Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Programming Discussion : Can I create web base email account just like Hotmail?

[GDH]

Just say if I have a hosting account, can I create a web-base email account just like hotmail or yahoo, and people can just register their email accounts and use them?

[kyun]

yes, you can.

[GDH]

can you explain it more to me please. Thank you

[davet]

http://www.squirrelmail.org/

[kyun]

The theory behind this is actually simple.

Basically, you just have to install a script/ software to run on your host account. The script can be written in any server-side scripting language or other programming language (Perl, PHP, ASP, Java, C/C++, etc).

Hotmail for instant, is written in Perl, running on Linux (it's labeled as MSN funny huh?). The squirrelmail recommended by davet is written in PHP.

Having that said, it's not hard to install a webmail service, but how you configure and the measures taken to avoid security breach are more of concern, if you want to provide a webmail service to public. Although at this point many don't foresee any good by offering this free webmail service anymore, unless for marketing purposes which may or may not generate too much profits. People tend to install webmail for their internal usage (such as LAN, be it in a campus, office, an organization, ...)

If you need more technical opinion on how to install and configure the webmail, then you should approach somebody who has experience to do it for you. Or else you are ready to face a steeper learning curve ahead, if you want to do it yourself. But it certainly worths lots more than the effort you've put in.

[Chas]

Gossamer-Mail is another option for you. I use this on a site now and it works great.

~CP

[namelessguy]

Originally posted by kyun
The theory behind this is actually simple.

Hotmail for instant, is written in Perl, running on Linux (it's labeled as MSN funny huh?). The squirrelmail recommended by davet is written in PHP.

worths lots more than the effort you've put in.

It was years ago. Microsoft bought them out, and wrote their own system in ISAPI, which is C++ based. It handles higher loads, and works more reliably than perl on a windows server. There was a whole hubub about this when Microsoft first bought them out. The system went down for two weeks. It was funny.

In it's simplest, a web based e-mail program though, is not as cimplex as it sounds. All you need is a way to read e-mail from a pop account, and send it through either SMTP or other means. Add a database of users, and you're good to go.

If you are on a windows server, Jmail does almost everything you need. You just need to write a front end.