Now to allow users to download/view their emails in their own PC's we must enable a POP or IMAP service. I will only deal with POP here but since the configuration procedure for POP and IMAP in Kubuntu is very similar everything said in this post for POP applies with minor changes to IMAP.
Installing the Software
In Kubuntu installing the courier POP servers cannot be easier:
sudo aptitude install courier-pop courier-pop-ssl
Note that we are also installing the courier-pop-ssl package that allows POP over SSL connections. I will talk more about SSL in a future blog post. During the installation you will be asked if you want directory based configuration files, chose not to and then press ok when asked.
Creating Maildirs
The maildir vs mbox formats to store emails is an old debate and I will not deal with it here. I like maildir storage simply because I had a lot of lock and corrupted file problems in the past due to the "single file" mbox format and migrating to maildir format kept those problems away.
By default Courier-POP in Kubuntu uses the maildir format to store users mail. The only problem I have with the default settings is that it uses a folder called "Maildir" inside each user home directory. I personally prefer to hide the mail's directory from the users to avoid accidents (i.e. total deletion).
Now to enable each user's maildir we must first create the maildir directory:
sudo maildirmake /home/username/.maildir
sudo chown -R username:usergroup /home/username/.maildir
sudo chmod -R 700 /home/username/.maildir
You can replace .maildir with whatever you like. The dot "," at the begining makes that directory hidden so it would not be listed normally in the file manager (i.e. Konqueror) or by issuing "ls" on the console.
Creating the .maildir directory must be done for all current users in the system. For new users the maildir creation can be automated by creating a maildir directory inside the "/etc/skel" template directory:
sudo maildirmake /etc/skel/.maildir
Now every time a new user is created the .maildir folder will be automatically created in that user's home directory.
Configuring Courier POP
The default settings that come with Kubuntu are enough to get the services running. The only change we have is to replace the "Maildir" directory with ".maildir". This is done easily by editing the "/etc/courier/pop3d" configuration file:
sudo kate /etc/courier/pop3d
and
replace MAILDIRPATH=Maildir with MAILDIRPATH=.maildir
In the case of Ubuntu Server the above configuration won't work. Instead of modifying the /etc/courier/pop3d file you must edit the /etc/default/courier file:
sudo kate /etc/default/courier
and
replace MAILDIR=Maildir with MAILDIR=.maildir
Restart and Test
Finally we restart the POP/IMAP service:
sudo /etc/init.d/courier-pop restart
And to test it we connect to the port 110 using telnet:
telnet localhost 110
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to localhost.
Escape character is '^]'.
+OK Hello there.
user username
+OK Password required.
pass userpass
+OK logged in.
list
+OK POP3 clients that break here, they violate STD53.
.
quit
+OK Bye-bye.
Connection closed by foreign host.
As in the previous post the blue text are server response messages and the green text are your input commands. To authenticate you simply use the "user" and "pass" commands. Once authenticated you can list your emails with the "list" command and exit with the "quit" command.
Coming Next
In the old days our server is now ready to go online but these days this configuration would be considered insecure. Current state of the art in servers must provide security mechanisms like encrypted communications to avoid leakage of sensitive/personal information.
In my next post I will explain how to encrypt SMTP and POP using TLS/SSL to have a more secure server ready for the current Internet.
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