[Dovecot] namespaces, shared mailboxes

[Alexander 'Leo' Bergolth]

On 12/02/2007 08:59 PM, Benjamin R. Haskell wrote:
> On Sun, 2 Dec 2007, Timo Sirainen wrote:
>> On Sat, 2007-12-01 at 23:59 +0100, Alexander 'Leo' Bergolth wrote:
>>> I'd like to provide shared mailboxes with maildir that should appear
>>> like 'Shared/<mailboxname>' to the clients.
>>>
>>> Using the namespace configuration below, everything works fine, exept
>>> one thing: Mail clients (only tested with Thunderbird) won't allow to
>>> put mails directly in 'Shared/mailboxname' (the folder it is greyed
>>> out). You currently have to create subfolders and put the mails in those
>>> subfolders.
>> ..
>>> namespace shared {
>>>   separator = /
>>>   # hidden = yes
>>>   prefix = Shared/spamrep/
>>>   location =
>>> maildir:/var/spool/mail/Shared/spamrep:CONTROL=~/Maildir/control/Shared/spamrep:INDEX=~/Mail\
>>>
>>> dir/index/Shared/spamrep
>>
>> I find it strange that this kind of configuration even appears to
>> work. :) If you somehow manage to get it working with v1.0, there's a
>> good chance that it won't work anymore with v1.1.
>>
>> So if you want to access "Shared/spamrep" as a mailbox, the prefix must
>> be Shared/.
>>
>> If you wanted users to have different views of what the mailboxes look
>> like, you could just change the location to be different for different
>> users. Create symlinks to the visible global mailboxes to those
>> locations.
> 
> Having multiple namespaces setup that way seems reasonable to me.
> 
> e.g.
> /var/spool/mail/Shared/tech/...
> /var/spool/mail/Shared/financial/...
> 
> where 'Shared/tech' would be visible to many, but 'Shared/financial'
> would be visible only to execs/accountants. And both would show up under
> a common 'Shared/' prefix to keep them distinct from user folders.

Yes, that's exactly my intention. There should be shared mailboxes for
departments or other groups of people. People having access to those
folders should be able to create subfolders but they should not be able
to add new folders directly under "Shared".

> It sounds like he just wants to be able to SELECT the root of a namespace.

I'd like to be able to deliver e.g. new mail to the technical support
directly to "Shared/tech/" but if that's not possible, it isn't a big
problem, I'll just use "Shared/tech/INCOMING".

Cheers,
--leo
-- 
e-mail   ::: Alexander.Bergolth (at) wu-wien.ac.at
fax      ::: +43-1-31336-906050
location ::: Computer Center | Vienna University of Economics | Austria