Installation of Libremail

Installation of the applications

If you recovered the sources compressed file, start by decompressing it:

Place the file libremail.tar in the directory of your choice and unarchive it:

If you recovered a .zip file, only one stage is enough :


The various archival files will be recopied in under directory Libremail .

Go in this directory and launch: to compile the sources.


If you recovered the file with the executable programs, the installation is done in a similar way, but without the need to run make


The executable files of Libremail are ready, but the operating system does not necessarily know where they have been installed.


Local installation or in the system dirertories

Up to version 2.1.4 of Libremail, the installation of Libremail was done obligatorily in a directory chosen by the user (in general on its account).
Since version 2.2 it is also possible to install Libremail in the system directories, like all the other UNIX or GNU/Linux commands.

If you wish to preserve Libremail in a specific directory, it will be necessary add the access to subdirectory libremail/bin in the environment variable PATH .
For that, it is necessary to modify directly a file where the variable PATH is declared: that means the file /etc/profile if Libremail was installed for several users, or the file .bashrc or .bash_profile) of your account in the opposite case.
In all the cases, let put an absolute access path to the directory of establishment of Libremail.
You will need to you connect again (login) to take into account the new path.


If on the contrary, you wish Libremail to be established at same place than other commands of your operating system, that means in /usr/bin, after the initial installation (finished by the command make if you have installed Libremail starting from the source files), it is necessary for you to pass in super user (root) mode for launching, from the directory where Libremail is established, the command : Libremail could then be used by every user of the computer without being necessary to modify environment variable PATH .

Last operation to reach your letter-box

It any more but does not remain you to create your file of configuration (by basing you the file exemple.cfg) and the root directory of your mails to be able to reach your letter-box.

Selection of a default language

Since version 2.0, the user interface of Libremail and the contents of the mails generated by several filtering tools, are available in all the languages of this Web site.
The various tools of Libremail analyze the environment variable $LANG to choose the language of the user interface.

Consequently, if the environment variable $LANG has not been initialized, or if it refers to a nonavailable language, Libremail cannot work.
To be able to use Libremail in these 2 cases, it is necessary to create data files mess-Libremail, mail-supbcc, mail-supgros and mail-suphtm for a chosen default language.

The names of these files are obtained by removing the linguistic suffix (a . followed of 2 letters) of the files from which they are created.
For a correct operation of the default language, It's better to avoid using files whose name ends in -utf .
To create the files of the chosen default language, it is advised to establish symbolic links rather than physical links or copies. Thus, if the linguistic files evolve, there will be nothing to modify for the default language.

For example to choose the English language as default language, the commands:
will be launched.

If one wishes that the files of the language by defect are used systematically (thus, without holding account of the variable of environment $LANG), it is necessary to add a file called deflang-Libremail (it can be empty) in the directory containing the commands of Libremail or in /usr/share/Libremail according to the way in which Libremail will have been installed.

Installation of documentation

As for the the Libremail application files, one will start by making a local installation. Then, it will be possible to put the man pages of Libremail with the other man pages of the operating system.

If the file containing documentation is compressed, start with a decompression:

Unarchive the file containing documentation:

Subdirectory Libremail will contain one or more presentation file (one file for each installed language), as well as man pages in subdirectories of libremail/man .

More precisely, the man pages will be installed in the directories : with ?? who is a language among : fr de es it nl pt eo .


For the languages other than English, the documentation filename contains -utf or -iso to indicate the accented charset used (UTF-8 and ISO8859-1).
If your man pages do not display or displayed with an incorrect charset, you can use the other documentation file.


The man files are provided not compressed, which makes it possible to see their real physical contents. On the other hand, the man pages of Libremail occupy approximately 200 Kbytes by language.
In command to reduce this space, one will be able to compress the files while launching since the directory containing all the malls of a language:
If the command bzip2 (the best compressor) is not available, one will use gzip in the place.


If you chose to establish Libremail in /usr/bin with other commands of the operating system, it is desirable that the man pages of Libremail to be installed in /usr/share/man

For that, in super user (root) mode, from the directory Libremail you will be able to launch command :
It is also possible to move the man files thanks to 2 mv commands rather than to make a copy. For the man pages in English language, the commands will be :

In the case of a local installation of Libremail and its documentation, if variable PATH was initialized to find the achievable files of Libremail in .../libremail/bin, established man pages in .../libremail/man is accessible.

If it is not the case, one can correct the problem by adding an access path to the environment variable MANPATH .

If this environment variable was not declared, (frequent case), it will be enough to add in /etc/profile (it is necessary to be root for that), or on its account in the file .bashrc or .bash_profile, 2 lines of the form: (by supposing that one was in /home/xxx when the documentation file is unfiled).

The man pages will be accessible to next the login.