Evaluating Open Sourced Web E-mail Projects?

malahoo asks: "I've recently registered my own domain name for personal fun and education, and am trying to find interesting things to do with it and my Linux box. High on this list is setting up a Web-based e-mail site, like YahooMail or Hotmail, for my family and friends to use. What open source projects out there would be suitable for this? On freshmeat, I've found such projects as WebMail, PHPWebMail, acmemail, etc. But I haven't found a way to evaluate these programs based on features, stability, security, and other factors. Have any of my fellow members of the Slashdot community set up a Web mail site? What tools did you use, how did you decide on these tools, and what is your experience & reccomendations for someone following the same path?"

Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

I use Carnviore (TM). It filters out all of my spam, and the FBI sends the important stuff to me (via a warrant).

Re:IMHO - Roxen system requirements?

[Pathwalker]

I've run Roxen 1.2 on a 486 with 8 megs of ram with acceptable speed (faster than apache on that system).
On my current server:
(Pentium 120 / 128 megs of ram / FreeBSD 4.0)
Roxen 2.0 has 10 megs resident in memory.
It currently has 15-20 virtual servers set up, most of which use databases and Pike, and 2 of which use php4.

I would suggest that you try Roxen 2.0, and skip 2.1 for the moment - I tried to switch to it last night, and I kept getting backtraces when trying to load IMHO.
--

IMHO

[Pathwalker]

I really like the IMHO [lysator.liu.se] webmail system.
I use it both at work, and on my home system.
The install is a snap, configuration is easy, and it has a lot of nice features (spellchecker, LDAP directories, etc).

The only real thing that I think some people might see as a disadvantage is that you have to be running Roxen [roxen.com] to use it
(I see this as an advantage, but I really like Roxen).
--

Check out...

[pb]

The Horde Project [horde.org]; their IMP program [horde.org] looks pretty good.
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [ncsu.edu].

Beware of atdot

[ry4an]

Beware of the software used by atdot [atdot.org]. It's a web gateway to pop and IMAP and it uses long fields in the URL instead of cookies for saving session info. So if someone uses a webbug ( like at http://mailreceipt.sourceforge.net ) they can access your mailbox remotely. I've told atdot about this on their developer list, but they were uninterested.
--

neomail

[byoung]

I use neomail, and I like it. It uses local mail spools, so that may or may not be an issue. It does increase the speed of the application. Neomail is plenty fast for our uses.

I used AcmeMail for a while, but it was too slow (Mail::Cclient is a dog).

In reference to your actual question (where to find information to evaluate webmail packages), I haven't the foggiest. I'd have liked to've found that precise resource when I was evaluating packages.

Check the HTTP Mail User Agent Inventory & twig

[draziw]

Why not check out http://www.cru.fr/http-mail/ [www.cru.fr]. It is the "HTTP Mail User Agent inventory". It's a little old, but it still lists a lot of programs.

twig [screwdriver.net] looks best to me.

Re:IMP and Horde

[cloudmaster]

Well, configuration's just a little more invovled than that (not much), but after evaluating IMHO and IMP for deployment to a 5,000 user network, we decided to go with IMP because it looks a little more professional, and because it runs with php as the backend, making it easier for us to modify than IMHO (which uses pike/RXML).

Personally, I'll agree that IMP is the way to go for IMAP clients. I don't know about web-POP clients, as POP was never an option for us. That web-mail directory link someone posted earlier is a really good one, and is where I found most of the products that we looked at...

Re:Support for both POP and HTTP???

[lazarusL]

You want telnet from such a box? Then use a URL such as telnet://yourboxhere.

Simple.

Not that I recommend using unencrypted telnet for logins, but you seem to do so already. (Hint: OpenSSH)

Have you seen TWIG?

[Erisian]

I've been using TWIG [screwdriver.net] for a while now. It's all PHP and just about the closest thing to a Yahoo! clone out there right now.

It has Mail, Contacts (with a realistic amount of info that can be supplied), schedule, todo, notes and bookmarks. It uses only plain HTML so it can be used on any browser, no java or javascript needed.

It seems to work with just about any IMAP backend (I'm still using a NT based IMAP package on a different machine that was left from the previous admin.)

As an aside... As long as the packages your interested in aren't tied to different backends, there isn't any reason to not install several and play with them all until you find The One True(tm) mail package for you.

Just My View

Re:IMHO - Roxen system requirements?

[BitMan]

I couldn't tell from either the IMHO or Roxen web sites, but what is the minimum system requirements for running the Roxen system?

