Install and set-up Roundcube webmail interface

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Install and set-up Roundcube webmail interfaceThe following article is about how to install and set-up the Roundcube webmail interface on a CentOS VPS.

It is actually part 2 of our mailserver with virtual users and domains using Postfix and Dovecot on a CentOS 6 VPS series.

What is Roundcube?

Roundcube is a web-based IMAP email client written in PHP. Roundcube’s most prominent feature is the pervasive use of Ajax technology to present a more fluid and responsive user interface than the one of traditional webmail clients. It provides full functionality you expect from an email client, including MIME support, address book, folder manipulation, message searching, spell checking etc…

As usual, before proceeding any further, SSH to your CentOS 6 VPS, fire-up a screen session and make sure your system is fully up-to-date by running:

## screen -U -S roundcube-screen
## yum update

Roundcube requires PHP, a webserver and a database server. We are going to use the LAMP stack here, so, if LAMP is not already set-up on your system please check our fine tutorial on how to install LAMP (Linux Apache MySQL and PHP) on CentOS 6.

Ok, next step is to set-up a database for Roundcube using the following commands:

## mysql -u root -p
mysql> CREATE DATABASE IF NOT EXISTS `roundcube`;
mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON `roundcube` . * TO 'roundcube'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'mySecretPassword';
mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
mysql> quit

make sure you change ‘mySecretPassword‘ with your own one.

Before downloading and installing Roundcube, let’s first create Roundcube’s Apache configuration file in /etc/httpd/conf.d/90-roundcube.conf by using an editor:

## vim  /etc/httpd/conf.d/90-roundcube.conf

and paste the following:

Alias /webmail /var/www/html/roundcube

<Directory /var/www/html/roundcube>
    Options -Indexes
    AllowOverride All
</Directory>

<Directory /var/www/html/roundcube/config>
    Order Deny,Allow
    Deny from All
</Directory>

<Directory /var/www/html/roundcube/temp>
    Order Deny,Allow
    Deny from All
</Directory>

<Directory /var/www/html/roundcube/logs>
    Order Deny,Allow
    Deny from All
</Directory>

So far so good. Now, download and set-up the latest version of Roundcube to /var/www/html/roundcube using:

## curl -L "http://sourceforge.net/projects/roundcubemail/files/latest/download?source=files" > /tmp/roundcube-latest.tar.gz
## tar -zxf /tmp/roundcube-latest.tar.gz -C /var/www/html
## rm -f /tmp/roundcube-latest.tar.gz
## cd /var/www/html
## mv roundcubemail-* roundcube
## chown root: -R roundcube/
## chown apache: -R roundcube/temp/
## chown apache: -R roundcube/logs/

Next thing to do, is to set-up Roundcube’s main.inc.php configuration file. But, before setting it up, let’s first create all the necessary database tables for Roundcube using:

## mysql -u roundcube -p"mySecretPassword" roundcube < roundcube/SQL/mysql.initial.sql

again, make sure you use the correct MySQL user/password combination

with tables in place, proceed with copying the main.inc.php.dist sample configuration file and editing main.inc.php:

## cp roundcube/config/main.inc.php.dist roundcube/config/main.inc.php
## vim roundcube/config/main.inc.php
change:
  $rcmail_config['default_host'] = '';
to
  $rcmail_config['default_host'] = 'localhost';

change:
  $rcmail_config['smtp_server'] = '';
to
  $rcmail_config['smtp_server'] = 'localhost';

change:
  $rcmail_config['smtp_user'] = '';
to
  $rcmail_config['smtp_user'] = '%u';

change:
  $rcmail_config['smtp_pass'] = '';
to
  $rcmail_config['smtp_pass'] = '%p';

change:
  $rcmail_config['quota_zero_as_unlimited'] = false;
to
  $rcmail_config['quota_zero_as_unlimited'] = true;

change:
  $rcmail_config['preview_pane'] = false;
to
  $rcmail_config['preview_pane'] = true;

change:
  $rcmail_config['read_when_deleted'] = true;
to
  $rcmail_config['read_when_deleted'] = false;

change:
  $rcmail_config['check_all_folders'] = false;
to
  $rcmail_config['check_all_folders'] = true;

save and close the configuration file and proceed with setting up Roundcube’s database configuration file:

## cp roundcube/config/db.inc.php.dist roundcube/config/db.inc.php
## vim roundcube/config/db.inc.php
change:
  $rcmail_config['db_dsnw'] = 'mysql://roundcube:[email protected]/roundcubemail';
to
  $rcmail_config['db_dsnw'] = 'mysqli://roundcube:[email protected]/roundcube';

save and close the configuration file and remove the installer directory using:

## rm -rf roundcube/installer/

finally, restart Apache using:

## service httpd restart

and login to your webmail at http://yourdomain.com/webmail

Adding Roundcube Webmail to the mailserver set-up with virtual users and domains using Postfix and Dovecot on a CentOS VPS provides you with a web-based email client solution for managing your user’s emails.

