Finding the Best Open Source Email Solutions
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@thwr said in Finding the Best Open Source Email Solutions:
@mcostan said in Finding the Best Open Source Email Solutions:
the community site is www.kopano.io (www.kopano.com is the commercial one).
Never heard about it. You could write a dedicated post about Kopano. Maybe with a few screenshots?
Yup, never heard of it until this thread. It's the Zarafa which I know.
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Anyone know a good Kopano install guide?
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Hi, It's all online:
This is the core components:
https://documentation.kopano.io/kopanocore_administrator_manual/
And then you can look at the other admin manuals, starting of course with webapp which you would need to install:
https://documentation.kopano.io/
Regardless of the manuals, installation is pretty easy... you just have to go to:
https://download.kopano.io/community/
Download the packages: core, webapp (and if you want to, the plugins like mdm, smime, files and webmeetings)
and depending on which architecture you have use rpm, dpkg etc.
Clearly download the correct packages you need for your operating system.
you then configure some users, and when you restart apache it should just come up with webapp
You will clearly need to have a working mail delivery solution, being sendmail (I am old fashion, I use this one) or postfix or whatever to send or receive e-mails from the outside world.
I hope this helps. If you get stuck let me know.
P.S. I am not affiliated in any shape or form directly nor indirectly with zarafa/kopano. I just bumped into it a few years back and I use the community edition and I find it useful for me.
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In general you should be able to just install the packages with rpm or dpkg and run it assuming you have mysql running and apache.
Unless you want very specific configurations, the only thing you need to do is to make sure your MTA (sendmail, postfix etc.) works and create at least one kopano user with
kopano-admin -c mynewuserlogin -f "Name Surname" -p mypasswd -e [email protected]
from then onwards
if you type:
myURL/webapp
you should be able to login
If you want z-push (i.e. activesync) again that's a very easy install from automatic packages and it will work by itself
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Best to look at their primary website for screenshots and demo.
you will see the online demo as well as a video showing you all the feature like files, web meetings etc.
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@mcostan I looked at their docs and they seem to just drop you with no installation info. I've been all through the official stuff and no installation guide there. There are things called that but they don't show a working install and they don't even match the real world packages. Their "make sure to install this first" package doesn't even exist.
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Hi,
My view would be to use the admin manuals for actual configuration if you have to.
For installation, really all you need is to pick up this:
https://download.kopano.io/community/core:/
https://download.kopano.io/community/webapp:/For your architecture and just unpack them and install the packages.
Once you get passed this I am pretty sure the admin manuals will be correct.
If you have any issues happy to assist. The only thing you will need to watch out for is the sendmail / postfix or whichever MTA you are planning to use.
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In summary pick the packages at the core and webapp locations above and then carry on with the admin manual as below.
Note that the community edition is obviously evolving that is why you should pick the latest tarball, extract it, and from there you get the packges rpm or deb to install.
3.2.1.1. RPM based distributions
Use the following command to install the KC packages on RPM based distributions:
rpm -Uvh <package files you want to install>
Replace <package file> with the packages found in the tarball. Start with libvmime, libical and kopano-server-packages (in this order) then install the other packages. The package manager might find unresolved dependencies, try to install packages for these dependencies as normal would be done for that distribution (yum -i on Red Hat, zypper -i on SLES).
Note
Using distribution specific packaging tools it may be easier to resolve package dependencies for rpm based distributions. For SLES you should use “zypper in <package>” and for RHEL based system “yum localinstall <package>”.
3.2.1.2. DEB based distributionsOn DEB based distributions (most commonly Debian and Ubuntu) use:
dpkg -i <package files you want to install>
To install the correct dependencies for KC apt-get or an equivalent tool can be used.
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@mcostan said in Finding the Best Open Source Email Solutions:
Replace <package file> with the packages found in the tarball. Start with libvmime, libical and kopano-server-packages (in this order) then install the other packages.
libical doesn't exist, that was the first issue. It's not in the tarball or in the OS.
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As I said ignore the manual for the packages. Take the packages out of the community edition and just install them.
Remember that the community edition is evolving weekly or so, so it is obvious packages will change.
That however doesn't matter.
Personally every two weeks or so, I go to the community site, download the tarball, uncompress the packages, and simply install them.
it has been working for months and if a package changes, I do not even notice it, I just install the latest one.
The primary configuration files, that is server.cfg, dagent.cfg etc. do not change as far as I have seen, perhaps never. Or if they do, they are optional settings which I have never changed.
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@mcostan said in Finding the Best Open Source Email Solutions:
As I said ignore the manual for the packages. Take the packages out of the community edition and just install them.
I had to run a script like 50 times to go through all of the packages to get them to install... so many failed dependencies. By the end, several would never install.
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What OS are you using? I tried on CentOS 7 and the tarball simply wans't complete or installable.
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I am running on Debian, I haven't tested Ubuntu but I suppose it must be pretty much the same.
I never had issues installing the packages on Debian.
If you do need to stick with Centos 7 and you still have issues I would recommend you to post your issues to the Kopano forums and I am sure someone will reply.
That said, I am very happy running with Debian and I never had any issues.
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To test I would just install a standard Debian / or Ubuntu distribution on a Virtual Machine (I use VirtualBox) and install them there.
I normally just run dpkg -i * (for all the kopano packages) and that's about it.
afterwards I run
apt-get -f install
and that takes care of all the dependencies. I haven't seen a failed one whatsoever.
Z-push instead (activesync link) comes straigth from the repositories once you link the repository so that's even easier.
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If you have a domain name you want to test with, I can add it to our system and you can test Kopano live on our installation.
After that you can replicate it on yours if you like.
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@mcostan said in Finding the Best Open Source Email Solutions:
If you have a domain name you want to test with, I can add it to our system and you can test Kopano live on our installation.
After that you can replicate it on yours if you like.
Thanks. Already have Ubuntu 16.10 spun up in Paris to test out
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Not sure how different 16.04 is from 16.10, I am running on 16.04 so I have no idea whether Kopano 16.04 installs on 16.10
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It does build properlly on Ubuntu 16.04
The documentation could be a lot better.
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@Romo said in Finding the Best Open Source Email Solutions:
@mcostan said in Finding the Best Open Source Email Solutions:
Not sure how different 16.04 is from 16.10, I am running on 16.04 so I have no idea whether Kopano 16.04 installs on 16.10
Just tried an install on Ubuntu 16.10 and it doesn't work
16.10 has libicu57 and the packages as you see in the screenshot won't install because of unmet dependencies. =(That's a big negative. Packages missing on CentOS 7. Things not up to date on Ubuntu. Seems like a support issue somewhere. What platform are they testing on if nothing is current?
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@Romo said in Finding the Best Open Source Email Solutions:
It does build properlly on Ubuntu 16.04
The documentation could be a lot better.
The log in screen is schnazzy. Email web interface looks decent.
