Maildir

[Mark T. Valites]

On Thu, 7 Aug 2003, Justin Bennett wrote:

> Thanks guys, What I really need is to do subdirectories on folders, I'm
> using procmail right now so it wouldn't be much of an issue I don't
> believe. Just need an IMAP sever that will do it. Courier I've heard
> good things, can you get RPM versions? Just makes it easier to keep it
> updated.  Also I assume I will have enourmous greif trying to convert
> current MBOX based inboxes and imap folders to maildir format. Yeah the
> procmail info would be great.

Subdirectories are no problem. I'm sure there are rpms of courier-imap.
Also note that you want courier imap. Courier is the full blown suite.

Converting mailboxes isn't all too overly painfull. Search for scripts
named "mbox2maildir". They do a pretty good job.

Some things to watch for:

- existing folders with a '.' in their name will need to be renamed if
you go with courier. (I used '_'.)

- the conversion of mbox to maildir will create a message saying "DO NOT
DELETE THIS MESSAGE -INTERNAL DATA" (or something like that...). I left it around cause it
couldn't hurt, but just save yourself lots of phone calls and have your
script delete it.

- the existing perl scripts don't set the time stamp on the newly created
maildir messages. this can break things & make programs not display
messages in the proper order. You need some perl to set the ctime on the
files - let me know if you need the script...

- pine reading Maildir *through the fs* just dosen't play right, even if
patched to add Maildir support. I recommend setting up pine to imap to
localhost. I have docs if you need it & tricks to use ssh so no extra
password prompt is needed when entering pine

- while mail clients are supposed to use the imap protocol to detect the
folder prefix (INBOX.) for courier, some do not. I have a list of the ones
we support here & what to enter for the "broken" ones. Again, let me know
if you need it.

- if you are using a test environment to check out the mbox2maildir
scripts, your production environment will take A LOT longer to run the
scripts due to file system fragmentation. What took me 10 hours on a 233pc
with ide drives took me 35 hours on a dual sunfire 280R with fibre drives

- ~.mailboxlist's new incarnation is ~Maildir/.courierimapsubscribed with
courier imap

-- 
Mark T. Valites
Unix Systems Analyst
CIT - SUNY Geneseo
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