Hello,
we basically run a dovecot imap setup where users' mailboxes are in private namespaces (as usual), but there is a public namespace with several thousand deeply nested folders also.
The client we use is Thunderbird 3. The public namespace shows up in each user's account at the top level (i.e. same level as Inbox, Sent and so on), and users can make new subfolders in the public namespace, copy mails to it and so on. So, our setup basically works.
But whenever a user tries to delete a folder from the public namespace, dovecot gives the following error: "Renaming not supported across non-private namespaces".
I think I have a grasp why this happens (Thunderbird tries to move the folder from the public namespace into the trash folder (private namespace) of the user who does the deletion), and I also have read Timo's statement that he does not plan to support such renaming due to big problems he is seeing with it.
Nevertheless, since deleting a folder from a public archive is not a too uncommon thing, I wanted to ask how other people have solved that.
It came to my mind to configure Thunderbird to immediately delete folders and messages (instead of moving them to trash folder). I have tested that, and it worked, but is somehow dangerous and unsatisfying.
Furthermore, I haven't completely understood the reason for the different behaviour of folders in the public namespace and a single message therein.
If I configure Thunderbird to use the trash folder, users can delete messages from the public namespace, i.e. Thunderbird can move messages from the public namespace to the private trash folder of the respective account.
This is obviously not true for folders (even if they are empty). What's the difference between an empty folder and a single message in this respect? Is it really the ACL thing which makes folders so difficult to handle opposed to single messages?
Thank you very much for any ideas!
Regards,
Peter
dovecot -n:
# 2.0.12 (fa2e92526716): /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf # OS: Linux 2.6.32-5-amd64 x86_64 Debian 6.0.1 auth_verbose = yes auth_verbose_passwords = sha1 first_valid_uid = 103 maildir_copy_with_hardlinks = no namespace { hidden = no inbox = yes list = yes location = maildir:/home/vmail/content/users/%u:INDEX=/home/vmail/index/users/%u prefix = separator = / subscriptions = yes type = private } namespace { hidden = no inbox = no list = yes location = maildir:/home/vmail/content/archive:INDEX=/home/vmail/index/archive prefix = Archive/ separator = / subscriptions = yes type = public } passdb { args = scheme=SSHA username_format=%u /etc/dovecot/users driver = passwd-file } plugin { acl = vfile } protocols = " imap" service auth { user = root } service imap-login { inet_listener imap { port = 0 } inet_listener imaps { address = 192.168.20.140 port = 993 ssl = yes } } ssl_cert = </etc/dovecot/imap-ssl.home.omeganet.de.crt ssl_key = </etc/dovecot/imap-ssl.home.omeganet.de.key userdb { args = uid=vmail gid=vmail home=/home/vmail/content/users/%u driver = static } protocol imap { mail_plugins = acl imap_acl }