There are still other parts missing such as SSL encrypted connection, anti-spam service, digital signatures using opendkim, filter rules etc for a full-featured mail server. In the next few related articles, we will be adding additional features to the set-up so stay tuned.

Update: Part 3 – Set-up SSL encrypted connection in Postfix, Dovecot and Apache

Update: Part 4 – How to install and integrate SpamAssassin with Postfix on a CentOS 6 VPS

Update: Part 5 – How to install and integrate OpenDKIM with Postfix on a CentOS 6 VPS

Update: Part 6 – How to set-up server-side email filtering with Dovecot Sieve and Roundcube on a CentOS 6 VPS

Of course, if you are one of our Linux VPS Hosting customers, you don’t have to do any of this, simply ask our admins, sit back and relax. Our admins will set this up for you immediately.

PS. If you liked this post please share it with your friends on the social networks using the buttons on the left or simply leave a reply below. Thanks.

44 thoughts on “Install and set-up Roundcube webmail interface”

  1. Thanks for setting up the guide however I am stuck at where it says to type “## mysql -u roundcube -p”mySecretPassword” roundcube and I have to ctrl c to quit because nothing else happens.

    Am I stuck now…..please respond with help asap. thanks

    Reply

    • You need to be inside your ‘/var/www/html/’ directory and execute the command, but without the two ‘##’ at the beginning. The command should be:

      mysql -u roundcube -p”mySecretPassword” roundcube < roundcube/SQL/mysql.initial.sql Where 'mySecretPassword' is the password you chose when creating the database. Please clarify your question further if this answer was not clear enough or maybe misleading.

      Reply

  2. Thanks for the reply, I forgot the l in sql when copying the command silly me. I tried it and works, great thanks to you!!!!!!

    Reply
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  5. SIr,

    Please tell me whats the default username and password for login in webmail ?

    i complete the whole istallation, as you described… but i need login credentials,,,, it is giving me error “connection to storage server failed”

    Reply

  7. Hi,

    I’ve just followed the above steps, but I got one error at the end. When I access via a web browser, it say that “DATABASE ERROR: CONNECTION FAILED!” Unable to connect to the database!
    I tried to check and reconfigured it again, but the problem still exist.

    Please advise what should I do to solve this.
    Thanks

    Reply

  8. Can anyone help out in setting up a LAN based mail server using Roundcube?
    I’m a newbie,so dont be too hard on me. I need well defined instructions to set up a local mail server that works only within LAN and my machine being the mail server. I havent had much luck in finding out documentation on how to go on about this. Thanks

    Reply
  9. Pingback: How to set-up server-side email filtering with Dovecot Sieve and Roundcube on a CentOS 6 VPS | RoseHosting.com Linux VPS Hosting Blog

  10. is this guide applicable to “Debian Squeeze (old stable)” version?.. or i’m at the wrong page, i really like the guides here at rosehosting that why i stick to this site.

    Thanks in advance! hope i can get a response

    Reply

    • This is for CentOS 6 but can be used as a guide to setup Roundcube in a Debian Squeeze based virtual server.

      Everything should be the same except Roundcube’s apache configuration and document root. They are differently setup in Debian. (location, paths etc)

      Reply

  11. Hi People,

    I have just completed the second part of the article. installed and configured Roundcube in my Centos6 VBox. I can open xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:webmail from my host machine running Windows7. My problems are:
    1> cannot login to roundcube webmail portal
    2> cannot configure the account in Outlook as its showing error in POP3 and SMTP erro.
    (as the article mentioned in the first part to configure the mail in any preferred client, so i tried to do that, but its not working. But i can connect to pop3 and smtp through when im connected to my centos6 Vbox using putty).

    Please Help.

    Reply

    • 1. Did you check your Roundcube log files for errors?

