How To Install courier-imap, courier-authlib, And maildrop On Fedora, RedHat, CentOS

Version 1.0
Author: Falko Timme <ft [at] falkotimme [dot] com>
Last edited 11/13/2007

For some reason there are no Courier packages (courier-imap, courier-authlib, maildrop) available on RedHat-based distributions (RedHat, Fedora, CentOS), and the only third-party repository that had such packages seems to have closed (enlartenment.com). Therefore this tutorial explains how you can create and install your own Courier rpm packages from the sources, and I provide download links for my Courier rpm packages that I compiled on Fedora 8 (i386) so that you can save some time.

I do not issue any guarantee that this will work for you!

1 Preliminary Note

I have tried this on a Fedora 8 (i386) system; it should work for RedHat and CentOS as well. If you are on an x86_64 system, replace all references to i386 in this tutorial with x86_64.

2 Installing Prerequisites

Before we can compile the Courier packages, we need some prerequisites such as compilers, development libraries, etc. which we can install like this:

yum groupinstall 'Development Tools'

yum groupinstall 'Development Libraries'

yum install rpm-build gcc mysql-devel openssl-devel cyrus-sasl-devel pkgconfig zlib-devel pcre-devel openldap-devel postgresql-devel expect libtool-ltdl-devel openldap-servers libtool gdbm-devel pam-devel gamin-devel

3 Creating A Non-Priviledged User Account

RPM packages should not be built as root; courier-imap will even refuse to compile if it detects that the compilation is run as the root user. Therefore we create a normal user account now (falko in this example) and give him a password:

useradd -m -s /bin/bash falko
passwd falko

We will need the sudo command later on so that the user falko can compile and install the rpm packages. But first, we must allow falko to run all commands using sudo:

Run

visudo

In the file that opens there's a line root ALL=(ALL) ALL. Add a similar line for falko just below that line:

[...]
## Allow root to run any commands anywhere
root    ALL=(ALL)       ALL
falko   ALL=(ALL)       ALL
[...]

4 Building courier-authlib, courier-imap, And maildrop

Now we are ready to build our rpm package. First become the user falko:

su falko

Next we create our build environment:

mkdir $HOME/rpm
mkdir $HOME/rpm/SOURCES
mkdir $HOME/rpm/SPECS
mkdir $HOME/rpm/BUILD
mkdir $HOME/rpm/SRPMS
mkdir $HOME/rpm/RPMS
mkdir $HOME/rpm/RPMS/i386

echo "%_topdir $HOME/rpm" >> $HOME/.rpmmacros

Now we create a downloads directory and download the source files from http://www.courier-mta.org/download.php:

mkdir $HOME/downloads
cd $HOME/downloads

wget http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/courier/courier-authlib-0.60.2.tar.bz2
wget http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/courier/courier-imap-4.2.1.tar.bz2
wget http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/courier/maildrop-2.0.4.tar.bz2

4.1 courier-authlib

Now (still in $HOME/downloads) we can build courier-authlib:

sudo rpmbuild -ta courier-authlib-0.60.2.tar.bz2

After the build process, the rpm packages can be found in $HOME/rpm/RPMS/i386 ($HOME/rpm/RPMS/x86_64 if you are on an x86_64 system):

cd $HOME/rpm/RPMS/i386

The command

ls -l

shows you the available rpm packages:

[falko@server1 i386]$ ls -l
total 600
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 137335 2007-11-13 18:02 courier-authlib-0.60.2-1.fc8.i386.rpm
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 323827 2007-11-13 18:02 courier-authlib-debuginfo-0.60.2-1.fc8.i386.rpm
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  34201 2007-11-13 18:02 courier-authlib-devel-0.60.2-1.fc8.i386.rpm
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  18039 2007-11-13 18:02 courier-authlib-ldap-0.60.2-1.fc8.i386.rpm
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  14258 2007-11-13 18:02 courier-authlib-mysql-0.60.2-1.fc8.i386.rpm
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  13602 2007-11-13 18:02 courier-authlib-pgsql-0.60.2-1.fc8.i386.rpm
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   8336 2007-11-13 18:02 courier-authlib-pipe-0.60.2-1.fc8.i386.rpm
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  36859 2007-11-13 18:02 courier-authlib-userdb-0.60.2-1.fc8.i386.rpm
[falko@server1 i386]$

Select the ones you want to install, and install them like this:

sudo rpm -ivh courier-authlib-0.60.2-1.fc8.i386.rpm
sudo rpm -ivh courier-authlib-devel-0.60.2-1.fc8.i386.rpm
sudo rpm -ivh courier-authlib-mysql-0.60.2-1.fc8.i386.rpm

4.2 courier-imap

Now we go back to our downloads directory:

cd $HOME/downloads

and run rpmbuild again, this time without sudo, otherwise the compilation will fail because it was run as root:

rpmbuild -ta courier-imap-4.2.1.tar.bz2

After the build process, the rpm packages can be found in $HOME/rpm/RPMS/i386 ($HOME/rpm/RPMS/x86_64 if you are on an x86_64 system):

cd $HOME/rpm/RPMS/i386

The command

ls -l

shows you the available rpm packages:

