How to Install RainLoop Webmail on Debian 9

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 Debian 9 Vultr instance.

Requirements

• Nginx
• MariaDB
• PHP version 5.4 or greater with the following extensions:
  • cURL
  • iconv
  • json
  • libxml
  • dom
  • openssl
  • DateTime
  • PCRE
  • SPL
  • PDO (optional)

Check the Debian version.

lsb_release -ds
# Debian GNU/Linux 9.4 (stretch)

Ensure that your system is up to date.

apt update && apt upgrade -y

Install necessary packages.

apt install -y sudo dirmngr wget curl vim

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

Install PHP, necessary PHP extensions, MariaDB 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 7.0.27-0+deb9u1 (cli) (built: Jan  5 2018 13:51:52) ( NTS )
# Copyright (c) 1997-2017 The PHP Group
# Zend Engine v3.0.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2017 Zend Technologies
#     with Zend OPcache v7.0.27-0+deb9u1, Copyright (c) 1999-2017, by Zend Technologies

Install MariaDB.

sudo apt install -y mariadb-server

Check the version.

mysql --version
# mysql  Ver 15.1 Distrib 10.1.26-MariaDB, for debian-linux-gnu (x86_64) using readline 5.2

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

sudo mysql_secure_installation

Log into MariaDB as the root user.

sudo mysql -u root -p
# Enter password:

Create a new MariaDB 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

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.