[Dovecot] Dovecot setup fails w. multiple mail locations (gnus/dovecot/offlineimap)

Johnny yggdrasil at gmx.co.uk
Sun Jun 10 01:09:57 EEST 2012


Hi,

I am trying to setup a Gnus - Dovecot - Offlineimap - Webmail (Gmail /
Fastmail) chain and cannot configure the correct behaviour. 

Any advice to get this working properly would be very appreciated!

I have set up Offlineimap to synchronise two mail accounts into separate
folders under ~/Maildir. After running Offlineimap, the folders look as
below. 

Maildir/
|-- Gmail
|   |-- cur
|   |-- dovecot.index.log
|   |-- dovecot-uidlist
|   |-- dovecot-uidvalidity
|   |-- dovecot-uidvalidity.4fd3b80e
|   |-- [Gmail].All\ Mail
|   |-- [Gmail].Drafts
|   |-- [Gmail].Important
|   |-- [Gmail].Sent\ Mail
|   |-- [Gmail].Spam
|   |-- [Gmail].Starred
|   |-- [Gmail].Trash
|   |-- INBOX
|   |-- new
|   |-- Personal
|   |-- Receipts
|   |-- tmp
|   |-- Travel
|   `-- Work
`-- Fastmail
    |-- cur
    |-- dovecot.index.log
    |-- dovecot.mailbox.log
    |-- dovecot-uidlist
    |-- dovecot-uidvalidity
    |-- dovecot-uidvalidity.4fd3b75e
    |-- INBOX
    |-- INBOX.Drafts
    |-- INBOX.Sent\ Items
    `-- INBOX.Trash

The Dovecot config is below. (I have set up a blank "MailTest" directory
as inbox, believing that this may preserve the two imap directories
better for offlineimap synching (not sure if this is correct)).

,----
| mail_location = maildir:~/Maildir:LAYOUT=fs
| 
| namespace inbox   {
|   location = maildir:~/MailTest
|   inbox = yes
| }
| 
| namespace mygmail   {
|   type = private
|   separator = .
|   prefix = "mygmail."
|   location = maildir:%h/Maildir/Gmail/:LAYOUT=fs
|   inbox = no
|   hidden = no
|   list = yes
|   subscriptions = yes
| }
| 
| namespace myfastmail   {
|   type = private
|   separator = .
|   prefix = "myfastmail."
|   location = maildir:%h/Maildir/FASTMAIL/:LAYOUT=fs
|   inbox = no
|   hidden = no
|   list = yes
|   subscriptions = yes
| }
`----

Accessing dovecot through gnus with this setup only sees the files in
the directories that are not prefixed (e.g. under Fastmail, INBOX is the only
seen folder, all INBOX.subfolder are not there). Removing the prefix
manually they can be seen again however (e.g. INBOX.subfolder ->
subfolder). If I remove LAYOUT=fs in the dovecot config, nothing is
seen at all, although the directories look like proper Maildirs! 

A second issue is that running Offlineimap a second time seems to work
ok for gmail, but Fastmail complains that "cannot create directory
'.'"? 

Thanks!
-- 
Johnny
Dovecot 2.1.6
Offlineimap 6.5.2.1
Ma Gnus v0.6


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