Solved search mail program with web UI

hi,
I am running FreeNAS and I would like to have an iocage "jail" with FreeBSD running an email send/receive web UI, which fetches/sends and saves everything from services like google mail/ hotmail and so on.

It should be like outlook/thunderbird but the access should be possible within the LAN via browser.

Purpose is to save everything which is send or received via email on the FreeNAS system. And to use the web UI to read and send emails from different accounts.

The threads purpose should be some kind of a brain storming session / recommendation.

I tried to follow some very old tutorials to install postfix, mailscanner and mailwatch which is in my opinion an overkill (for the purpose and my skills). Could there be an "easy" way?
 
I don't think an all-in-one solution exists, unless I misunderstood your purpose, maik .
For the "background work" I'd recommend mail/isync for receiving and mail/ssmtp for sending emails. They are very simple and I use them for gmail accounts for long time.
Regarding a WebUI software: IMO the easiest is mail/roundcube, I used to use in the past, was straight forward to configure and run.
 

thanks for your comment. just for clarification. Is there any difference in freebsd if i am running it in a jail on ex. windows machine, ubuntu or a freebsd derivate?

aragats thanks, i will have a look at it!

the quick and dirty solution would be a windows VM with installed outlook/thunderbird. But the power consumption would rise about 20w. I would like to avoid it. A freebsd jail just takes 2w without all the windows overhead shit.
 
cypht looks great. is it just like pkg install Cypht and a bit of configuring or do i need to install all the stuff in the back by my own?
 
As with all web-based tools, you will have to set it up on your own. Regarding email and web applications in general, as SirDice stated, there is no "easy" way. Although personally, given you have external email addresses working, setting up a very basic web stack with PHP and MariaDB/MySQL to serve a PHP script doesn't count as exactly "challenging" in my book. However: YMMV. If you've never done that before, it may become a very frustrating experience. Given that you're a FreeeNAS user, you may like things that have a GUI and can be clicked. There's nothing like that with FreeBSD (aka most everything in FreeNAS that's not a GUI). If you feel the reward justifies the work, you will probably learn a few new skills along the way.

Cypht will behave just like a regular email client: it will get your new email when you open it. If that's what you want, you're set. If you want the email to be continually pulled whether you have it open or not, it's going to be orders of magnitude more difficult to set up. Prepare for a lot of reading and figuring things out.

If all you want is access to your email within in your network, consider the possibility that your idea for achieving it may be fundamentally flawed. The basic setup will not back up your accounts, just show what's in them to you.
 
you are absolutely right, my mileage defiantly varies from yours and i love this web UI clicking stuff.

to have the brain storming on going, would it be a possibility to just install thunderbird and some kind of administrating web ui tool and open thunderbird via this web remote UI tool? (would like to avoid any putty or X11 sessions from a windows machine)

any experience?
 
okay, let me start at the very beginning.

~1/2 year i am setting up a new windows desktop. I really like outlook but it is a nightmare to add 5 different mail accounts. In the past i always had the issue that some of my mails just disappeared. even with backups some folders are not restoring properly within outlook.

the freenas system is really stable, i set this up 4 years ago. So it is the most unchanged system i have. It runs 24/7 and it would really add value to me when i could have an email client on the system running. so i would be able to just use any machine in my network to access my mails without configuring every time outlook. to have it a bit more secure i would like to download every single mail including attachments so i can have access to it in case of a mail program failure.

the issue is i already spend ~50hrs in configuring, resetting and so on to get to my goal. every time i am not able to follow the tutorial a la just set xyz to yes in the config file of xxyyzz. but it is not mentioned where i can find that config file. or sometimes it is just outdated. install php4... ok i just install the latest. but during the time things and paths have changed. i end up in a massive searching loop. in the end it is every time just something small which was not mentioned and i am not able to find it by myself due to lack of knowledge. this is really frustrating. therefore i am looking for someone which had maybe the same situation and says:" yes i know, just use this and this you will be fine"

my goal is not to be a freebsd expert or to gain as much knowledge as possible. my goal is just to have this set up in an easy and fast way, without spending month in reading. i am aware it is not the best attitude and many people in the unix/linux community dont like people like me. which i can understand.

therefore i am not asking you:" hey i am here and you need to set this up for me otherwise i will not use freebsd anymore"

i just tried to get some hints to look for. Just a way which is more suitable for my skills and needs.
 
I see. Reality check time: what you want is to set up a full local mail system (plus backup) on your FreeNAS but you lack the necessary skills to do so and the motivation to learn what makes the systems tick. You possibly have been misled by the FreeNAS GUI to expect that complex systems can be set up and managed with a couple of clicks. More often than not it is not so. Sorry to have to say this but a smoothly working solution to your idea requires far more than just following one or a couple of tutorials. What you're looking for is a full-blown customized email mirror with local web access. This is certainly possible but to my knowledge no ready-made solutions exist, neither commercial nor free. You would have to do it yourself, by hand. Which in turn requires you to understand all components involved.

Therefore, you have two options: either read, try, ask questions over at the FreeNAS forum and learn about how to set up what you need. This will take a serious amount of time and willingness on your part to do things completely without GUI, to fail and try again over and over again. Or you have to research commercial cloud email backup solutions that fit your needs and pay a provider. Given your preference for clicky GUIs, I would advise you to do the latter.

Here's an idea for a dead-simple setup without backup and very little non-GUI work involved: get yourself a basic shared hosting account (PHP and MySQL are set up for you already), make sure it supports HTTPS (TLS), set up Cypht there and... BAM: instant webmail.

Please note that any of this will only work with IMAP account, not POP3 ones. If you have POP3 accounts, your best bet is to forward them to another IMAP account.

For an even easier (and possibly better) solution, you may also want to consider consolidating all your email accounts into one account at a provider you trust and that allows you to set several outgoing email addresses/SMTP servers. I'm not a fan of Google products but Gmail allows you to do that, for example. Then simply tag/move the incoming messages according to their addresses and you will never have to deal with this again as a webmail interface already exists and you only have to log in to one account to manage all your email.
 
There is a near-zero-effort solution (of course, not perfect), but will keep all emails locally: just install Thunderbird in your Windows box (or any other supported device) and point its profile to your FreeNAS share.
Thunderbird's mail format is (almost) standard mbox, can be read by many programs. So you'll reserve a possibility to handle it later by different programs.
 
you are true, both of you. i will go with a vm and try to create a cron script to auto start and shutdown the vm. this is an acceptable way for me. thank you for taking the time!
 
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