Re: tlug: IMAP

[Totoro <riley@example.com>]

On 8 Oct 1998, Frank Bennett wrote:

> "Stephen J. Turnbull" <turnbull@example.com> writes:
> 
> > Offline mailreading is no different for IMAP than POP---you still
> > leave a copy on the local machine.
> 
> That's good to know; if IMAP supports offline reading, then one
> protocol handles both in-office and at-home reading.  Good news.

I pull my mail from the school server into my home directory on the
Linux machine with fetchmail, then let the IMAP server (4.1) control
access. Works nicely!

> For _privacy_, client configuration will be important.  But the
> other part of the chaos arises from the Hobson's choice under
> Pop3 of either deleting everything that's downloaded to the
> client machine, or leaving it in place to clog up the works.  In

That can be dealt with via quotas, if you want to be strict on the
users. I really like the freedom of IMAP to delete only the mail
that I don't want lying around. 


> An IMAP server seems to promise (the possibility of) better
> management when a user accesses the same mailbox(es) from
> multiple clients in real time (i.e. a student might read his or
> her mail from any one of ten terminals in the building here; an
> IMAP client can report back to the server on which messages have
> been read and so forth, so that this info is available when the
> mailbox is opened from a different location --- transparent
> behavior like that is easy to explain to users, and that cuts
> down on support time).

If your users are running Windoze, just show them Outlook Express
and head home early. It runs on Mac, too, now that I think of it.

> That's the more serious problem --- if people let their mail
> spill out into public spaces, they're entitled to have the
> problem and possible solutions explained to them once, in a memo.
> After that ... am I my brother's keeper?

Depends on your job description! :-P

> Can't, with Pop3 clients like Eudora and Netscape (or am I
> missing something...?).  And I am not going to get into the game
> of trying to persuade my users (whom I never see in one place at
> one time) to use a mail client that is not aglow with the halo of
> popularity.  At the end of the day, all I have full control over

Eudora Pro 4 does IMAP, btw. I can't vouch for how WELL it works,
as I don't use it. YMMV.

> is the server side, and I want to be sure that it provides the
> best possible service.  IMAP seems to offer a one-stop shopping
> solution to the Faculty's needs, so I'm trying to chart the
> territory before rolling up my sleeves and putting in the time
> required to set it up.
> 
> Anyone had any experience with converting to an IMAP server?

Not much to do, really. Put in the binary, make sure it's enabled
in /etc/inetd.conf and restart your inetd (in /etc/rc.d/init.d for
RedHat distributions). If you are no longer going to use POP at all,
you might want to disable that option in inetd.conf as well, just to
reduce security risks on that end. 

WRT security, there do seem to be some outstanding concerns about
the safety of IMAP. I don't know if all of those have been cleared
up or not. In my case, I'm the one and only user, so not a problem.
For a LAN, you might read up on this to see where it's at right now.
Probably the Linux Weekly (http://lwn.net/) is a good place to look
for starters.


David Riley

Hachinohe Institute of Technology
88-1, Myo, Ohbiraki
Hachinohe-shi Aomori-ken  031-8501  JAPAN

http://w3.clat.hi-tech.ac.jp/

---------------------------------------------------------------
Next Meeting: 10 October, 12:30 Tokyo Station Yaesu central gate
Featuring the IMASY Eng. Team on "IPv6 - The Next Generation IP"
Next Nomikai: 20 November, 19:30  Tengu TokyoEkiMae 03-3275-3691
---------------------------------------------------------------
Sponsor: PHT, makers of TurboLinux http://www.pht.co.jp