Linux Full Fledged Email Server (Ultimatum!)

This article has been written to outline the advantages and to be used as a step by step guide to install and use the Kolab mail server on Ubuntu.

Platform

• Ubuntu 12.04 (LTS)
• Kolab
• OpenLDAP
• Web Front-ends

The Advantages (Yep right at the start...!)

Admin Interface 

Well the admin interface is a rich, feature-packed and user friendly interface.The following can be managed in this interface.

• Users & Groups (obviously!)
• Roles (Well  this slightly different than groups)
• Domains (Yes, you can have a multiple domains!)

User Interface Features

• Webmail (runs on RoundCube)
• Tasks/Notes and Calendar
• Shared Folders

Installation Instructions

Install the base Ubuntu server (12.04 as of this writing)

This includes the usual Base installation steps along with configuring the network settings etc. Also make sure that the hosts file has the correct configuration. The host file should like the below.

127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.1.1 <Hostname.domain.local> <Hostname>
www.xxx.yyy.zzz <Hostname.domain.local> <Hostname> 

www.xxx.yyy.zzz been the IP of the Kolab server. You can edit this file by typing the below.

sudo pico /etc/hosts 

Prepare the server for the Kolab installation.


sudo pico /etc/apt/sources.list.d/kolab.list

Once the file opens enter the following lines.

deb http://obs.kolabsys.com:82/Kolab:/3.2/Ubuntu_12.04/ ./
deb http://obs.kolabsys.com:82/Kolab:/3.2:/Updates/Ubuntu_12.04/ ./

Now we will obtain the necessary keys for these repositories. Execute the below in order to complete this.

sudo su

wget -qO - http://obs.kolabsys.com:82/Kolab:/3.2/Ubuntu_12.04/Release.key | apt-key add -

wget -qO - http://obs.kolabsys.com:82/Kolab:/3.2:/Updates/Ubuntu_12.04/Release.key | apt-key add -

exit

We need to ensure that the Kolab packages get preference over other repositories. 

Hence we need to do the following.

sudo pico /etc/apt/preferences.d/kolab

Once the file opens enter the below.

Package: *
Pin: origin obs.kolabsys.com
Pin-Priority: 501

Once the file is saved and closed run the below.

sudo apt-get update

This will sync the new Kolab repositories. 

This is when we can go for the kill....!

sudo apt-get install kolab

you will be prompted for the below credentials

New MySQL Root Password

Postfix Configuration (select "Internet Site" for the time been)

Postfix Configuration (enter the FQDN of your domain)

Once the lengthy installation is complete run the below command.

sudo setup-kolab

This process will prompt you for the below.

Administrator Password

Directory Manager Password

User and Group accounts under which the services should run under (select the default value)

Domain name space (select the default if it the correct FQDN of your domain)

Cyrus Administrator Password

Kolab Service Password

MySQL Server Setup (select Existing MySQL Server)

MySQL Root Password (this is the password which was supplied during the Kolab installation)

MySQL Kolab Password

MySQL Roundcube Password

Once this completes do the following.

cd to the home directory

touch setup_roundcube.patch

pico setup_roundcube.patch

Navigate to https://issues.kolab.org/attachment.cgi?id=626 and paste the contents to the file you just created.

Save and close the file.

sudo service kolab-server stop

sudo service kolab-saslauthd stop

mysql -uroot -p -e "DROP DATABASE roundcube"

cd /usr/share/pyshared/pykolab/setup 

sudo patch < ~/setup_roundcube.patch

sudo setup-kolab roundcube

sudo reboot 

Let's do our initial setup before we can start using the services on the server.

Navigate to http://<IP_of_the_server>/kolab-webadmin/

User Name - cn=Directory Manager

Password - Same password provided for Directory Manager Password

This is what you should see.

Voila! This is the admin panel! Finally....yes!!!

Click on Users

Fill in the Account Type (Kolab User)

Given Name

Surname

Click on the System tab

Give the new user a password

Click on the Configuration tab

Assign a quota if required 

Click on Submit

Our first user is born!

Let's take a look at the webmail interface now!

Navigate to http://<IP_of_the_server>/roundcubemail/ 

Log in with the newly created account from the previous step.

The user name would be the surname

Here is another useful link to manage the file sharing feature on the server

http://<IP_of_the_server>/chwala/ (log in as any of the created users)

Best Free AutoTask DashBoard

Best Free AutoTask DashBoard

Everyone that uses AutoTask (AT for short from here onwards) dreams of having a live dashboard showing the stats clear and shiny! Here is the solution!!

Out there is a system which runs on Ubuntu and has a few components installed on it to get this lovely dashboard running. Listed below are the main components (as of this writing)

• Ubuntu 12.04 LTS
• MySQL 5.5.32
• Apache 2.2.22
• CakePHP 2.3.4

Installation/Configuration

The easiest way to get this up and running in a short time is to download the pre-configured virtual machine. This can be downloaded from here

The purpose of this document is not to cover the actual configuration as such but to provide an overview in to the dashboard it self.

This dashboard can do the following.

• Gather information from different queues
• Accumulate data for each resource
• Show the rate of closed tickets against created tickets per day.
• Show the resource that closed the most number of tickets

All this can be done for free! Highly recommended for all AT using companies.  

Below is a screenshot of what it looks like (to give you a taste!)

The website for more information is this

Full Featured Email Server in Ubuntu

This tutorial has been written to outline the steps to install and configure a full featured email server.

