This article is outdated and may not work correctly for current operating systems or software.
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.
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
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
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.