For those who don’t know about RainLoop, it’s a simple and modern web-based email client which is based on the LAMP or LEMP stack. It supports IMAP and SMTP protocols including SSL and STARTTLS.
With RainLoop, one can all access his/her emails from different email providers via a single modern web interface.
This brief tutorial is going to show students and new users how to install RainLoop on Ubuntu and configure it to access G Suite emails. You may be able to configure it for other web mails as well.
Some of the features supported by RainLoop are:
- Modern user interface.
- Complete support of IMAP and SMTP protocols including SSL and STARTTLS.
- Sieve scripts (Filters and vacation message).
- Minimalistic resources requirements.
- Direct access to mail server is used (mails are not stored locally on web server).
- Allows for adding multiple accounts to primary one, simultaneous access to different accounts in different browser tabs is supported. Additional identities.
- Administrative panel for configuring main options.
- Really simple installation and update (the product is updated from admin panel).
- Integration with Facebook, Google, Twitter and Dropbox.
Follow the steps below to install RainLoop on Ubuntu
Step 1: Install Nginx and PHP
The basic requirements for RainLoop to function on Ubuntu is to have a webserver and PHP/extensions. Optional packages are MySQL or other open source database servers and extensions. If you’re not going to be hosting emails on your server, then just install a webserver and PHP packages.
For this tutorial, we’re not going to be downloading our emails on our servers. We’ll be reading our emails online via the web interface, so no need for a database server here.
To install Nginx, run the commands below
sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install nginx
To install PHP and other extensions, run the commands below
sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get -y install php-mysql php-curl php-gd php-pear php-imagick php-imap php-mcrypt php-recode php-tidy php-xmlrpc
Step 2: Create RainLoop Root directory
Now that Nginx and PHP and extensions are installed, go and create RainLoop root directory. To do that, run the commands below.
sudo mkdir -p /var/www/html/rainloop
Then go to the root directory and download the latest version for RainLoop
cd /var/www/html/rainloop wget -qO- | php
Next, run the commands below to configure the correct file/folder permissions for RainLoop to function.
sudo chmod -R 755 /var/www/html/rainloop sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/html/rainloop
Step 3: Configure RainLoop Nginx settings
Next, create a RainLoop site configuration file by running the commands below.
sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/rainloop.conf
Then these lines into the file and save it.
server {
listen 80;
listen [::]:80;
server_name example.com www.example.com;
root /var/www/html/rainloop;
index index.php;
autoindex off;
#charset koi8-r;
#access_log /var/log/nginx/log/host.access.log main;
location / {
try_files $uri $uri/ /index.php?$query_string;
}
# pass the PHP scripts to FastCGI server
## PHP settings
location ~ \.php$ {
fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(/.+)$;
root /var/www/html/rainloop;
fastcgi_pass unix:/var/run/php/php7.0-fpm.sock;
fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME $document_root$fastcgi_script_name;
try_files $uri =404;
fastcgi_index index.php;
include fastcgi_params;
}
location ^~ /data {
deny all;
}
}
Save the file.
Step 4: Enable RainLoop Site
Finally, run the commands below to enable RainLoop site on Nginx
sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/rainloop.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
After that, restart Nginx.
sudo nginx -t sudo systemctl restart nginx
When you’re done, browse to the URL you defined in the config file to the admin page.
The default username and password as followed:
Username: admin
Password: 12345
When you login, select the Login link on the left and enter the default login. example.com
Next, go to Domain and add a new domain. It should look like the image below for G-Suite account
Save test your settings to make sure it’s working and save.
That’s it.
Users with valid G-Suite accounts should be able to login and view their emails.
Enjoy!
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