On 3/6/2012 3:17 PM, Stan Hoeppner wrote:
On 3/6/2012 8:28 AM, Steve Campbell wrote:
http://wiki.dovecot.org/SharedMailboxes
That's where most of my questions originated, but thanks for the reply.
Steve, all the information you need is behind that link.
I've gone over that set of links on that page a dozen times. Perhaps I'm
trying to put a square peg in a round hole by using mbox, but they keep
providing information on it, so I guess I was just pounding away.
But then there's that "don't use maildir and mbox together". All of the
accounts on this server are carry-overs from the UW-IMAP server, so
perhaps I should have converted those to maildir. Seems as though it's
OK when they don't apply to the same type namespace.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding concepts here
Very possibly.
What I've done in the past with the old imap server is to create an
account (unix account), so the smtp server puts the mbox (what is
referred to as the INbox) in /var/spool/mail. Users who needed to
"share" this mailbox would be give the account user name and the
password for this account and would add an Imap account to their mail
client. This would sometimes cause locking problems or client corruption
due to email removals mostly. This is basically a normal, non-shared
account.
Locking problems with multiple users hitting mbox files is unavoidable.
The same is true when a single user hits an mbox from multiple client
devices simultaneously--PC, smart phone, tablet, etc. Which is why you
do not want to use mbox file format for shared mailboxes, but maildir
instead, because each email is a separate file. Please note, from the
link I provided:
I've experienced that type of locked mailbox before on the old server.
Users insist on accessing their email account as a pop account on their
desktop with the "check for new mail every so many minutes" turned on
and still keep their smartphones on while accessing it as an imap
account so they can still download the files to their desktop when they
return.
**********************************************************************
Maildir: Per-user \Seen flag
With Maildir a dovecot-shared file controls if the \Seen flags are
shared or private. The file must be created separately inside each
Maildir, although if the file already exists in the Maildir root it's
automatically copied for newly created mailboxes. If dovecot-shared file
doesn't exist in Maildir, the \Seen flags are shared. If it exists, the
\Seen flag state is stored only in the user's index files. By making
each user have their own private index files, you can make the \Seen
flag private for the users.
**********************************************************************
Simple concept above: each user of the shared mailbox sees "new" mail.
One user accessing new mail and marking it as read doesn't mark that
message as read for other shared users. You can not do this with mbox
file format, only maildir.
**********************************************************************
Maildir: Keyword sharing
Make sure you don't try to use per-user CONTROL directory. Otherwise
dovecot-keywords file doesn't get shared and keyword mapping breaks.
Other mailbox formats
Currently you can't have any per-user flags with other mailbox formats
than Maildir.
**********************************************************************
So just to clarify, is it OK to have a maildir account setup on this
server for these shared/imap access only accounts along with the mbox
accounts already on there?
Thanks for the patience and help
steve
