[Dovecot] Dovecot and kmail IMAP resources

[Bill Cole]

At 4:54 PM +0000 3/23/08, Anne Wilson wrote:
>On Sunday 23 March 2008 15:24, Bill Cole wrote:
>>  It is safe to assume that there are no clairvoyant's on this list, so
>>  you probably need to provide a bit more specific information about
>>  your difficulties to get useful suggestions.  Unstated details that
>>  are relevant to narrowing down the problem include:
>>
>>  1. What OS are you running?
>
>On the server, CentOS 5.1.
>
>>  2. How exactly does KMail fail to work, i.e. is it just doing nothing
>>  or is it  providing some sort of expression of Not Working?
>
>Dovecot serves my mail without a problem.  I am trying to get 'IMAP Resources'
>in KMail working - that is, my Calendar and Addressbook also served up.

That's illuminating.

The use of that phrase with that meaning is unique to KMail. There's 
no standard for implementing a calendar or address book on an IMAP 
server, so whatever KMail needs from an IMAP server in order to do 
whatever it is doing to present IMAP as a basis for those functions 
has to be specified by KMail. I suspect that KMail needs something 
more than a standard IMAP server, but maybe not. If KMail claims the 
ability to implement calender and address book functionality with any 
standard IMAP server, you have to look to KMail for an explanation of 
how they do it.


>I have tried several methods as suggested by various people on the kdepim
>list, with various types of failure.  The end result in all the efforts is
>that groupware folders are created, but it is not possible to import my
>calendar, for instance.  I'm told that there is no writable folder so the
>import can not be saved.  I've tried making them world-writable, to see
>whether it was a permissions problem, but it appears not.
>
>At one point I did manage an import, but I could find no way of seeing the
>result from a client box.
>
>>  3. What did dovecot write to its logs when KMail failed to work?
>>
>Absolutely nothing.  It didn't appear to notice.

That implies that KMail is not even contacting Dovecot as part of its 
failure. If that is the case, then this *CANNOT* be a Dovecot 
problem. Given the config you posted, if KMail is contacting Dovecot 
there would be *SOMETHING* logged.

FWIW, I don't use KMail, but every contact I've had as a mail admin 
with people trying to do so has persuaded me that it is not yet ready 
for serious use. On this list you are about the third person in the 
past year to seek help here with some KMail-specific problem that 
doesn't seem possible unless KMail itself is fundamentally broken, 
and implies that the software is horrendously documented.

>I have been working on this for several days, taking advice from anywhere I
>can.  Timo tells me that he doesn't think it's a dovecot problem, since my
>mail is working properly, so I guess I will just have to go back to the
>kdepim list.

I suspect that the people there are more likely to have insight on 
what KMail is looking for from an IMAP server.

-- 
Bill Cole
bill at scconsult.com