Learn How To Install RainLoop Webmail on Fedora 28

October 5, 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 Fedora 28 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

Check the Fedora version.

cat /etc/fedora-release
# Fedora release 28 (Twenty Eight)

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 dnf check-upgrade || sudo dnf upgrade -y

Install necessary packages.

sudo dnf install -y curl wget vim unzip bash-completion

For simplicity, disable SELinux and Firewall.

sudo setenforce 0 ; sudo systemctl stop firewalld ; sudo systemctl disable firewalld

Install PHP, necessary PHP extensions, MariaDB and Nginx

Download and install PHP and the required PHP extensions.

sudo dnf install -y php-cli php-fpm php-curl php-json php-mbstring php-mysqlnd php-pgsql php-sqlite3 php-common php-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 dnf install -y mariadb-server

Check the version.

mysql --version

Start and enable MariaDB.

sudo systemctl start mariadb.service
sudo systemctl enable mariadb.service

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;
GRANT ALL ON dbname.* TO 'username' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT

Install Nginx.

sudo dnf install -y nginx

Check the version.

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 unix:/run/php-fpm/www.sock;
    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. After the first login, you should change the default login credentials.

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