Obejectives:

• Have a light weight email server
• All software should be free of charge (of course!)
• Easy to use and configure

List of Components:

• Postfix: SMTP service
• Dovecot: POP3/POP3S, IMAP/IMAPS,
• Managesieve service
• Apache: Web server
• MySQL: Storing mail accounts and application data
• Amavisd, SpamAssassin,
• ClamAV: Anti-spam, anti-virus
• Roundcube: Webmail
• Awstats: Apache and Postfix log analyzer
• Fail2ban: scans log files (e.g. /var/log/apache/error_log) and bans IPs that show the malicious signs -- too many password failures, seeking for exploits, etc.
• iRedAdmin: A basic, free & open source administration panel to manage the mail accounts
• Webmin: A full featured, web based system admin tool to manage the server remotely
• OpenSSH: A service to access the CLI interface remotely.

Step 1 (Ubuntu Server Base Installation)

Install the base server components. Do not install any extra components at the tasksel screen.Once the installtion is complete run the following commands to bring the installation up to date with the latest software components on the online repos.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade -y

Assign a static IP to the box.

In order to assign a static IP address execute the following commands on the CLI

sudo nano /etc/network/interfaces

Once in the interfaces file the display should like something similar to the below screen grab

Make the following changes

Make sure the server has a FQDN configured. In order to do so execute the following on the CLI.

sudo nano /etc/hosts

Edit the lines to look similar to the below. Remeber to add tabs between instead of spaces!

127.0.0.1 localhost
127.0.1.1 <ServerName.domain.local> <ServerName>
<IP_Address>  <ServerName.domain.local> <ServerName>

Reboot the computer to apply all changes.

Step 2 (OpenSSH Installation)

Execute the following command to complete this step

sudo apt-get install openssh-server -y

After the installation is complete download putty from here. Open Putty.exe is downloaded on your desktop computer open it and enter the IP of the server. You will receive a warning about adding SSH keys, click "Yes" and you will be presented with a remote loin screen to the server.

Step 3 (Install Webmin)

Execute the following commands

sudo pico /etc/apt/sources.list

Once the file opens add the following lines to the end.

#Webmin
deb http://download.webmin.com/download/repository sarge contrib
deb http://webmin.mirror.somersettechsolutions.co.uk/repository sarge contrib


Then close the file after saving it and execute the below.

sudo su
cd
wget http://www.webmin.com/jcameron-key.asc
apt-key add jcameron-key.asc
exit
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install webmin -y  

Step 4 (iRedMail Installation)

Visit this page and download the latest release of iRedMail. In order to do this copy the link to the actual file (Right click on the file and click on "Copy Link Location" (in Firefox). Open a SSH session (via Putty, see Step 2) and run the following command.

mkdir iRedMail
this will create a new directory under your home directory. change the directory to the newly created one.Then type wget and right click inside the putty session. If the link was copied it will be pasted on the session. The set of commands to accomplish these tasks are as follows.

cd iRedMail
wget https://bitbucket.org/zhb/iredmail/downloads/iRedMail-0.8.6.tar.bz2
ls

The screen should look like this after all the above commands have been executed.

Let's go ahead and extract the downloaded file as it is a zipped archive. Type the following. The "x.y.z" stands for the version number on the file.

tar xjf iRedMail-x.y.z.tar.bz2

This will create a new folder iRedMail-x.y.z If you type ls this is visible. CD to the folder.

cd iRedMail-x.y.z

Let's install it (finally!)

 sudo bash iRedMail.sh

Here are the screenshots of the setup steps.

Figure 1

Tab to "Yes" and hit enter

Figure 2

For the time been we could hit "Next". but the best would be to hold this directory on a separate drive and have a directory dedicated for it on that drive.
 

Figure 3

Let's select MySQL as it is less complicated. Again OpenLDAP would be my choice as it is far more scalable. and besides that's the application that is built for directory work! But let's go with MySQL on this occasion.

Figure 4

Well read the instructions and do as it says!

Figure 5

Add the actual domain name here! The external domain that you would expect the emails to land in.

Figure 6

Again enter the password for the admin user.

Figure 7

Allow all the items to be selected (this is by default) and select "Next".

Figure 8

Well hitting "y" would be helpful here :-)

This will start a bit of a lengthy installation/configuration process. Sit back and have a coffee. I know how tiring all this would have been!


Once the installation is complete here are the URLs to go to and here starts the fun stuff!

Webmail: http://your_server/mail/
postmaster@<your_domain> / Password given during installation
See Figure 6

Admin panel: https://your_server/iredadmin/
postmaster@<your_domain> / Password given during installation
See Figure 6


phpMyAdmin: https://<IP_of_Server>/phpmyadmin/
root / Password given during installation 
See Figure 4

Awstats: https://<IP_of_Server>/awstats/awstats.pl?config=web (or ?config=smtp)
postmaster@<your_domain> / Password given during installation
See Figure 6


Webmin http://<IP_of_Server>:10000
The user you login to the server with and the same password

Tip:

In case none of the above sites can be accessed it is not an problem with the installation. Instead the installed iptables firewall is blocking all the incoming connections and in turn  blocks access to all the above. To resolve this do the following (Please be aware that this is a temp measure only.Resolving the issue is outside the scope of this document)

sudo services iptables stop

Here ends my little tutorial. Hope it comes in useful people!