[Dovecot] IMAP IDLE - iPhone?

[Michael Stilkerich]

Hi,

On 10-Aug-12 4:48, Timo Sirainen wrote:
> Related question that came to my mind: Does anyone know if XAPPLEPUSHSERVICE feature can be implemented by any server, or does it require cooperation between the server and the mobile network operator? I'm guessing the latter..

  the Apple push service for Mail.app uses the same push notification 
service as all other
push notifications for iOS (APNS, Apple Push Notification Service). The 
Device retains a
persistent connection to Apple's APNS Gateway.

To transmit a push notification via APNS, the sender needs a certificate 
issued by Apple
for the receiving application (Mail.app in this case). One can get such 
a certificate by
purchasing Lion Server, which includes such a certificate (I presume 
Mountain Lion
Server does as well).

The Lion Server uses dovecot, and Apple's patch for the 
XAPPLEPUSHSERVICE extension
is available on 
http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/dovecot/dovecot-239/dovecot/src/plugins/push-notify/

It basically works as following:

1) Dovecot advertises the XAPPLEPUSHSERVICE Capability
2) When the device logs in to the IMAP server and sees that it supports 
this capability, it registers with the server for push notifications and 
provides its device id and the id of the corresponding mail account on 
the device. These two ids are required to route a push notification to 
the device.
3) The server records all registered devices for an account. Upon an 
incoming mail for the account, it transmits a push notification.
4) The device does not directly unregister; this is done using the 
feedback mechanism of APNS, which tells a service provider that a device 
does not wish to receive push notifications any longer.

The actual transmission of the push notifications to the APNS server is 
not part of the dovecot patch
but a separate program. One can use the Net::APNS perl module (found on 
cpan) to fairly easily
replicate that program. Apple's original is also available:

http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/dovecot/dovecot-239/dovecot.push-notify/daemon

-Mike

P.S.: I'm not sure if one is allowed to do this, though.

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