2008-10-31 * JWebMail 1.0.1rc1, release candidate, released
Binary and source packages are available. This refactored version of the JWebMail web application requires a 2.4 compliant servlet container running with a 1.5 or new JVM.
Oct 07 2002 WebMail 0.7.10 released
A bugfix release to 0.7.9 (attachments work again), and a Hungarian translation, contributed by Deim 'ago' Agoston from Linux Support Center (Hungary).
Oct 02 2002 WebMail 0.7.9 released
After a long time, finally a new release. Many of the severe bugs in 0.7.8 have been fixed (e.g. sending messages under non-English languages didn't work), the code has been cleaned up. Moved from Xerces/Xalan 1 to the more general JAXP/Trax architecture (thus there are no more problems with other XML parsers). Updated several libraries. Updated for use with Servlet 2.3 containers (Tomcat 4.1 and above). The project also has a new developer: Leonard Sitongia and we hope to have a 0.8 soon.
Note: This release requires JDK 1.4 or above.
Mar 06 2002 WebMail 0.7.8 released
Several bugfixes (setting message flags now works again), works and builds with Tomcat 4 (Catalina).
Tue Nov 6 10:24:12 2001 WebMail 0.7.7 released
WebMail has now support for Chinese language, installation is now WebApp-compliant (i.e. just drop a WAR file in your server's webapp directory), many bugfixes and other improvements.
Thu Jan 11 12:51:33 2001 WebMail 0.7.6 released
Main changes: Tomcat support, Challenge/Response Authentication updates (by Devin Kowatch), HTML message parser removes Javascript, bugfixes.
Sun Dec 17 20:58:33 2000 WebMail 0.7.5 released
As promised, WebMail 0.7.5 is now available, featuring theme support and the new BiBop theme as well as some bug fixes. Please see the download and demo pages for further information.
Sun Dec 17 14:26:11 2000 WebMail 0.7.5 Bibop Screenshots
There are new screenshots of the current development version available featuring the new "theme" support and the great Bibop theme contributed by Bibop Research, http://www.bibop.it.
WebMail 0.7.5 will (hopefully) be released before Christmas. This will be the last release in the 0.7 series. The plan for further development (in 0.8) is:
  • integration with the Cocoon project since WebMail won't have to do the XSL transformations then
  • removal of standalone version; the servlet installation is the recommended method already and WebMail 0.7.5 will already come with a JServ installation script.
  • eventually an addressbook; this is a long-awaited feature for many users, so this will be implemented, most likely based on the XML application for address books
  • what I would like to see is a WML (=WAP) theme to be used by cellular phone users; but this is only an option and not a definite plan for the future.
  • another very interesting thing would be to implement an interface that transforms WebMail's data to Mozilla's XUL interface. Mozilla users will then eventually not see any difference between Mozilla Messenger and WebMail.
Unfortunately I am currently very busily working on my diploma thesis in computer sciences, so WebMail development will not be very fast until sometimes in spring.
Fri Aug 25 15:46:11 2000 WebMail 0.7.3 released
Since I'll be on vacation the next two weeks, I release WebMail 0.7.3 today. The new release mainly contains bugfixes and now complete UTF-8 support (that means that any charset of the world should work now with WebMail, WebMail tries to do an on the fly transformation of all mails to UTF-8).
Mon Aug 21 14:17:57 2000 Updated RPM/DEB packages
The bug with the incorrect pathnames has been fixed. The packages are available as 0.7.2-2 instead of 0.7.2-1
Thu Aug 17 13:47:05 2000 Bug in RPM/DEB packages
