How to Install RainLoop Webmail on Ubuntu 16.04

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 Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Vultr instance.

Requirements

• Nginx
• PHP version 5.4 or greater
• PHP extensions: cURL, iconv, json, libxml, dom, openssl, DateTime, PCRE, SPL, and optionally PDO

Check the Ubuntu version.

lsb_release -ds
# Ubuntu 16.04.4 LTS

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

adduser johndoe --gecos "John Doe"
usermod -aG sudo johndoe
su - johndoe

NOTE: Replace johndoe with your username.

Set up the timezone.

sudo dpkg-reconfigure tzdata

Ensure that your system is up to date.

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

Install the build-essential package.

sudo apt install -y build-essential

Install PHP, necessary PHP extensions, MySQL and Nginx

Download and install PHP 7.0 and the necessary extensions.

sudo apt install -y php7.0 php7.0-cli php7.0-fpm php7.0-curl php7.0-json php7.0-mbstring php7.0-mysql php7.0-pgsql php7.0-sqlite3 php7.0-common php7.0-xml

Check the version.

php --version

# PHP 7.0.28-0ubuntu0.16.04.1 (cli) ( NTS )
# Copyright (c) 1997-2017 The PHP Group
# Zend Engine v3.0.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2017 Zend Technologies
#     with Zend OPcache v7.0.28-0ubuntu0.16.04.1, Copyright (c) 1999-2017, by Zend Technologies

Install MySQL.

sudo apt install -y mysql-server

Check the version.

mysql --version
# mysql  Ver 14.14 Distrib 5.7.21, for Linux (x86_64) using  EditLine wrapper

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

sudo mysql_secure_installation

Log into MySQL as the root user.

mysql -u root -p
# Enter password:

Create a new MySQL 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 apt install -y nginx

Check the version.

sudo nginx -v
# nginx version: nginx/1.10.3 (Ubuntu)

Configure Nginx for RainLoop. Run sudo vim /etc/nginx/sites-available/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:/var/run/php/php7.0-fpm.sock;
        fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
    }

    location ~ /\.ht {
        deny all;
    }

    location ^~ /data {
         deny all;
    }

}

Activate the new rainloop.conf configuration by linking the file to the sites-enabled directory.

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/rainloop.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/

Test the configuration.

sudo nginx -t

Reload Nginx.

sudo systemctl reload nginx.service

Install RainLoop

Create a document root directory.

sudo mkdir -p /var/www/rainloop

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

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

Install unzip.

sudo apt install -y unzip

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 the ownership of the /var/www/rainloop directory to www-data.

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

Navigate to 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.