Hi,

I'd like to install an IMAP server to access my local stored mailbox
files.

I don't need a new system/software/thing to get the mail from my mail
provider. I'm happy with the current installation.

I have different Mail accounts, all mails/accounts in different
directories. I have pine running to access these directories, this works
fine!

Now I don't want pine to access these files in the directories, I want
pine to access a IMAP server and the IMAP server to make the read/write
of the mailbox files.


I have downloaded UW IMAP, but was not able to access/read any mail with
pine. As I understand, one has to tell the IMAP server where to read the
mailbox files. I read in the documentation that it's possible to change
the functions (definitions) where to read the mailbox files. But there
I'm lost.

I tried some directories/files from my system and recompiled the server
but still wasn't able to read any mail.

Now I prefer to keep UW IMAP with it's default configuration and change
my Mailbox installation (as I know the internals of my mail system but
not the one from UW IMAP). But what is the 'standard' way to store mails
so that UW IMAP will be able to read it?

Is it possible to access different mail directories with mail from
different mail accounts as it is with pine reading the files and
directories directly?

Any appreciated, hints, documentation,
Andreas

andreas wrote:


> I'd like to install an IMAP server to access my local stored mailbox
> files.

And those files are in which format?

> I don't need a new system/software/thing to get the mail from my mail
> provider. I'm happy with the current installation.

And the current installation is...?

At least you should say if you are working in a Unix environment, a
Windows environment or whatever.

> I have different Mail accounts, all mails/accounts in different
> directories. I have pine running to access these directories, this works
> fine!
>
> Now I don't want pine to access these files in the directories, I want
> pine to access a IMAP server and the IMAP server to make the read/write
> of the mailbox files.
>
> I have downloaded UW IMAP, but was not able to access/read any mail with
> pine. As I understand, one has to tell the IMAP server where to read the
> mailbox files.

No, in general you don't have to tell UW IMAP anything (did you read
the documentation?), it searches in the "usual" places for mailboxes.
The "usual" being /var/mail or /var/spool/mail, maybe others.

> I read in the documentation that it's possible to change
> the functions (definitions) where to read the mailbox files. But there I'm lost.

Yes, I usually change it to use a mail directory inside each user's
home dir. That makes it cleaner when the user has many mailboxes.

There are two ways to do that change:

- Modify a string in the code, or
- Create a file, /etc/c-client.cf which contains 2 lines:
I accept the risk
set mail-subdirectory mail

All this is documented in the source code package. What it does is
that the user's mailboxes are now in $HOME/mail, as in:

/home/sample-user/mail/INBOX
/home/sample-user/mail/Sent
/home/sample-user/mail/Trash

> I tried some directories/files from my system and recompiled the server
> but still wasn't able to read any mail.
>
> Now I prefer to keep UW IMAP with it's default configuration and change
> my Mailbox installation (as I know the internals of my mail system but
> not the one from UW IMAP). But what is the 'standard' way to store mails
> so that UW IMAP will be able to read it?

Do you mean format or place?

Formats handled by UW IMAP are mbox and other I don't remember.

> Is it possible to access different mail directories with mail from
> different mail accounts as it is with pine reading the files and
> directories directly?

The normal operation, where you have a SMTP mail server alongside your
IMAP server, is that the SMTP server receives the mail and stores it in
/var/mail/<username> and the IMAP server when requested by a mail
client (pine in your case) reads that mailbox and optionally moves the
messages to the user's mailbox (if the user's mailbox is somewhere
else, as in the case above where I want it to be inside the user's home
directory). The IMAP server may also move messages between mailboxes
(not automatically but using the operations available on the client).

If you notice the difference between the SMTP mailbox and the one that
may be used by the IMAP server: the first one is named after the user,
and it could be the only one used, but the IMAP server, probably under
a mail client request, creates the main mailbox which is not always
named INBOX as I showed above, sometimes is mbox, sometimes is the
original (i.e. is not moved to the user's directory, only the other
mailboxes are created there). I haven't looked into why different
names are used, as I said it probably is a mail client request, but
I've seen that it is different under Windows/Thunderbird,
Solaris/Outlook, Solaris/GNUMail which are the ones I've used.