There is a small bug in the RPM/DEB packages for WebMail 0.7.2. The pathname in the servlet properties file still points to /usr/lib/webmail-0.7.1.
I will update the packages when I have the time, in the meantime the most simple solution is to just symlink webmail-0.7.2 to webmail-0.7.1.
Fri Aug 11 18:00:00 2000 WebMail 0.7.2 released
This is a maintanance release that fixes a lot of problems in previous releases, among them the POP issue and updates to the README plus a big bunch of bugfixes, improved error handling and the basic implementation of a challenge/response authentication (thanks to Devin Kowatch).
Fri Jul 21 17:00:00 2000 WebMail 0.7.1 released
WebMail 0.7.1 contains many bugfixes and a German translation of the templates. Please don't use POP3, since it seems to have a lot of problems with most POP servers. I'll have a look at the (contributed) POP3 code...
Thu Jun 26 11:00:00 2000 WebMail 0.7 released
Finally, here is the WebMail 0.7 release. There have been a lot of bugfixes (thanks to all of you who sent me suggestions) and some enhancements (user help, "autoexpunge"-Option). This release certainly still has bugs (but what software doesn't:-( ), but I recommend you upgrade to it anyway, if you can.:-)
What you might find useful are Debian and Redhat packages to install WebMail as a Servlet. See "download" for details.
Thu May 18 17:00:00 2000 WebMail 0.7 pre-release 3
You are now able to download the WebMail 0.7 prerelease 3. This is (hopefully) the last prerelease before the real 0.7.0 release. It has almost all of the features, still missing, however, are updates to the README and a usable help system for users and administrators. Furthermore, there is only English included in this distribution, I will at least translate to German and perhaps to Spanish until the release.
Thu Apr 20 15:30:00 2000 WebMail 0.7 pre-release 2
For your evaluation, I just uploaded the second WebMail 0.7 prerelease. For a list of changes please see the changelog at the sourceforge project page. There are many features that still don't work as they should, this is clearly a development release not meant for production use. Please only use IMAP hosts to test it.
Also, the configuration files are completely incompatible to former WebMail releases, for the real 0.7 release there will be at least a transformation script for the mysql stored configuration.
The README is not yet updated for this release. For installation, you will basically have to do the following steps:
  • unpack the binary distribution (to /usr/local)
  • if you use another location than /usr/local/webmail, you will have to change the DOCTYPE in the file data/webmail.xml
  • change to the bin/ directory
  • start with ./webmail.sh
  • go to the admin interface and change the default protocol to "IMAP" (and do all other settings you like)
  • now log in as usual
Sat Feb 26 11:00:13 2000 ITI-SSL binaries now hosted again
The WebMail packages are now also hosted in Europe (Germany) together with the ITI-SSL binaries so you (and I) don't get into trouble with US export laws.
The European Download Location.
Thu Feb 17 18:50:25 2000 WebMail 0.7 new README available
There is now a new, revised README available for WebMail 0.7 which merges all the former READMEs into a single XML document (which is also available converted to HTML).
You can get a list of the files here.
Note that I am not yet too happy with the look and feel of the HTML version, but this should be little work to do.
Sat Feb 05 18:40:50 2000 WebMail 0.7 development screenshots
Please have a look at the demo page and comment on the screenshot of the new mailbox/folder list. You will get a look on how WebMail 0.7 will handle folders: A user connects to a certain IMAP/POP host (and a root folder) and gets a tree-like view of all the available folders plus the ability to create additional folders under each node that can contain subfolders.