I have a measly little K6-2-400 with 64MB of RAM running Linux (uses only about 32-48MB RAM with all services running) that I would like to run this sucker one, but I assume that ain't gonna cut it?

-- Bryan "TheBS" Smith

Why bother running your own?

[jfrisby]

Frankly, it's a pain in the butt -- more work for you.

Why not just use one of the free hosted solutions that let you co-brand everything? You can have it be at your domain ([e-mail]) and on your hostname (mail.fubar.com or whatever...) and have it look however you want.

There's a number of such providers... I happen to work for Everyone.net [everyone.net] -- one such provider...

Lower maintenance... :)

-JF

Re:Why bother running your own?

[jfrisby]

Good point... Most of the co-brandable e-mail systems provide filters on inbound mail (both user definable, and generic "spam" filters), but that of course wouldn't be adequate...

Perhaps parental controls is the Next Big Thing for such providers?

Well... Except that we don't allow users under 13...

-JF

Re:IMP and Horde

[Brazilian Geek]

I was r00ted through IMAP once (script kiddie, as you could have guessed) - a sad moment in my life.

IMP and Horde

[Brazilian Geek]

Someone already mentioned IMP [horde.org] and Horde [horde.org] but didn't mention why they used it so I'll give my 2 cents.

The IMP suite emulates the look and feel of most of the webmail sites out there - the login page is simple, the pages are simple and elegant - the one thing I miss though is a trash can but that doesn't bother anyone around here.

My users are pains in the arse when it comes to ease of use - just as a side note, in 80 computers there are 4 types of email clients in use other than my webmail system - access through IMP is used by 20 users (ranking number 2 after Netscape Mail). So far the only complaint I've heard from them is that I mangle file attachments (nothing to do with IMP but they blame it anyway) - a number much lower than the 5 complaints a day for Netscape Mail.

Something else I like about IMP is that it's incredibly easy to setup. Untar, rename directories, cp old config, restart apache (optional) a wham-o. BTW, they've had a recent run with some nasty exploits - it would be wise to get the most recent version if you intend on using it.

Oh, it has POP3 and IMAP support (I firewall my IMAP ports except for the tunnel I have between the webmail server and my mail server so it doesn't hurt security too much). Something that's VERY useful for me is that it's already multilingual!

Re:Why bother running your own?

[tf23]

Kids... for one reason. We've got two of them, and I've got them proxied out of just about everything that we think they shouldn't be seeing (or, atleast think they're too young for yet).

If they used hotmail, or any other email provider, then they're unwatchable. And kids have a habit of giving out way too much information about themselves, they're too trusting.

IMP gets my Vote

[malice95]

I have played with 5 or 6 web based email
packages that I found on the net. Some writen
in Perl and some php3/4. They only one I considered to put on my companys intranet is IMP.
It has a great interfance IMHO and is very easy
to customize. Its been rock solid so far. I have over 1000 people using it on a casual basis (most just use pop). It uses imap as the access agent
which provides for a great "check email.. if you
dont delete then you can pop it down later for storage environment".

I would definatly reccomend you check it out
at http://www.horde.org [horde.org]

Malice95

Support for both POP and HTTP???

[Doco]

A while ago I also looked for something like this. My biggest problem was that I normally use a POP client to retrieve my email. However, when I am on the road, about all I can guarentee is that I can get at a web browser. Many windoze kioske type machines don't have a telnet client installed ;-(

So - does anyone know if any of these packages use the local spool and allow for quick browsing of messages there so that when I get home and start up my pop client it can just get the email normally?

TWIG ...

[mbyte]

If you use IMAP and php3 then TWIG is really nice. Very good IMAP frondend + a couple of other nifty things, just search freshmeat for twig ..


Samba Information HQ

Has anyone looked at the OCS?

[cmehta1]

Obsidian Communication system (http://www.obsidian.co.za/) is a pretty cool modular system. They offer web based email, contact mgmt, message board, user administration (a la Webmin), and open module integration for your own web based apps, hooked into their infrastructure. Site is in South Africa, so it might be a lil slow from where you are, but its worth it. Its GPL'd, and they offer a web based CVS system if you want to upload your changes to them. In fact, they encourage it.

Check out the demo at: http://demo.obsidian.co.za/ocs/

Take a look at KMFMS

[Froid]

They're the ones [linuxstart.com] Linuxstart.com [linuxstart.com] is partnered [linuxstart.com] with to provide free web-based email. I have a couple email addresses with them, so whatever they're using works.