> Any appreciated, hints, documentation,

All the documentation is on the UW site, and also comes with the
sources, some of it (the part not recommended) is in the c-client
library.
--
René Berber

andreas a@t mrs d.t ch wrote:
> I'd like to install an IMAP server to access my local stored mailbox
> files.
>
> I don't need a new system/software/thing to get the mail from my mail
> provider. I'm happy with the current installation.
>
> I have different Mail accounts, all mails/accounts in different
> directories. I have pine running to access these directories, this works
> fine!
>
> Now I don't want pine to access these files in the directories, I want
> pine to access a IMAP server and the IMAP server to make the read/write
> of the mailbox files.
>
>
> I have downloaded UW IMAP, but was not able to access/read any mail with
> pine. As I understand, one has to tell the IMAP server where to read the
> mailbox files. I read in the documentation that it's possible to change
> the functions (definitions) where to read the mailbox files. But there
> I'm lost.
>
> I tried some directories/files from my system and recompiled the server
> but still wasn't able to read any mail.
>
> Now I prefer to keep UW IMAP with it's default configuration and change
> my Mailbox installation (as I know the internals of my mail system but
> not the one from UW IMAP). But what is the 'standard' way to store mails
> so that UW IMAP will be able to read it?
>
> Is it possible to access different mail directories with mail from
> different mail accounts as it is with pine reading the files and
> directories directly?
>
> Any appreciated, hints, documentation,

UW-IMAP can work very well if your mailbox files are in the right place and (preferably)
you are prepared to use mbx format. But the recommended way to change the mailbox location
is to modify the source code and recompile - which isn't that difficult, but not
everyone's idea of an easy configuration system.

The normal mailbox locations are explained in the documentation files which come with the
UW-IMAP package.

Otherwise I'd suggest looking at Dovecot, which has a much more flexible configuration system.

John

--

John Allen
Bofferdange, Luxembourg
allen{at}vo{dot}lu
http://www.homepages.lu/allen

On 3 Jun 2006 12:42:08 -0700, René Berber <rberber@mailandnews.com> wrote:
> andreas wrote:
>
>
>> I'd like to install an IMAP server to access my local stored mailbox
>> files.
>
> And those files are in which format?

mbox I guess. Each file starts with the message "DON'T DELETE THIS MESSAGE
-- FOLDER INTERNAL DATA"

But I'm not sure, whether the file format is relevant for my server
setup. But then, I'm asking here, as I don't have a clue what is going
on with this setup stuff.


>> I don't need a new system/software/thing to get the mail from my mail
>> provider. I'm happy with the current installation.
>
> And the current installation is...?
>
> At least you should say if you are working in a Unix environment, a
> Windows environment or whatever.

I'm running Linux, and some own scripts to get all the mails from the
different mail accounts and store them in the correct mail boxes.


<snip>

>> I read in the documentation that it's possible to change the
>> functions (definitions) where to read the mailbox files. But there
>> I'm lost.

>
> Yes, I usually change it to use a mail directory inside each user's
> home dir. That makes it cleaner when the user has many mailboxes.
>
> There are two ways to do that change:
>
> - Modify a string in the code, or
> - Create a file, /etc/c-client.cf which contains 2 lines:
> I accept the risk
> set mail-subdirectory mail

Well, this conflicted with pine, if running on the same system as the
server.


> All this is documented in the source code package. What it does is
> that the user's mailboxes are now in $HOME/mail, as in:
>
> /home/sample-user/mail/INBOX
> /home/sample-user/mail/Sent
> /home/sample-user/mail/Trash

I tried this anyway but I run into some other problem.

I compiled UW-IMAP with some other default and creating /etc/c-client.cf
both with no result. Then I started nmap and found out, that imap didn't
have any port open at all (yes, I started imap as root to use the lower
ports)

Is there some --verbose option for imap? How does one find out what is
wrong, if something does not work?


>> I tried some directories/files from my system and recompiled the server
>> but still wasn't able to read any mail.
>>
>> Now I prefer to keep UW IMAP with it's default configuration and change
>> my Mailbox installation (as I know the internals of my mail system but
>> not the one from UW IMAP). But what is the 'standard' way to store mails
>> so that UW IMAP will be able to read it?
>
> Do you mean format or place?
>
> Formats handled by UW IMAP are mbox and other I don't remember.

Standard place. But you gave the answer above being /var/mail/<username>
or /var/spool/mail/<username>.


<snip useful information>


>> Any appreciated, hints, documentation,
>
> All the documentation is on the UW site, and also comes with the
> sources, some of it (the part not recommended) is in the c-client
> library.

Ok, I'll check the source in this case. I read some of the files in the
docs directory but they still left me with lots of questions.

At the moment, I'm with the question as of why can't I see any open port
of IMAP (with nmap). There is no log what might be wrong in my
/var/log/* files.