[falko@server1 i386]$ ls -l
total 1284
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 137335 2007-11-13 18:02 courier-authlib-0.60.2-1.fc8.i386.rpm
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 323827 2007-11-13 18:02 courier-authlib-debuginfo-0.60.2-1.fc8.i386.rpm
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  34201 2007-11-13 18:02 courier-authlib-devel-0.60.2-1.fc8.i386.rpm
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  18039 2007-11-13 18:02 courier-authlib-ldap-0.60.2-1.fc8.i386.rpm
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  14258 2007-11-13 18:02 courier-authlib-mysql-0.60.2-1.fc8.i386.rpm
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  13602 2007-11-13 18:02 courier-authlib-pgsql-0.60.2-1.fc8.i386.rpm
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   8336 2007-11-13 18:02 courier-authlib-pipe-0.60.2-1.fc8.i386.rpm
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  36859 2007-11-13 18:02 courier-authlib-userdb-0.60.2-1.fc8.i386.rpm
-rw-rw-r-- 1 falko falko 383455 2007-11-13 18:21 courier-imap-4.2.1-1.8.i386.rpm
-rw-rw-r-- 1 falko falko 917771 2007-11-13 18:21 courier-imap-debuginfo-4.2.1-1.8.i386.rpm
[falko@server1 i386]$

You can install courier-imap like this:

sudo rpm -ivh courier-imap-4.2.1-1.8.i386.rpm

4.3 maildrop

Now we go back to our downloads directory:

cd $HOME/downloads

and run rpmbuild again:

sudo rpmbuild -ta maildrop-2.0.4.tar.bz2

After the build process, the rpm packages can be found in $HOME/rpm/RPMS/i386 ($HOME/rpm/RPMS/x86_64 if you are on an x86_64 system):

cd $HOME/rpm/RPMS/i386

The command

ls -l

shows you the available rpm packages:

[falko@server1 i386]$ ls -l
total 3128
-rw-r--r-- 1 root  root  137343 2007-11-13 18:02 courier-authlib-0.60.2-1.fc8.i386.rpm
-rw-r--r-- 1 root  root  324618 2007-11-13 18:02 courier-authlib-debuginfo-0.60.2-1.fc8.i386.rpm
-rw-r--r-- 1 root  root   34208 2007-11-13 18:02 courier-authlib-devel-0.60.2-1.fc8.i386.rpm
-rw-r--r-- 1 root  root   18042 2007-11-13 18:02 courier-authlib-ldap-0.60.2-1.fc8.i386.rpm
-rw-r--r-- 1 root  root   14254 2007-11-13 18:02 courier-authlib-mysql-0.60.2-1.fc8.i386.rpm
-rw-r--r-- 1 root  root   13599 2007-11-13 18:02 courier-authlib-pgsql-0.60.2-1.fc8.i386.rpm
-rw-r--r-- 1 root  root    8339 2007-11-13 18:02 courier-authlib-pipe-0.60.2-1.fc8.i386.rpm
-rw-r--r-- 1 root  root   36855 2007-11-13 18:02 courier-authlib-userdb-0.60.2-1.fc8.i386.rpm
-rw-rw-r-- 1 falko falko 383455 2007-11-13 18:21 courier-imap-4.2.1-1.8.i386.rpm
-rw-rw-r-- 1 falko falko 917771 2007-11-13 18:21 courier-imap-debuginfo-4.2.1-1.8.i386.rpm
-rw-r--r-- 1 root  root  299030 2007-11-13 18:35 maildrop-2.0.4-1.8.i386.rpm
-rw-r--r-- 1 root  root  752872 2007-11-13 18:35 maildrop-debuginfo-2.0.4-1.8.i386.rpm
-rw-r--r-- 1 root  root  136235 2007-11-13 18:35 maildrop-devel-2.0.4-1.8.i386.rpm
-rw-r--r-- 1 root  root   58439 2007-11-13 18:35 maildrop-man-2.0.4-1.8.i386.rpm
[falko@server1 i386]$

You can now install maildrop like this:

sudo rpm -ivh maildrop-2.0.4-1.8.i386.rpm

After you have compiled and installed all needed packages, you can become root again by typing

exit

5 My Fedora 8 Packages

Here are the links to my Fedora 8 (i386) packages:

• courier-authlib-0.60.2-1.fc8.i386.rpm
• courier-authlib-debuginfo-0.60.2-1.fc8.i386.rpm
• courier-authlib-devel-0.60.2-1.fc8.i386.rpm
• courier-authlib-ldap-0.60.2-1.fc8.i386.rpm
• courier-authlib-mysql-0.60.2-1.fc8.i386.rpm
• courier-authlib-pgsql-0.60.2-1.fc8.i386.rpm
• courier-authlib-pipe-0.60.2-1.fc8.i386.rpm
• courier-authlib-userdb-0.60.2-1.fc8.i386.rpm
• courier-imap-4.2.1-1.8.i386.rpm
• courier-imap-debuginfo-4.2.1-1.8.i386.rpm
• maildrop-2.0.4-1.8.i386.rpm
• maildrop-debuginfo-2.0.4-1.8.i386.rpm
• maildrop-devel-2.0.4-1.8.i386.rpm
• maildrop-man-2.0.4-1.8.i386.rpm