Hello group,

I am pretty new to this topic. I am administrating the websites of an
institute at RWTH Aachen University and my collegues and me were
duscussing the installation of an IMAP server for mail management. We
have some problems with the current size of the mail accounts as some
users do not delete their mails on the server. Our plan is to use an
IMAP, which can perform the following tasks:

- user quotas for the whole email box
- a sub box, or subdirectory (contained in the main mail box), where
people can store important emails
- a quota for this sub box (a quota within a quota - is this possible?)
- read emails in the main mail box are regularly deleted by some cron
job, so that the quota will not be exceeded
- web access of the mail boxes.

I read some informations on some IMAP servers, but wasn't sure if they
can perform these tasks. I would be pleased, if you could me with
my problem in choosing the right server.

Thank you very much in advance,

sincerly yours,

Andreas Lintermann

Andi Lintermann wrote:

> I am pretty new to this topic. I am administrating the websites of an
> institute at RWTH Aachen University and my collegues and me were
> duscussing the installation of an IMAP server for mail management. We
> have some problems with the current size of the mail accounts as some
> users do not delete their mails on the server. Our plan is to use an
> IMAP, which can perform the following tasks:
>
> - user quotas for the whole email box
> - a sub box, or subdirectory (contained in the main mail box), where
> people can store important emails
> - a quota for this sub box (a quota within a quota - is this possible?)
> - read emails in the main mail box are regularly deleted by some cron
> job, so that the quota will not be exceeded
> - web access of the mail boxes.
>
> I read some informations on some IMAP servers, but wasn't sure if they
> can perform these tasks. I would be pleased, if you could me with
> my problem in choosing the right server.

The first three of the above can be done with Cyrus IMAP (is just part
of the settings and/or administration), the 4th we've done it with a
perl script (emptying trash mailboxes by age), and for the last one you
need another 3rd party tool (we used our own Web app which is just a
little part of a bigger project -- unrelated to mail).

HTH
--
René Berber

René Berber <rberber@mailandnews.com> wrote:
> The first three of the above can be done with Cyrus IMAP (is just part
> of the settings and/or administration), the 4th we've done it with a
> perl script (emptying trash mailboxes by age)

Mailboxes can be purged with ipurge[1], which is part of the current (and
older Cyrus IMAPd distribution.

[1]: http://cyrusimap.web.cmu.edu/imapd/man/ipurge.8.html

Regards,
Jochen

René Berber schrieb:
> Andi Lintermann wrote:
>

>> - web access of the mail boxes.
> and for the last one you
> need another 3rd party tool (we used our own Web app which is just a
> little part of a bigger project -- unrelated to mail).

squirrelmail seems to work well. I use it for cyrus imap. At least one
big IT-company is using it for web-access to imap mailboxes, so it
probably a safe bet.

Uwe

I agree with the other recommendations. Given the criteria that you set
out as your requirements, Cyrus imapd would be the most appropriate server
for you. It is an excellent, standards-compliant, server and will serve
you well.

With sufficient work, you could able to get other servers (including UW
imapd, which I wrote) to do what you want. But Cyrus would be a much
better fit for you, with *much* less additional work. Why hammer a square
peg into a round hole when a round peg is readily available?

Good luck!

-- Mark --

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

Andi Lintermann <Andreas.Lintermann@rwth-aachen.de> said:
>We have some problems with the current size of the mail accounts as some
>users do not delete their mails on the server.
....
>- user quotas for the whole email box
>- a sub box, or subdirectory (contained in the main mail box), where
>people can store important emails
>- a quota for this sub box (a quota within a quota - is this possible?)
>- read emails in the main mail box are regularly deleted by some cron
>job, so that the quota will not be exceeded

Are you certain you want to do this all? How about just setting the
overall per-user quota, and leave the rest to the users.

I've seen a scheme like the one you describe above, and it's an undue
burden for anyone keeping their mailbox nicely under quota, but still
wishing to keep messages of "unlimited age" in the inbox. That kind
of scheme prety much invites to create workarounds. A simple system,
like "your quota is xxx MB", is much easier for everyone.

Actually, MS Outlook/MS Exchange handle quota overruns in a rather
innovative way: if your inbox is over quota, you're not allowed to
send mail until you clean up. This might be the thing that is needed
to get people to clean up by themselves.
--
Wolf a.k.a. Juha Laiho Espoo, Finland
(GC 3.0) GIT d- s+: a C++ ULSH++++$ P++@ L+++ E- W+$@ N++ !K w !O !M V
PS(+) PE Y+ PGP(+) t- 5 !X R !tv b+ !DI D G e+ h---- r+++ y++++
"...cancel my subscription to the resurrection!" (Jim Morrison)