Learn How To Install RainLoop Webmail on CentOS 7

April 22, 2019

Table of Contents

If you are using a different system, please check our other tutorials.

RainLoop is a simple, modern and fast web-based email client. RainLoop source code is hosted on GitHub. This guide will show you how to install RainLoop on a fresh CentOS 7 IT Web Services instance.

Requirements

  • Nginx
  • PHP version 5.4 and above, as well as the following extensions:
    • cURL
    • iconv
    • json
    • libxml
    • dom
    • openssl
    • DateTime
    • PCRE
    • SPL
    • Optional PHP extension: PDO (MySQL/PostgreSQL/SQLite) (for contacts)

Check the CentOS version.

cat /etc/centos-release
# CentOS Linux release 7.4.1708 (Core)

Create a new non-root user account with sudo access and switch to it.

useradd -c "John Doe" johndoe && passwd johndoe
usermod -aG wheel johndoe
su - johndoe

NOTE: Replace johndoe with your username.

Set up the timezone.

timedatectl list-timezones
sudo timedatectl set-timezone 'Region/City'

Ensure that your system is up to date.

sudo yum update -y

Install necessary packages for finishing this tutorial.

sudo yum install -y curl git wget vim unzip bash-completion 

Disable SELinux.

sudo setenforce 0

Enable the EPEL repository.

sudo rpm -Uvh https://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/epel-release-latest-7.noarch.rpm

Install PHP, necessary PHP extensions, MariaDB and Nginx

Setup the Webtatic YUM repo.

sudo rpm -Uvh https://mirror.webtatic.com/yum/el7/webtatic-release.rpm

Download and install PHP 7.0 and the required PHP extensions.

sudo yum install -y php72w php72w-cli php72w-fpm php72w-curl php72w-json php72w-mbstring php72w-mysql php72w-pgsql php72w-sqlite3 php72w-common php72w-xml

Check the version.

php -v

Start and enable php-fpm.

sudo systemctl start php-fpm.service
sudo systemctl enable php-fpm.service

Install MariaDB.

sudo vim /etc/yum.repos.d/MariaDB.repo
# Copy/paste this to the /etc/yum.repos.d/MariaDB.repo file
[mariadb]
name = MariaDB
baseurl = https://yum.mariadb.org/10.2/centos7-amd64
gpgkey=https://yum.mariadb.org/RPM-GPG-KEY-MariaDB
gpgcheck=1
sudo yum install -y MariaDB-server MariaDB-client

Check the version.

mysql --version

Run the mysql_secure_installation script to improve the security of your MariaDB installation.

sudo mysql_secure_installation

Log in to MariaDB as the root user.

mysql -u root -p
# Enter password:

Create a new MariaDB database and user, and remember the credentials.

CREATE DATABASE dbname;
CREATE USER 'username'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
GRANT ALL ON `dbname`.* TO 'username'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;

Install Nginx.

sudo yum install -y nginx

Check the version.

sudo nginx -v

Start and enable Nginx.

sudo systemctl start nginx.service
sudo systemctl enable nginx.service

Configure Nginx for RainLoop. Run sudo vim /etc/nginx/conf.d/rainloop.conf and add the following configuration.

server {
    listen 80;
    server_name example.com;
    root /var/www/rainloop;
    index index.php;
    location / {
        try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$query_string;
    }
    location ~ .php$ {
        fastcgi_index index.php;
        fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+.php)(.*)$;
        fastcgi_keep_conn on;
        include fastcgi_params;
        fastcgi_pass 127.0.0.1:9000;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
    }
    location ~ /.ht {
        deny all;
    }
    location ^~ /data {
         deny all;
    }
}

Test the configuration.

sudo nginx -t

Reload Nginx.

sudo systemctl reload nginx.service

Install RainLoop

Create a document root.

sudo mkdir -p /var/www/rainloop

Change ownership of the /var/www/rainloop directory to johndoe.

sudo chown -R johndoe:johndoe /var/www/rainloop

Download the latest release of RainLoop and unzip it.

cd /var/www/rainloop
wget http://www.rainloop.net/repository/webmail/rainloop-latest.zip
unzip rainloop-latest.zip -d /var/www/rainloop
rm rainloop-latest.zip

Change ownership of the /var/www/rainloop directory to nginx.

sudo chown -R nginx:nginx /var/www/rainloop

Run sudo vim /etc/php-fpm.d/www.conf and set the user and group to nginx. Initially, it will be set to apache.

sudo vim /etc/php-fpm.d/www.conf
# user = nginx
# group = nginx

Restart the php-fpm service.

sudo systemctl restart php-fpm.service

Open http://example.com/?admin in your favorite browser and login to configure RainLoop webmail. The default login name is admin and the password is 12345.

Need help?

Do you need help setting up this on your own service?
Please contact us and we’ll provide you the best possible quote!