Installing OpenWebMail in Slackware64 14.0

This article explains how to install OpenWebmail and configure it so that you can access your mailbox using a web interface from any place with internet access and a webbrowser available.
These instructions were tested on Slackware64 14.0 64-bit OS and the latest openwebmail-current.tar.gz (actually version 2.53)
It means, you are configured and running Apache web server and Sendmail mailserver.

Install libraries and required packages

Using CPAN via CPAN.pm:

perl -MCPAN -e shell                    [as root]
o conf prerequisites_policy ask

then:

install CGI
install Compress:Zlib
install Convert::ASN1
install Digest
install Digest::MD5
install IO::Socket::SSL
install MIME::Base64
install Net::SSLeay
install Text::Iconv

quit

Install OpenWebMail

First, download latest openwebmail: openwebmail-current.tar.gz
Create a directory wherever you want it, say “/ADISKS/openwebm_inst” and move the downloaded file “openwebmail-current.tar.gz” into that directory.
Extract all files using the command
```
tar -zxvBpf openwebmail-current.tar.gz
```
Use “tar” with “-zxvBpf” option, due to strange file permissions inside that archive. I tried to untar it via midnight comander built-in archive tools, ans the wrapsuid script would not work because of this…
Move the extracted directory “cgi-bin/openwebmail” to “/var/www/cgi-bin/openwebmail”
Move the extracted directory “data/openwebmail” to your webserver's DocumentRoot (in a default Apache configuration, that will be “/var/www/openwebmail”)
Change directory to “/var/www/openwebmail”, delete the file index.html and run the command
```
ln -s redirect.html index.html
```

Change directory to “/var/www/cgi-bin/openwebmail” and run the command

perl misc/tools/wrapsuid/wrapsuid.pl /var/www/cgi-bin/openwebmail

You should see the following output:

Fixing /tmp/openwebmail/cgi-bin/openwebmail/openwebmail-folder.pl
Fixing /tmp/openwebmail/cgi-bin/openwebmail/openwebmail-main.pl
Fixing /tmp/openwebmail/cgi-bin/openwebmail/openwebmail-read.pl
Fixing /tmp/openwebmail/cgi-bin/openwebmail/openwebmail-send.pl
Fixing /tmp/openwebmail/cgi-bin/openwebmail/openwebmail-cal.pl
Fixing /tmp/openwebmail/cgi-bin/openwebmail/openwebmail-webdisk.pl
Fixing /tmp/openwebmail/cgi-bin/openwebmail/openwebmail.pl
Fixing /tmp/openwebmail/cgi-bin/openwebmail/openwebmail-advsearch.pl
Fixing /tmp/openwebmail/cgi-bin/openwebmail/openwebmail-abook.pl
Fixing /tmp/openwebmail/cgi-bin/openwebmail/openwebmail-viewatt.pl
Fixing /tmp/openwebmail/cgi-bin/openwebmail/openwebmail-vdomain.pl
Fixing /tmp/openwebmail/cgi-bin/openwebmail/openwebmail-saprefs.pl
Fixing /tmp/openwebmail/cgi-bin/openwebmail/openwebmail-prefs.pl
Fixing /tmp/openwebmail/cgi-bin/openwebmail/openwebmail-tool.pl
Fixing /tmp/openwebmail/cgi-bin/openwebmail/openwebmail-spell.pl

Then go to “/var/www/cgi-bin/openwebmail/etc” and edit the configuration files:

Change “openwebmail.conf” according to:

domainnames             auto                                                                                                                                
auth_module             auth_unix.pl                                                                                                                        
mailspooldir            /var/spool/mail                                                                                                                     
ow_cgidir               /var/www/cgi-bin/openwebmail                                                                                                        
ow_cgiurl               /cgi-bin/openwebmail                                                                                                                
ow_htmldir              /var/www/openwebmail                                                                                                                
ow_htmlurl              /                                                                                                                                   
logfile                 /var/log/openwebmail.log

