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> HOME > PROJECTS > SQUIRRELMAIL MAIA INTEGRATION
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Squirrelmail Maia Integration
Squirrelmail Maia Integration
We have recently added Maia
Mailguard to our anti-spam portfolio. When used in combination with
Squirrelmail, the result is a
full-featured web e-mail suite.
Overview
This page outlines a set of steps, including a small patch to Maia and a small
Squirrelmail plugin, that will allow for unified Squirrelmail/Maia logins.
Essentially, Maia is patched to trust authenticated Squirrelmail users, based
on PHP session variables, without bothering Maia users with a login box.
Squirrelmail already sets a bevy of session variables. The two we are
concerned with are 'username' and 'user_is_logged_in.' Essentially, if Maia
sees these two variables, the user-in-question is authenticated.
This is not "integration" in the true sense of the word. See Future Direction
below.
Caveats
This setup is subject to some limitations, and is largely a proof-of-concept:
- The Maia PHP scripts must run on the same box as Squirrelmail so they may share a PHP session
- The Maia patch presented here only works with LDAP authentication ($auth_method = "ldap")
- Your LDAP server must allow retrieval of a user's email attribute via an anonymous bind
- The Squirrelmail install obviously needs to be trusted, and secured, as Maia will trust all Squirrelmail-authenticated users
The second limitation can probably be overcome easily enough, but I only had
time to really test an LDAP setup. Also, some of the address-rewriting
characteristics of other auth methods may make them a bit messier.
Maia Setup
You will need to download/apply a small patch to three of Maia's PHP files to
make this work.
- Download the Maia Session Auth Patch: maia-1.0.2a-sessauth-1.0.0.patch
-
cd /path/to/maia/php
patch -p1 </path/to/patch
Once this patch is applied, you will notice no functional difference in your
Maia login behavior, unless you link/browse directly to xlogin.php. The LDAP
authentication code will look first for an existing username in the session
variables (presumably there from our Squirremail session). If this does not
exist, it will still fall back to doing normal LDAP authentication.
Testing
You can test this setup by logging into Squirremail as always, and then
browsing to 'http://url/to/maia/xlogin.php.' If the patch is not applied, or
not working, or you are not authenticated already as a Squirremail user, you
should get a "Login for user failed. ( )" message. If it works, you should
skip right in to the Maia welcome page as your Squirrelmail user. You should
also test that normal logins work by going to your main Maia URL and logging in
normally. You should also note that logging out of the Maia application does
not end your Squirrelmail session.
Squirrelmail Setup
Two things need to be done to Squirrelmail to make our changes so far useful.
First, we need to ensure that the PHP session name Squirremail uses matches our
Maia install. Maia defaults to using PHPSESSID, while Squirrelmail installs
ship using SQMSESSID. We will change Squirrelmail to use PHPSESSID.
-
cd /path/to/squirrelmail
./configure
- General Options -> PHP session name, to PHPSESSID
Second, we need a link within Squirrelmail to take advantage of the fact that
direct links to xlogin.php from authenticated sessions pass through unfettered
by the Maia login process. Here is what I do to "integrate" Maia into
Squirrelmail:
- Download my Squirrelmail plugin, HTML Inject: html_inject-1.0.0-1.4.x.tar.gz (other Squirrelmail Plugins)
- Install the plugin according to the directions.
- Edit the plugin's setup.php file to add a link within Squirrelmail to Maia's xlogin.php file. For example:
function inject_menuline() {
echo "<a href=\"http://url/to/maia/xlogin.php\" target="\new\">Maia</a>\n";
}
You should now have a link within Squirrelmail that opens up the Maia welcome
page in a new window. Leave off the target specification to open it in the
right frame. You can also be quite creative with Apache aliases and the
inject_menuline function using displayInternalLink to get a very slick addition
to the top menu bar, especially if using graphical buttons (which is what I
do). Even if you want to skip the Maia patch, this is still quite handy just as
a link to Maia.
Future Direction
Obviously, if this seems palatable, it would be nice to have this kind of setup
work with more than just LDAP. I just have not had the time to really work on
anything else, and LDAP is what I use on our site.
It would be REALLY nice if there was some kind of Squirrelmail plugin, along
the lines of Amavisnewsql, or possibly using the Spam Buttons plugin, so that
users can click off spam/ham and free quarantine items right in the main
Squirrelmail interface. I believe the Maia Roadmap's outline of a headless API
would go a long way towards making this much more possible. That is obviously
a much larger undertaking, and this simple setup suffices for me for the time
being.
Criticism, suggestions, derision, welcome. :)
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