First things first, I've got an Ubuntu 10.04 system set up on a linode, and I followed this guide on setting up mail here.

The only thing I did different or extra from the guide was actually create a couple of users using adduser (and corrected some of the typos noted in the comments). Every test shows that mail works. From one of the user's accounts, I can use mailx and mutt to send email to a gmail account (which it gets). I send back an email from that gmail account to the user, and it gets received.

With mailx and mutt, I can see the emails received from gmail to that user (though for some reason I don't see the sent email? why not?).

With squirrelmail, I can send emails and view those -- but not any emails received. The INBOX is empty. Note that I did get an error when I first set up squirrelmail and tried to use the web interface, that the Sent folder couldn't be created. I tracked this down to a configuration within squirrelmail that the default folder prefix needed to be "INBOX." (with a period) and not empty (as is how it sets itself up if you choose dovecot). After that, there are no errors with squirrelmail -- but I can't see any received email in the inbox.

I really need to get a webmail interface up for the website owners. Can anyone give me some pointers? Maybe recommend another option?

What do you have assigned for "$default_folder_prefix" in your squirrelmail configuration file?

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Travis

I've got 'INBOX.' (with the period) as the default folder prefix. It's the only prefix I've found that works at all. Leaving it empty doesn't work (squirrelmail error creating Sent folder). I thought it might be a dovecot setting, but mailx and mutt both find the inbox without problem. But I NEED a webmail solution.

I'm not sure where you got the 'INBOX.' at, but that does not sound correct. I believe mailx/mutt by default accesses your email at the file level directly, where as squirrelmail does so via IMAP or pop3. Squirrelmail will work once it's configured correctly.

I miss-read your original message, but the $default_folder_prefix is used by squirrelmail to store stuff locally on the host stuff such as the 'Trash, 'Sent', and etc folders. Since squirrelmail is not showing any new mail, I suspect the problem is with either IMAP or pop3, depending upon how you have configured things.

If you set the '$default_folder_prefix' to 'mail/' and make sure the 'mail' direction exists for the user and is owned by the user, things should work.

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Travis

Nope, setting "mail/" as the $default_folder_prefix doesn't work. Here's the error I get:


My IMAP settings seem to be correct. Following the dovecot docs on testing it, here's my (non-localhost) telnet to port 143:

* OK [CAPABILITY IMAP4rev1 LITERAL+ SASL-IR LOGIN-REFERRALS ID ENABLE STARTTLS LOGINDISABLED] Dovecot ready.

I found the "INBOX." solution via googling that error message.

At this point I'm looking at using Google Apps for mail. Between the problems with squirrelmail and the spam issue that I will be faced with down the road, it hardly seems worth it.

mutt & mailx are [by default] configured to read your mail in mbox format. Squirrelmail, on the other hand, is configured to use IMAP. Chances are, your mail isn't delivered to Maildirs and/or your IMAP server isn't configured to use them.