      2. How did you configure your Outlook email account?
      If you want to create and use POP3 email accounts, use the following settings:
      Incoming mail server:
      Port: 110 (POP3) or 995 (POP3S)
      Outgoing (SMTP) server:
      Port: 25 or 587
      If you want to create an IMAP email account, use the following settings:
      Incoming mail server:
      Port: 143 (IMAP) or 993 (IMAPS)
      Outgoing (SMTP) server:
      Port: 25 or 587

      Reply

  13. Hey Admin,

    I resolved it…. it was damn SElinux… :)
    Just made some rules over there, added IPtables rules and now it is working just fine……

    But again stuck on secure pop3 and SMTP part :(

    Reply

  15. Anyone..!!! Please help me in Roundcube Change Password plugin.
    I’m using exim MTA and SQL driver in password plugin.
    I’m stuck with the following error output:
    DB Error in /var/www/html/roundcube/program/include/rcube_mdb2.php (727): MDB2 Error: not found Query: _doQuery: [Error message: Could not execute statement] [Last executed query: SELECT update_passwd(‘$1$uTS6.XKG$F0muyKExdd877wDgRSfMD1′, ’roundtest’)] [Native code: 1305] [Native message: FUNCTION roundcube.update_passwd does not exist]

    Reply

  16. Please help…
    I’m getting following output in roundcube change password plugin.

    DB Error in /var/www/html/roundcube/program/include/rcube_mdb2.php (727): MDB2 Error: not found Query: _doQuery: [Error message: Could not execute statement] [Last executed query: SELECT update_passwd(‘$1$uTS6.XKG$F0muyKExdd877wDgRSfMD1′, ’roundtest’)] [Native code: 1305] [Native message: FUNCTION roundcube.update_passwd does not exist]

    My MTA is exim….

    Reply

  17. I want to change password of email id from roundcube plugins. I am using roundcube 1.1.1.
    To activate password plugins:- open /var/www/html/roundcube/config/config.inc.php and change $config[‘plugins’] =arrary() to $config[‘plugins’] =arrary(password);

    Then rename /var/www/html/roundcube/program/plugins/password/config.inc.php.dist. to config.inc.php. Then password option shown in the roundcube webmail. But it is not work.

    There are lots of driver available . But which driver is suitable for this kind mail configuration and configuration process. I want , mail user should able to change password himself. If it is not possible, then please suggest alternative good solution.
    Please help me to solve this problem.

    Reply

  18. I am using roundcube 1.1.1. I want to activate password in roundcube.
    I have change in /var/www/html/roundcube/config/config.inc.php
    #$config[‘plugins’] = array ();
    $config[‘plugins’] = array (password);
    Then go to # cd /var/www/html/roundcube/plugins/password
    #rm config.inc.php.dist config.inc.php
    After that I have checked that password option is activated in roundcube webmail.
    But it is not working. I also configure SSL, it works fine.
    But in the plugging, there are several drivers for change password.
    In the part I, this website configure mail passwd /etc/dovecot/password file.
    And also use # doveadm pw -s sha1 | cut -d ‘}’ -f2 for password creation form centos os.
    But which drive is best for change passwod In roundcube and how I can do it. I don’t understand.
    Please help me,,, If anyone help me , I will grateful.

    Reply

    • Create a new virtual host in Apache, for example:

      <VirtualHost *:80>
      ServerAdmin [email protected]
      ServerName mail.com
      ServerAlias www.mail.com
      DocumentRoot /var/www/html/roundcube
      <Directory /var/www/html/roundcube>
      Options -Indexes
      AllowOverride All
      </Directory>
      </VirtualHost>

      Do not forget to restart your Apache service for the changes to take effect.

      Reply

  20. I’m trying to use the “password” plugin. It do updates a password field in my mysql db but the Roundcube still log in at the remote webmail server. What I’m a doing wrong

    Reply
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  23. Hi,
    I am using Round Cube Mail server and like to make a backup of mail service to our Network backup Device, Can anyone guide us for so.

    Reply

      • Hi admin,

        I’m stuck in setting Roundcube , I’m thinking of using it as an archive of emails for LAN,
        I’m using Uniserver and was able to complete the installation. I left the smtp and imap fields blank. When I go to localhost/roundcubemail, it shows username and password fields, I don’t know what to enter there. can you guide me?

        I tried using the database username and password but it failed

        Reply
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