In this tutorial, we will learn how to install and use FreeScout, a free and open source team email system. We will cover setting up FreeScout on a local network, configuring a reverse proxy, and sending and receiving emails.
Prerequisites
To follow along with this tutorial, you will need the following:
* A Linux server with Docker installed
* A domain name and a web hosting provider
* An email server
Installing FreeScout
To install FreeScout, we will use the following Docker command:
“`
docker pull tiredofit/freescout
“`
Once the image has been pulled, we can start the FreeScout container by running the following command:
“`
docker run -d –name freescout -p 80:80 tiredofit/freescout
“`
This will start the FreeScout container and expose port 80 on the host machine.
Configuring a Reverse Proxy
In order to access FreeScout from the internet, we will need to configure a reverse proxy. We will use Nginx Proxy Manager for this purpose.
To install Nginx Proxy Manager, we will use the following script:
“`
curl -sL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jc21/docker-compose-nginx-proxy-manager/master/install.sh | sh
“`
Once the script has been run, we can start the Nginx Proxy Manager container by running the following command:
“`
docker run -d –name nginx-proxy -p 8080:8080 jwilder/nginx-proxy
“`
This will start the Nginx Proxy Manager container and expose port 8080 on the host machine.
Configuring FreeScout
To configure FreeScout, we will need to edit the `docker-compose.yaml` file.
First, we need to change the port mapping from `80` to `8080`. This is because we will be accessing FreeScout through the Nginx Proxy Manager.
“`
version: ‘2’
services:
freescout:
image: tiredofit/freescout
ports:
– 8080:80
“`
Next, we need to change the `url` setting to the domain name that we purchased.
“`
version: ‘2’
services:
freescout:
image: tiredofit/freescout
ports:
– 8080:80
environment:
url: https://freescout.example.com
“`
Finally, we need to save the `docker-compose.yaml` file and restart the FreeScout container.
“`
docker restart freescout
“`
Sending and Receiving Emails
Now that FreeScout is configured, we can send and receive emails.
To send an email, we can use the following command:
“`
echo “Subject: Test Email” | mail -s “Test Email” freescout@example.com
“`
This will send an email to the `freescout@example.com` email address with the subject “Test Email”.
To receive an email, we can log in to the FreeScout web interface and click on the “Inbox” tab. We will see all of the emails that have been sent to the `freescout@example.com` email address.
We can also reply to emails from the FreeScout web interface. To do this, we simply click on the email that we want to reply to and type our reply in the text box at the bottom of the page. When we are finished typing our reply, we can click on the “Send” button.
Conclusion
In this tutorial, we learned how to install and use FreeScout, a free and open source team email system. We covered setting up FreeScout on a local network, configuring a reverse proxy, and sending and receiving emails.