Thanks for your time and information!
Andreas

On Wed, 07 Jun 2006 20:06:02 +0200, John Allen <allen{at}vo{dot}lu> wrote:
> andreas a@t mrs d.t ch wrote:

<snip>

>> I have downloaded UW IMAP, but was not able to access/read any mail with
>> pine. As I understand, one has to tell the IMAP server where to read the
>> mailbox files. I read in the documentation that it's possible to change
>> the functions (definitions) where to read the mailbox files. But there
>> I'm lost.
>>
>> I tried some directories/files from my system and recompiled the server
>> but still wasn't able to read any mail.

<snip>

> UW-IMAP can work very well if your mailbox files are in the right
> place and (preferably) you are prepared to use mbx format. But the
> recommended way to change the mailbox location is to modify the source
> code and recompile - which isn't that difficult, but not everyone's
> idea of an easy configuration system.

You're right, it's not as easy as I thought it would be. But it looks
like it's my software that doesn't behave as expected (from a unix
standard configuration point of view). Compiling the software is no
problem for me, the difficult part will be to document the changes to
re-apply them for a system update. So I guess, that's why lots of
software can be configured with config files. They tend to survive
software updates.


> The normal mailbox locations are explained in the documentation files
> which come with the UW-IMAP package.

Well, if you know to look for /var/spool/mail/ you can find some entry
in the FAQ, but not as an answer to where the mailbox files are stored.
Anyway, is there some information on a mail setup under Linux (howto or
something else?)


> Otherwise I'd suggest looking at Dovecot, which has a much more
> flexible configuration system.

Thanks for your information. I'll look into Dovecot if I don't get
UW-IMAP running the next few days.


Thanks,
Andreas

andreas a@t mrs d.t ch wrote:
> Well, if you know to look for /var/spool/mail/ you can find some entry
> in the FAQ, but not as an answer to where the mailbox files are stored.
> Anyway, is there some information on a mail setup under Linux (howto or
> something else?)

Andreas,

I had a look at the files, and I think the information is sort of present in the CONFIG
file in the "docs" folder.

As I recall, in the unpatched state, on Linux, UW-IMAP assumes an INBOX in
/var/spool/mail, and other folders are by default in the users home directory, ie for
Linux something like /home/allenjo/ if allenjo is my username.

Following the instructions in CONFIG, I patched my system and compiled it to use mbx
format, with the INBOX and all other folders in /home/allenjo/Mail/. This worked fine for
several years, until I switched to maildir and Dovecot.

John


--

John Allen
Bofferdange, Luxembourg
allen{at}vo{dot}lu
http://www.homepages.lu/allen

On Fri, 09 Jun 2006 20:31:42 +0200, John Allen <allen{at}vo{dot}lu> wrote:
> andreas a@t mrs d.t ch wrote:

>> Well, if you know to look for /var/spool/mail/ you can find some entry
>> in the FAQ, but not as an answer to where the mailbox files are stored.
>> Anyway, is there some information on a mail setup under Linux (howto or
>> something else?)
>
> I had a look at the files, and I think the information is sort of
> present in the CONFIG file in the "docs" folder.

John, thanks. That's the file I looked first. It doesn't tell me where
the 'default' mailbox path is, but I think that wouldn't anyway. I
changed it according to the example, no success.

It might be due to some other problem. As mentioned in some other
message, nmap doesn't show any open IMAP port so I guess, pine is not
able to connect and read any message from the server.


> As I recall, in the unpatched state, on Linux, UW-IMAP assumes an
> INBOX in /var/spool/mail, and other folders are by default in the
> users home directory, ie for Linux something like /home/allenjo/ if
> allenjo is my username.
>
> Following the instructions in CONFIG, I patched my system and compiled
> it to use mbx format, with the INBOX and all other folders in
> /home/allenjo/Mail/. This worked fine for several years, until I
> switched to maildir and Dovecot.

I still don't know how to read multiple mailbox files from one account
but I guess first, I have to be able to read my INBOX.

Thanks for all the , I'll try again,
Andreas

On Fri, 10 Jun 2006, andreas wrote:
> John, thanks. That's the file I looked first. It doesn't tell me where
> the 'default' mailbox path is, but I think that wouldn't anyway. I
> changed it according to the example, no success.

The default mailbox path is your UNIX home directory. The default INBOX
path is the mail spool file (e.g., /var/mail/jones).

Make sure that works before making other changes.

> It might be due to some other problem. As mentioned in some other
> message, nmap doesn't show any open IMAP port so I guess, pine is not
> able to connect and read any message from the server.

imapd does not open any TCP ports. It runs under [x]inetd.

Please review the information in the BUILD file starting with "UNIX
INSTALLATION NOTES".

-- Mark --

http://staff.washington.edu/mrc
Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate.
Si vis pacem, para bellum.