README for PHPwebmail 1.2, May 2000

by Bernard M. Piller <bernard@bmpsystems.com>, http://www.bmpsystems.com


Overview:

    1) What it does
    2) What you need
    3) How to install
    4) What to know
    5) Version history

1) What does PHPwebmail do?

PHPwebmail is a web browser based IMAP and SMTP mail client. Often it is not 
possible to make outside mail connections from networks behind strict firewalls.
With PHPwebmail a mail client only needs a WWW connection to the mailserver.
Specifically it only needs a connection to the webserver hosting PHPwebmail.
Most of the times the web and mail server will be the same machine but 
PHPwebmail can connect to other mailservers as well as long as there is an 
IMAP connection between these two machines possible (allowed).
PHPwebmail is distributed under the GNU General Public License, please see
the GNU-GPL.TXT file coming with this distribution.


2) What do you need? Requirements.

To run PHPwebmail you need a web server which supports PHP3 server based 
scripting. The mailserver must be an IMAP server. PHP3 IMAP connections can also
connect to a POP3 server, but you must change a few things in the source then.
To send mail, you also need an SMTP server running on the web server hosting
PHPwebmail. For most installations, the web and IMAP server will be the same 
computer also.

The user can then connect to PHPwebmail (and to his mailbox) from every computer
in the world that has an Internet connection and a web browser.


3) Installation

I will only cover the procedure for getting PHPwebmail running on a Unix
(Linux) machine. 

a) Webserver
I am using the Apache webserver from http://www.apache.org with the PHP3 module
from http://www.php.net
It is important to compile PHP3 with IMAP support:
./configure --with-imap=$IMAP_DIR

b) Depending on your system you will eventually need to get and compile the 
following other things before compiling PHP3 and Apache.

    gd sources
    imap source from the University of Washington
    libpng
    zlib

I needed the above for my SuSE 6.x Linux.

c) Copy this folder (webmail) to a web server accessible directory on your
web server machine. 

d) Be sure your mail server is an IMAP server. With the imap source from
the University of Washington you can build your own IMAP daemon.

e) You are ready to run! Connect to PHPwebmail form a web browser e.g. to 
http://www.yoursite.com/webmail and login to your mailbox.


4) What you need to know. Things that don't work yet.

a) Security
If you want your user information (login, password) to travel safely over the
web you will need to set up an SSL connection to your webserver. I did this
on mine.	

b) Sending mail
Sending mail is only possible if the web server machine on which PHPwebmail is
installed has a configured SMTP server running.
By default the IMAP login name is passed to the "From" field. But the user
can fill in any "From" e-mail address.

When you are replying to a message and the header in the original message has
quotes in the "From" part, for example "John Doe", you will get the quotes
around John's name escaped (\"John Doe\")in the "To" header part in the reply.
I am going to fix this sometime but it is just cosmetic anyhow.

c) Multiple recpients
It is currently not possible to send a message to more than one person at a
time. Also the "CC" and "BCC" fields are not implemented yet.

But PHPwebmail leaves the text of the message in the form after the message
was sent, so all you have to do is enter the next recipient and click "send" 
again.

When you receive a message with PHPwebmail you also can not see who else was 
in the "To" or "CC" field.

d) Forward
To forward a message, use reply. The text is quoted inline.

e) Attachments
Attachment handling is not implemented yet. Only the text part of the message
and the number of attachments is displayed.
It is also not possible to include attachments with a message you want to send.
When replying to a message, only the text part is quoted, no attachments are
sent with the reply. Please remember this shortcoming when you are using
"reply" to forward messages.


5) Version history

1.2 May 2000
There is now a line on top of the inbox telling the user if (s)he has any
new messages.
Caching of the pages is disabled so that nobody can sneak into a Webmail
users stuff using his browser.
Wapmail (read only) is now included, see the seperate folder.

1.0 Feb. 2000
