the general error.tpl page.

If these set constructs are used with variables starting u_ then the value is also stored permanently in the user.dat file. an href finishing &u_fred=bill will add a line

u_fred bill

to the user.dat file and will replace ||u_fred|| in any template served with the value bill

The cmd=xyz forms are listed in the table below:

Template Variables

Here is a list of some of the variables that you can use in these template files. Note: in the template file each variable has the form %%variable_name%%

Message Headers available as variables:

Variable	Description
a_from	address only part of h_from so if h_from="Ralph Pugmire"rhp@netmail.com a_from=rhp@netmail.com
h_from	From: header line
h_to	To: header line
h_from_trim2	same as h_from_trim but if result is ralph@whatsit.com just return ralph
h_from_trim	Just realname of from header ie john for "john"<jpc@a.b.c>
h_to_trim	Just realname of to header i.e. john for "john"<jpc@a.b.c>
a_reply	address only part of h_reply so if h_reply="Ralph Pugmire"rhp@netmail.com a_reply=rhp@netmail.com
h_reply	Reply: header line
h_reference
h_resent_from	Resent-from: header line found in forwarded messages
h_subject	Re: subject header line, Truncated values available h_subject_30, h_subject_40, h_subject_60
h_subject_raw	Raw subject header line
h_date h_date_mn h_date_time h_date_24 h_date_day h_date_d h_date_y h_date_m	date header from a message and various parts of that header using variables below month as number 1 to 12 time am/pm time in 24 hour clock day in Mon, Tues, Wed... day as a number 1 to 7 year month
h_content-type
a_cc	address only part of CC header line
h_cc	cc header line
h_lines	Number of lines in message including header lines
h_bytes	Number of bytes in message including headers
h_popn	The number (in the users config page pophost list) of the pop host this message came from
h_priority	if in send.tpl contents will be sent as Priority: header
h_kbytes	Number of kilobytes in message, including headers

Obscure/Internal data

Variable	Description
utoken	Current login information for this user, must be carried thru all forms
fwdlist	The list of items to be forwarded in a multiple forward operation
nfwd	Number of items being forwarded

Hidden variables passed in from forms:

Variable	Description
utoken	Current login information for this user, must be carried thru all forms
fld	The folder number being processed
vhost	Value of vhost to use instead of actual server name when matching vhost lines in ini file
send_date	On send use this value rather than servers date_time for date: header on message. Usefull if user are in a different timezone from the server.

True/False Settings

Variable	Description
autoadd	add addresses to pick list automatically
autoadda	add addresses to address book  addr_booksa automatically
v_myfrom	use users from address instead of original from address when forwarding a message Note this is read from forward.tpl so if you do not provide a tick box and want it todefault true then you have to put it in as a hidded field with value "on"
v_font	display variable width font, set to true or false, valid in config.tpl, item.tpl
fwdlist	show all the headers or not, valid in items.tpl
v_inline	show images inline, or as a list of attachments, items.tpl
sig	Config setting, add signature to message.

Detailed Descriptions of Template variables:

%%include%%advert.htm%%

Useful for displaying adverts, you would setup a cron job (or program that runs every 10 minutes) to change the advert file, thus displaying a new advert each time someone reads their mail.

---

%%ifinstr%%var%%val%%

Conditional inclusion if variable var contains string val, case sensitive.

Example:

%%ifinstr%%folder%%New%%

<hf> This is the New folder</h4>

%%else%%

<hf> This is some other folder</h4>

%%endif%%

---

v_asis

Show page as it is so that html refs are interpreted as is.

User Settings

The settings for each user are stored in user.dat files one for each user. Each user has a directory which is a subdirectory of the template or work directory. So for example if the templates are stored in \cwmail a user ralph@myfirm.co would have a directory \cwmail\u_ra\ralph@myfirm.co which would contain a user.dat file containing the settings for user ralph. (Alternative hash methods can be set in the ini file to use more complex methods for creating user directories.) This user.dat file is a text file which can be edited by the system administrator. The default settings come either from global ini file setings or from the default user.dat file which is called default.dat and is stored in the main template directory. (Note you will need to create default.dat if it does not already exist) For example you might create a default.dat to change the default reply to address from the users login name to some prompt string such as "Enter your email address here" to do this just create default.dat with the single line"

dflt_reply Enter your email address here

You could also create batch scripts or programs to modify the contents of the user.dat files to do things like updating users disk quotas or changing their "Real name" based on the contents of some central user database.