Change directory to “/var/www/cgi-bin/openwebmail/etc/defaults”, edit auth_unix conf to become

passwdfile_plaintext    /etc/passwd                                                                                                                         
passwdfile_encrypted    /etc/shadow                                                                                                                         
passwdmkdb              none

In directory “/var/www/cgi-bin/openwebmail/etc/defaults”, edit db.conf as follows:

dbm_ext                 .db                                                                                                                                 
dbmopen_ext             .db                                                                                                                                 
dbmopen_haslock         no

Then, change directory to “/var/www/cgi-bin/openwebmail” and run
```
./openwebmail-tool.pl --init
```

After that, go to “/var/www/cgi-bin/openwebmail”, check that there are files starting with a dot (like “.openwebmail.pl”) and old-style filenames (like “openwebmail.pl)”. Set the suid bit for these scripts:
```
chmod u+s openwebmail*.pl
chmod u+s .openwebmail*.pl
```

Apache additional configuration

Add a AddHandler cgi-script .cgi .pl option in /etc/httpd/httpd.conf in section “Directory /srv/httpd/” httpd.conf like be:

ServerRoot "/usr"
Listen 80

LoadModule authn_file_module lib64/httpd/modules/mod_authn_file.so
LoadModule authn_core_module lib64/httpd/modules/mod_authn_core.so
LoadModule authz_host_module lib64/httpd/modules/mod_authz_host.so
LoadModule authz_groupfile_module lib64/httpd/modules/mod_authz_groupfile.so
LoadModule authz_user_module lib64/httpd/modules/mod_authz_user.so
LoadModule authz_core_module lib64/httpd/modules/mod_authz_core.so
LoadModule access_compat_module lib64/httpd/modules/mod_access_compat.so
LoadModule auth_basic_module lib64/httpd/modules/mod_auth_basic.so
LoadModule reqtimeout_module lib64/httpd/modules/mod_reqtimeout.so
LoadModule filter_module lib64/httpd/modules/mod_filter.so
LoadModule mime_module lib64/httpd/modules/mod_mime.so
LoadModule log_config_module lib64/httpd/modules/mod_log_config.so
LoadModule env_module lib64/httpd/modules/mod_env.so
LoadModule headers_module lib64/httpd/modules/mod_headers.so
LoadModule setenvif_module lib64/httpd/modules/mod_setenvif.so
LoadModule version_module lib64/httpd/modules/mod_version.so
LoadModule proxy_module lib64/httpd/modules/mod_proxy.so
LoadModule proxy_connect_module lib64/httpd/modules/mod_proxy_connect.so
LoadModule proxy_ftp_module lib64/httpd/modules/mod_proxy_ftp.so
LoadModule proxy_http_module lib64/httpd/modules/mod_proxy_http.so
LoadModule proxy_fcgi_module lib64/httpd/modules/mod_proxy_fcgi.so
LoadModule proxy_scgi_module lib64/httpd/modules/mod_proxy_scgi.so
LoadModule proxy_ajp_module lib64/httpd/modules/mod_proxy_ajp.so
LoadModule proxy_express_module lib64/httpd/modules/mod_proxy_express.so
LoadModule lbmethod_byrequests_module lib64/httpd/modules/mod_lbmethod_byrequests.so
LoadModule lbmethod_bytraffic_module lib64/httpd/modules/mod_lbmethod_bytraffic.so
LoadModule lbmethod_bybusyness_module lib64/httpd/modules/mod_lbmethod_bybusyness.so
LoadModule mpm_event_module lib64/httpd/modules/mod_mpm_event.so
LoadModule unixd_module lib64/httpd/modules/mod_unixd.so
LoadModule status_module lib64/httpd/modules/mod_status.so
LoadModule autoindex_module lib64/httpd/modules/mod_autoindex.so
##openwebmail!
LoadModule cgi_module lib64/httpd/modules/mod_cgi.so
LoadModule dir_module lib64/httpd/modules/mod_dir.so
LoadModule alias_module lib64/httpd/modules/mod_alias.so