There will be some layout changes (icons and that stuff), but that's it mainly.:-)
I would like your opinions now on whether this is usable for the simple mail user also (or if it is at least an improvement of the current system).
Note: You cannot download this version since it is only working in parts currently. Expect a new prerelease in the next week however.
Mon Jan 31 11:40:50 2000 WebMail 0.7 pre-release 1
Since some people requested this, here it is.:-)
This is however a prerelease and possibly has many bugs. Also, many things I wanted to do are not yes implemented.
New things in this release: Virtual Domain support, enhanced memory management (WebMail now can have many simultaneous users).
Mon Jan 24 16:25:02 2000 Demo server updated
The Demoserver now runs a WebMail 0.7 development release with the IBM JDK 1.1.8 on Apache/JServ and MySQL. Seems to work quite good.:-)
Also included: The upcoming WebMail virtual domain support (hope this is stable).
Wed Jan 12 11:03:02 2000 WebMail 0.6.2 pre-release 1
A prerelease of the upcoming WebMail 0.6.2. Mainly contains some bug fixes, a MySQL storage implementation and finally working support for SSL in the standalone version. You will need to get a platform dependent ITI-SSL library however. These are called iti-ssl--.tgz .
Get this release in the pre-release directory.
Get the ITI-SSL source at http://www-sp.iti.informatik.tu-darmstadt.de/itissl, the mentioned binaries are also available at the Old WebMail Homepage (in Germany so you may download 128bit cryptography).
Mon Nov 12 11:05:00 1999 WebMail Rated TOP 5% at JARS
WebMail has been rated TOP 5% at JARS (http://www.jars.com). The entry can be found here.
Mon Oct 25 14:21:32 1999 WebMail 0.6.1 released
Most of the reported bugs from 0.6.0 have been fixed.
The most important new feature is Java Servlet support, WebMail is now able to run with your favorite Webserver (only tested Apache with JServ) if it supports Servlets. This allows you to build high availability and load balancing systems with WebMail (not tested but should work). Read the file README.Servlet in the distribution.
However, it is also more difficult to set up, so the standalone version is also included.
Also, this version has no compatibility for 0.6.0 or earlier user configurations due to a changed package structure.
You can possibly test the servlet server here. The installation is a PIII/450, 384MB RAM with SuSE Linux and Apache 1.3.9/JServ 1.1b/JDK 1.2pre2.
Tue Oct 05 17:31:02 1999 WebMail 0.6.1 pre-release 2
This pre-release contains some more bugfixes and configuration options. Also, the admin interface now checks whether an integer value was entered correctly. Some debug messages are removed and the output on stdout is somewhat cleaner.
Oh, and it runs with JDK 1.1 again.:-)
Fri Oct 01 18:02:05 1999 WebMail 0.6.1 pre-release 1
For all of you experiencing trouble with one of the following, there is a 0.6.1 prerelease available at http://webmail.wastl.net/pre:
  • You have a large number of users and the server sometimes crashes with a coredump
  • You have a lot of "stupid" users that don't fill their login into folder connections
  • You have your SMTP server on a different host than localhost
  • You are using the Spanish language templates, some bugs there have been fixed
Wed Sep 28 17:45:05 1999 New bugfix directory
You can find bugfixes for WebMail releases at http://webmail.wastl.net/bugfixes. Mostly these are replacement plugins that you can simply copy into the plugin directory.
Thu Sep 23 13:30:05 1999 WebMail v0.6.0 finally released
After a week of testing, WebMail v0.6.0 is now released to the public.