You may also use the variable %%user%% within the default.dat file. For example to set uvar1 to fax-username you could add a line

uvar fax-%%user%%

A manager page is also provided as part of the cwmail/dmailweb cgi to enable the system administrator to change settings in the user.dat files. It allows you to change a setting for a wildcard selection of users and to perform other manager tasks. For example you might want to change the name of the "Trashcan" folder for all existing users, having changed the name for new users by modifying the waste_name ini file setting. To access the manager page you enter a url of the following form:

http://my.site.com/cgi-bin/dmailweb.exe?cmd=manager

It also requires the use of a manager_password which must match the corresponding setting in the cwmail.ini or dmailweb.ini configuration file. Note; if you put a manager password in the ini file you need to ensure web users cannot read this file. The directory should be set execute only for web users. The file should only allow owner read access so only CWMail or DMailWeb can read it. Or change to new form manager_password @file

The manager.tpl like other template files, can be completely tailored by the system administrator. It uses the following %%variables%%

Manager variables

Variable	Description
uadd	If checked then user.dat files not containing any value for the setting being modified will have a setting line added.
ub_only	If checked only modify user.dat files for which this setting is blank or missing.
upurge	If checked a purge of all cached new mail messages for the selected users will be performed. This is essentially a forced logout for matching users who have been logged in for more than 12 hours.
uwild	Wildcard selection of users to process. Note: user name includes both username and pop account of the form: ralph@netwin.co.nz so to change ralph settings for all accounts use ralph* and to change all users with accounts on netwin.co.nz use *@netwin.co.nz
uset	User setting to change. Examine user.dat file with a text editor to see what settings can be modified.
uval	New value for setting uset to be entered into user.dat for each matching user.
last_purge	Time of last purge of cached new mail messages.
nmatches	Number of matching user/host name combinations
nusers	Total number of user/host name combinations found on system
nadded	Number of user.dat files which had a setting line added to them
nmodified	Total number of lines in user.dat files which were modified to the new value (uval)

Manager Page:

An example of the manager page is shown below:

DMailWeb Management

This form allows you to modify user settings for a wild card selection of users by modifying the values stored in their users.dat files. These files store settings for a variety of options from disk quotas to default reply addresses. The user.dat files are simple text files and can also be edited directly with any text editor.

Results:

CWMail 1.7b Copyright © NetWin Ltd

Hashing of User Directories:

For most systems the simple approach of using directories of the form workarea/u_fr/fred@netwin_co_nz for user fred at netwin.co.nz is best. This provides a spread of user directories and an easy way to find the user.dat for any given user. On some very large unix systems the directory lookups can be slow if there are more than about 800 entries in a directory. For these systems a second hashing more complex hasing method is provided. It is set by putting:
hash_method nhash
or
hash_method 2

in the ini file. This new method allows any characters in usernames and uses a two level directory structure    eg. workarea/n_a9/b4/encoded_user@domain.name
rather than just workarea/u_xx/user@domain_name
It provides a very flat distribution and will produce less than 800 directories per directory even on systems with many milliions of user accounts.
Note1: Most large systems even on unix do not see a problem with existing hash method which is more transparent.
Note2: As changeing the hashing method will make the cgi look in a different directory for a users files it should not be done on a working system. (Users would loose their messages and settings)
A utility wmcd which returns a user_directory for a given username@domain is included in the new distribution.

Example

wmcd ralph/a@domain.one%.two
.\n_i5\l9\ralph_Ja_Pdomain_Ione_9_Itwo

Later a change hash method utility will be provided to move user files should this become  necessary.

DMailWeb.INI settings

General configuration settings are stored in dmailweb.ini which must be in the same directory and have the same root name as the executable. So if the the cgi is renamed xmail.cgi then the configuration file will be xmail.ini