Need some input on IMAP

[Darin Perusich]

imap, one of my favorite subjects.

from the sounds of it what you'd like to do i pull messages from your 
ISP using fetchmail to a local server and use imap to read the messages. 
  if you're just planning to do this for a few people, yourself, g/f, 
and the family dog using WU-imap is the easiest method and should be 
pretty much drop in. setting up sendmail will probable be the trickest 
part of you setup.

for larger scale deployments with many users, lots of folders, 
sub-folders, shared folders, bulletin board support, messages stored as 
seperate files (not maildir), ./etc i feel that the cyrus imapd is the 
best solution around.

when you harden this machine take a look at scripts provided by 
bastille-linux, http://www.bastille-linux.org/. it's very useful 
informative program, if you've never done any hardening or if you have 
you'll learn a thing or two. after you've used it go back and try to do 
all those things by hand.

Robert Meyer wrote:
> Well, as it happens, I have VERY recent experience with this...
> 
> Case history, I've been using 'sendmail' and 'mbox' format mail forever
> (don't ask, let's just say a long time and leave it at that) and I had
> to set up a new system where I currently work.  My first inclination was
> to use uw-imap and mbox format but one of the requirements was to have
> hierarchical folders with messages and folders in any particular
> folder.  This ruled out mbox format.  Next on the list was to implement
> 'courier' imap which uses 'mbox' format.  Almost all of the users here
> run Outlook (another thing I can't control) and courier didn't seem to
> like Outlook terribly much.  Kept getting problems with outlook trying
> to resync the inbox and failing.
> 
> Since I was under the gun to do things in a hurry, I gave up on courier
> imap (bad idea) and found 'maildir' patches for uw-imap.  After about a
> month of solid misery, we decided to try courier, again.  Outlook tends
> to try to open as many as a dozen connections to the imap server at a
> time.  While this is not a violation of the rules, it's incredibly
> stupid.  Courier's problem was that the configuration files limit the
> number of connections per IP to four and the number of total connections
> to something fairly low.  I changed both values to 1000 (all of our users
> access the mail through a masquerading firewall) and we just deployed it
> yesterday.  So far, it is screaming fast and we haven't had any more
> problems with UID errors on folders, etc.
> 
> My recommendation would be to use courier imap and set up fetchmail to
> generate 'maildir' format messages.  You can do this by running
> sendmail/procmail with a procmailrc script like:
> 
> # Please check if all the paths in PATH are reachable, remove the ones that
> # are not.
> 
> PATH=$HOME/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/ucb:/bin:/usr/local/bin:.
> MAILDIR=$HOME/Maildir	# You'd better make sure it exists
> DEFAULT=$MAILDIR/
> LOGFILE=$MAILDIR/from
> LOCKFILE=$HOME/.lockmail
> 
> Make sure that each user has a 'Maildir' in his/her home directory with
> 'cur', 'new' and 'tmp' directories in it and make sure that you have
> define(`PROCMAIL_MAILER_PATH',`/usr/bin/procmail')dnl
> in your /etc/mail/sendmail.mc file.  Run the m4 command:
> m4 /etc/mail/sendmail.mc > /etc/sendmail.cf
> to build your 'sendmail.cf' file.  'Fetchmail' connects to port 25
> on the local machine to deliver it's mail so you'll have to start
> sendmail.  You should then be able to start courier imap and run.
> 'fetchmail' configuration is left as an exercise for the reader :-).
> 
> Good luck and let us know if you have any problems...
> 
> Cheers!
> 
> Bob
> 
> 
> --- Charles Rishel <chaz03 at localnet.com> wrote:
> 
>>Hey all,
>>
>>I have seen many people talking about fetchmail and such for retrieval of 
>>email to a local server.  Me and my g/f are starting a home-based sales 
>>business and a web-site.  I would like to setup an imap server so that we 
>>can both access emails for the business, off of my local server.  I will 
>>likely use fetchmail to retrieve the emails from the server and store them 
>>locally to be accessed via imap.
>>
>>I am looking for input on the various imap implementations that are out 
>>there.  Just like anything in Linux there is much to choose from.  Having 
>>no need for an imap server previously, I am looking for any real-world 
>>advice from those who have dealt with the various imap software packages.
>>
>>(Side note)
>>I find it funny that I always hear that "there's no software for Linux" all 
>>the time, I find it ironic because one of the biggest problems I have found 
>>with Linux is the over-abundance of software.  There are usually 3+ 
>>programs that can do equivalent things, it is just a matter of 
>>preference,sometimes stability, and ease of installation that usually sets 
>>them apart.
>>
>>Thanks,
>>Chaz03
>>
>>"If you want others to follow, give them leadership that they can believe
>>in."
>>
> 
> 
> =====
> Bob Meyer
> Knightwing Communications, Inc.
> 36 Cayuga Blvd
> Depew, NY 14043
> Phone: 716-308-8931 or 716-681-0076
> Meyer_RM at Yahoo.com
> 
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> 


-- 
Darin Perusich
Unix Systems Administrator
Cognigen Corp.
darinper at cognigencorp.com