There are lots of changes, the most important are described here.

This release also includes Spanish and Galician translations, they are not yet complete however. The language packages will be available for download in the near future.

Mon Sep 20 12:44:59 1999 License change
WebMail v0.6 will be released this week. It will be licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) instead of the dual scheme of GPL/Artistic. This is mainly to avoid confusion and allow WebMail to be used in commercial projects without hurting my (and other people's) rights or the Open Source character.

You can find a copy of the LGPL on the "About" page.
Thu Jul 22 11:02:31 1999 WebMail RPM packages available
Andrew D. Fernandes contributed RedHat packages with some very good enhancements (will go into the source ASAP) like sysvinit scripts and much more.
Thu Jul 15 14:47:01 1999 WebMail Debian packages available
There is now a Debian package for WebMail 0.5.4, you can get it at the download page. It was tested with the current Debian unstable but should work with the stable release, too. If creating RPM's is as easy as creating DEB's, I'll do that sometimes.:-)
Wed Jun 30 18:10:42 1999 WebMail v0.5.4 released
Mainly some bugfixes, IE5 works now and the charset bug has been removed. Most of the strings are now sourced out so translation should be easier (and more complete). Furthermore, the directory structure has been changed (not a very important feature for the non-developers.:-) ).
Fri Jun 25 17:06:52 1999 WebMail v0.5.3 released
Finally, WebMail v0.5.3 is released. To sum it up, it contains the following new features/bug fixes:
  • Reimplementation of the HTTP/1.1 protocol now allow so-called persistent/keep-alive connections (should increase performance greatly).
  • I began writing a Java/Swing administration interface for the AdminServer, which now allows to change the settings of specific users (not yet finished).
  • Passwords are now stored encrypted
  • The UnixAuth scheme does no longer need a platform specific binary
  • SSL is working now, using the IAIK SSL package (which, unfortunately, requires a license for commercial use).
  • Most parsing is now done with JFlex and JavaCUP, further improving speed
  • many minor and some major bugfixes but unfortunately I still can't get it running with IE5, no chance why as I analyzed the HTTP specification and kept as close as possible.:-(
This will be the last release for the following one or two months as there will be some tests at university in the next time.
Perhaps I will release a 0.5.4 if I can somehow figure out the IE5 problem.:-)
Mon May 17 11:57:12 1999 WebMail v0.5.2 released
WebMail v0.5.2 contains numerous bugfixes (especially the CC-field bug). Also, experimental SSL support is included (doesn't work for me yet, but perhaps it does with you - fetch the complete source and compile openssl and ITI-SSL first).
Note: WebMail is now distributed under a dual license (GPL and Artistic License) to allow other projects to include it.
Summary:
  • Default folder path now Admin-configurable (default: /home/%user/mail)
  • Messages that are sent are now kept until the send was really successful
  • Admin connections are now not closed when the admin changes the admin port
  • fixed the infamous reply-bug
  • fixed a problem when parameters where given at command line
  • Changed the 10 minute default timeout to one hour
  • Number of total messages is now shown correctly in the folder overview
  • BCC field and CC field showed the same values
Thu Apr 22 15:54:19 1999 WebMail release v0.5.1
I just released WebMail v0.5.1, you can fetch it at the download page. I'll not provide patches this time as I don't want confusion with the previous bugfix-patches.

Note that you will have to get the contrib package again as I included experimental POP3 and LocalMbox Providers

Changes:

  • authentication bug fixed (provided wrong password to IMAP sometimes)
  • session management bug fixed (did not allow you to change folders where the login was different from the WebMail login)
  • improved message decoding, now "multipart/report" is supported, as well es quoted-printable headers and ISO-8859-1 charset. Could also fix possible bugs while sending messages.
  • improved message compose form. You can now attach files without losing the data you already entered
  • improved speed and reliability with folders.
  • POP3 is now included as an option, though not yet well tested
Wed Apr 21 00:32:52 1999 1st Bugfix for v0.5
v0.5 had a small bug that didn't allow users to create folders with a different login name than their WebMail login. There's a patch against both the source release and the binary release at the download page.
The archives that may be downloaded on the website already contain those patches.
Tue Apr 20 14:19:07 1999 WebMail v0.5 released
Today is a great day as WebMail v0.5 is released. It finally works with proxies and I hope that most bugs are fixed right now, so please enjoy and get the binary/source.:-)
Mon Apr 19 19:31:51 1999 New WebMail prerelease

The 190499 prerelease contains a new authentication scheme. The following authentication methods are now supported:

  • authentication against a remote IMAP server. WebMail tries to login on the remote server with the provided login and password. If the login fails, WebMail access is denied.
  • authentication against the Unix passwd/shadow database. WebMail comes with a little C-program that checks against the passwd/shadow database. WebMail must be run as root to use it.
  • simple authentication. Authentication as it ever was: against the user's data-file.

Note that WebMail is no longer platform independent if you want to use Unix authentication. In the binary distribution are only Linux-glibc/x86 and Solaris2.6/SPARC binaries of the unixauth program. You'll need to fetch the source for other platforms.

Wed Apr 14 16:14:44 1999 Bugfix release
There's a new (bugfix) release out now which fixes the following bugs:
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer now works fine with WebMail
  • Session Management improved so users can use the same IP adress
  • Improved "make" and configuration in the source release
  • Now JAR archive instead of ZIP


Last modified: Fri Oct 31 19:27:54 EDT 2008