<IfModule unixd_module>
User apache
Group apache

</IfModule>

# 'Main' server configuration
#
# The directives in this section set up the values used by the 'main'
# server, which responds to any requests that aren't handled by a
# <VirtualHost> definition.  These values also provide defaults for
# any <VirtualHost> containers you may define later in the file.
ServerAdmin webmaster@sten.lv

ServerName elephant.org


<Directory />
    AllowOverride None
</Directory>

DocumentRoot "/srv/httpd/"
<Directory "/srv/httpd/">

    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks Includes MultiViews ExecCGI

    AllowOverride All
    #None

    #
    # Controls who can get stuff from this server.
    #
##    Require all granted
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
###Need! otherwise "save as binary...." appear...
AddHandler cgi-script .cgi .pl

</Directory>

#
# DirectoryIndex: sets the file that Apache will serve if a directory
# is requested.
#
<IfModule dir_module>
    DirectoryIndex index.html index.shtml index.php
</IfModule>

#
# The following lines prevent .htaccess and .htpasswd files from being
# viewed by Web clients.
#
<Files ".ht*">
    Require all denied
</Files>



ErrorLog "/var/log/httpd/error_log"

LogLevel warn

<IfModule log_config_module>

    LogFormat "%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %b \"%{Referer}i\" \"%{User-Agent}i\"" combined
    LogFormat "%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %b" common

    <IfModule logio_module>
      # You need to enable mod_logio.c to use %I and %O
      LogFormat "%h %l %u %t \"%r\" %>s %b \"%{Referer}i\" \"%{User-Agent}i\" %I %O" combinedio
    </IfModule>

    #
    ##CustomLog "/var/log/httpd/access_log" common

    #
    CustomLog "/var/log/httpd/access_log" combined
</IfModule>

<IfModule alias_module>
  #
    ScriptAlias /cgi-bin/ "/srv/httpd/cgi-bin/"

</IfModule>

<IfModule cgid_module>
    #
#    Scriptsock cgisock
</IfModule>

#
# "/srv/httpd/cgi-bin" should be changed to whatever your ScriptAliased
# CGI directory exists, if you have that configured.
#
##<Directory "/srv/httpd/cgi-bin">
##    AllowOverride None
##    Options None
##    Require all granted
##</Directory>
#for openwebmail
<Directory "/srv/httpd/cgi-bin">
    AllowOverride All
    Options ExecCGI
    Order Allow,deny
    Allow from all
</Directory>


<IfModule mime_module>
    #
    TypesConfig /etc/httpd/mime.types

    #
    AddType application/x-compress .Z
    AddType application/x-gzip .gz .tgz

    #
##    AddHandler cgi-script .cgi .pl
    # for openwebmail
##    AddHandler cgi-script .pl
    
#test openwebmail
##AddHandler server-parsed  .html
###AddHandler server-parsed  .pl

</IfModule>



# Virtual hosts
Include /etc/httpd/httpd-vhosts.conf

# Various default settings
Include /etc/httpd/extra/httpd-default.conf

# Configure mod_proxy_html to understand HTML4/XHTML1
<IfModule proxy_html_module>
Include /etc/httpd/extra/proxy-html.conf
</IfModule>

<IfModule ssl_module>
SSLRandomSeed startup builtin
SSLRandomSeed connect builtin
</IfModule>

# Deal with user agents that deliberately violate open standards
#
<IfModule setenvif_module>
BrowserMatch "MSIE 10.0;" bad_DNT
</IfModule>
<IfModule headers_module>
RequestHeader unset DNT env=bad_DNT
</IfModule>


# Uncomment the following line to enable PHP:
#
Include /etc/httpd/mod_php.conf

Sources

With help of user phenixia2003 from LinuxQuestions.org Forums
Thanks for editing Eric Hameleers
Originally written by John Ciemgals

howtos, author wisedraco

Table of Contents

Installing OpenWebMail in Slackware64 14.0

Install libraries and required packages

Install OpenWebMail

Apache additional configuration

Links

Sources