Install Rainloop Webmail on an Ubuntu 14.04 VPS

In this post, we will show you how to install Rainloop Webmail on an Ubuntu VPS with Nginx and MariaDB. Rainloop Webmail is a simple, modern and fast web-based email client, written in PHP. Some of the features of the application includes: modern user interface, support of IMAP and SMTP protocols, keyboard shortcuts and autocompletion.
This should work on other Linux VPS systems as well but was tested and written for Ubuntu 14.04.

Update the system and install necessary packages.

root@vps:~# apt-get -y update && apt-get -y upgrade
root@vps:~# apt-get install python-software-properties curl

Install MariaDB and create a database.

If you don’t plan to use the Contacts feature you can skip this step.

root@vps:~# apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 0xcbcb082a1bb943db
root@vps:~# add-apt-repository 'deb http://ftp.osuosl.org/pub/mariadb/repo/10.0/ubuntu trusty main'
root@vps:~# apt-get -y update
root@vps:~# echo -e "Package: *\nPin: origin ftp.osuosl.org\nPin-Priority: 1000" | tee /etc/apt/preferences.d/mariadb
root@vps:~# apt-get install mariadb-server
root@vps:~# mysql -uroot -p
MariaDB [(none)]> create database rainloop;
MariaDB [(none)]> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON rainloop.* TO 'rainloop'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'rlPasswd'
MariaDB [(none)]> flush privileges;
MariaDB [(none)]> \q;

Install PHP and Nginx

apt-get install nginx php5-fpm php-cli php5-mysql php5-mcrypt php5-curl php5-sqlite

Create a root directory for your web site and deploy the latest version of the application

root@vps:~# mkdir -p /var/www/yourrainloop.com/{public_html,logs}
root@vps:~# cd /var/www/yourrainloop.com/public_html
root@vps:~# curl -s http://repository.rainloop.net/installer.php | php

Create a new Nginx server block with the following content

root@vps:~# cat <<'EOF' > /etc/nginx/sites-available/yourrainloop.com
server {
    server_name yourrainloop.com;
    listen 80;
    root /var/www/yourrainloop.com/public_html;
    access_log /var/www/yourrainloop.com/logs/access.log;
    error_log /var/www/yourrainloop.com/logs/error.log;
    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 /etc/nginx/fastcgi_params;
        fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php5-fpm.sock;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
    }
 
    location ~ /\.ht {
        deny all;
    }

    location ^~ /data {
      deny all;
    } 

}
EOF

Symlink it and restart the server

root@vps:~# ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/yourrainloop.com /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/yourrainloop.com
root@vps:~# /etc/init.d/nginx restart

Set the correct permissions

root@vps:~# chown -R www-data: /var/www/yourrainloop.com/public_html/

That’s it. Now open your browser, type the address of your website , and use the default application credentials.

URL = http://yourrainloop.com/?admin
User= admin 
Password= 12345

Please check the official rainloop website for more details.

Of course you don’t have to do any of this if you use one of our Linux VPS Hosting services, in which case you can simply ask our expert Linux admins to set this up for you. They are available 24×7 and will take care of your request immediately.

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