{"id":1053,"date":"2017-10-05T11:48:10","date_gmt":"2017-10-05T08:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/community.virtono.com\/?p=1053"},"modified":"2017-10-05T11:48:10","modified_gmt":"2017-10-05T08:48:10","slug":"creating-your-own-webmail-using-roundcube-on-ubuntu-16-04","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.virtono.com\/community\/tutorial-how-to\/creating-your-own-webmail-using-roundcube-on-ubuntu-16-04\/","title":{"rendered":"Creating your own webmail using Roundcube on Ubuntu 16.04"},"content":{"rendered":"

Webmail allows you to easily access your e-mails anytime and anywhere if you have a device with an internet access and web browser. \u00a0You can easily create a webmail using Roundcube.<\/span><\/p>\n

Roundcube Webmail is a browser-based multilingual IMAP client with an application-like user interface.<\/span> It is a free and open source webmail solution with a desktop-like user interface which is easy to install and configure. It runs on a standard LAMPP server<\/span>. It provides complete functionality as found in an email client which includes an address book, folder management, MIME support, message searching and spell checking. <\/span>Roundcube includes other sophisticated open-source libraries such as\u00a0<\/span>PEAR<\/span><\/a>, an IMAP library derived from\u00a0<\/span>IlohaMail<\/span><\/a>\u00a0the\u00a0<\/span>TinyMCE<\/span><\/a>\u00a0rich text editor,\u00a0<\/span>Googiespell<\/span><\/a> library for spell checking or the\u00a0<\/span>WasHTML<\/span><\/a>\u00a0sanitizer by Frederic Motte.<\/span> \u00a0Roundcube Webmail is written in PHP and requires the MySQL, PostgreSQL or SQLite database. It\u2019s plugin API it is easily extendable and the user interface is fully customizable using skins which are pure XHTML and CSS 2.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let us first understand how an email actually work in order to understand where Roundcube fits in your email infrastructure.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mail User Agent\u00a0(MUA)<\/b> -A user interacts with this interface to view and send email.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mail Transfer Agent\u00a0(MTA<\/b>)- This transfers an email from the sender to the recipient.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mail<\/b> delivery agent<\/i><\/b>\u00a0(MDA)<\/b>– It receives emails from MTAs and stores them.<\/span><\/p>\n

Simple Mail Transfer Protocol<\/i><\/b>\u00a0(SMTP)- <\/b>It is the protocol MUAs use to send mail to MTAs.<\/span><\/p>\n

Internet Message Access Protocol<\/i><\/b>\u00a0(IMAP)<\/b>– It is a protocol that MDAs use to deliver mail to MUAs.<\/span><\/p>\n

When an email is sent, Mail User Agent transfers it to email server’s Mail Transfer Agent using Simple Mail Transfer protocol. Then the recipient’s Mail Transfer Agent will receive the email after several hops and transfer it to their Mail Delivery Agent using Internet Message Access protocol. Then your recipient can view the email using their MUA of choice.<\/span><\/p>\n

Roundcube acts as a Mail User Agent and not as a Mail Transfer Agent. We would still need a service to manage emails if we use it. For this we can use our own mail servers or use public email services like Gmail or hosted email from Internet Service Provider.<\/span><\/p>\n

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