Snarf plugin retirement
I wondered if it's possible to get the Snarf plugin back, if not in the official Dovecot distribution, then at least to somehow build the plugin source on a modern release...because:
Though the documented purpose for Snarf was to ease migration off of UW-IMAP, that's not the only thing it was useful for. Unfortunately, every mailreader that I've seen that can run within Emacs -- and I've tried Gnus, VM, and RMAIL -- all _require_ the use of a ~/mbox file when pulling from a local mail spool on the same machine. (This does not affect IMAP usage of those mailreaders, only local file access.)
Non-Emacs mailreaders like Alpine and Mutt have sufficiently robust file-locking safety that they can work on the local mail spool in /var/spool/mail or /var/mail or what have you directly without copying your mail somewhere else first, so for Alpine and Mutt, use of ~/mbox is possible but not necessary. But it seems that for every mailreader that does run within Emacs, if the mail source is local rather than IMAP, there is no other way to operate the program than to have it copy your mail from the spool to ~/mbox. On a system where there are users who sometimes work that way, doing local mail access in Emacs, and other times use IMAP via Dovecot, you have a mess without the Snarf plugin.
I realize this is a peculiar situation, so I don't expect Snarf to necessarily be put back into Dovecot. I was wondering how it might be possible to build it today though...for any out there who may use Emacs for mail most of the time...but occasionally also want Dovecot IMAP on the same machine where they're normally using an ~/mbox file for Emacs' sake. UW-IMAP may be dead...but long live GNU Emacs!
--
- Brent A. Busby + "We've all heard that a million monkeys
- Sr. UNIX Systems Admin + banging on a million typewriters will
- University of Chicago + eventually reproduce the entire works of
- James Franck Institute + Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet,
- Materials Research Ctr + we know this is not true." -Robert Wilensky
On 17/08/2021 16:14 Brent Busby <brent@jfi.uchicago.edu> wrote:
I wondered if it's possible to get the Snarf plugin back, if not in the official Dovecot distribution, then at least to somehow build the plugin source on a modern release...because:
Though the documented purpose for Snarf was to ease migration off of UW-IMAP, that's not the only thing it was useful for. Unfortunately, every mailreader that I've seen that can run within Emacs -- and I've tried Gnus, VM, and RMAIL -- all _require_ the use of a ~/mbox file when pulling from a local mail spool on the same machine. (This does not affect IMAP usage of those mailreaders, only local file access.)
Non-Emacs mailreaders like Alpine and Mutt have sufficiently robust file-locking safety that they can work on the local mail spool in /var/spool/mail or /var/mail or what have you directly without copying your mail somewhere else first, so for Alpine and Mutt, use of ~/mbox is possible but not necessary. But it seems that for every mailreader that does run within Emacs, if the mail source is local rather than IMAP, there is no other way to operate the program than to have it copy your mail from the spool to ~/mbox. On a system where there are users who sometimes work that way, doing local mail access in Emacs, and other times use IMAP via Dovecot, you have a mess without the Snarf plugin.
I realize this is a peculiar situation, so I don't expect Snarf to necessarily be put back into Dovecot. I was wondering how it might be possible to build it today though...for any out there who may use Emacs for mail most of the time...but occasionally also want Dovecot IMAP on the same machine where they're normally using an ~/mbox file for Emacs' sake. UW-IMAP may be dead...but long live GNU Emacs!
--
- Brent A. Busby + "We've all heard that a million monkeys
Hi!
Simplish way to do this...
git revert a02076a2c09a81989aab5f35bda621be86649ea2
and then build dovecot.
You can also extract it as patch
git show -R a02076a2c09a81989aab5f35bda621be86649ea2 > snarf-plugin.patch
Aki
"Brent" == Brent Busby <brent@jfi.uchicago.edu> writes:
Brent> I wondered if it's possible to get the Snarf plugin back, if not in the Brent> official Dovecot distribution, then at least to somehow build the plugin Brent> source on a modern release...because:
Brent> Though the documented purpose for Snarf was to ease migration Brent> off of UW-IMAP, that's not the only thing it was useful for. Brent> Unfortunately, every mailreader that I've seen that can run Brent> within Emacs -- and I've tried Gnus, VM, and RMAIL -- all Brent> _require_ the use of a ~/mbox file when pulling from a local Brent> mail spool on the same machine. (This does not affect IMAP Brent> usage of those mailreaders, only local file access.)
I'm confused... since I'm using VM to read and write these emails, I'm trying to understand your issue. Basically, when I moved to IMAP for my personal domain, I made the concious choice to only allow IMAP access, since I wanted proper locking from both Phones, mutt, and other IMAP clients. So I had to stop using local email spools to get email.
So if you're offering IMAP access to mail, just turn off the local mail spool completely.
Brent> Non-Emacs mailreaders like Alpine and Mutt have sufficiently Brent> robust file-locking safety that they can work on the local mail Brent> spool in /var/spool/mail or /var/mail or what have you directly Brent> without copying your mail somewhere else first, so for Alpine Brent> and Mutt, use of ~/mbox is possible but not necessary. But it Brent> seems that for every mailreader that does run within Emacs, if Brent> the mail source is local rather than IMAP, there is no other Brent> way to operate the program than to have it copy your mail from Brent> the spool to ~/mbox. On a system where there are users who Brent> sometimes work that way, doing local mail access in Emacs, and Brent> other times use IMAP via Dovecot, you have a mess without the Brent> Snarf plugin.
You have a mess period. Don't do this. It's a really bad idea and trying to make it work is just too painful. Now I *do* use a mix of IMAP and local mbox format folders, where once I save it locally via mbox, I can't acces those folders using my IMAP only clients. But that's an accepted and known limitation.
Brent> I realize this is a peculiar situation, so I don't expect Snarf Brent> to necessarily be put back into Dovecot. I was wondering how Brent> it might be possible to build it today though...for any out Brent> there who may use Emacs for mail most of the time...but Brent> occasionally also want Dovecot IMAP on the same machine where Brent> they're normally using an ~/mbox file for Emacs' sake. UW-IMAP Brent> may be dead...but long live GNU Emacs!
Just don't use VM without IMAP as your main mailbox any more. And also accept that once you get over a thousand or so emails, or lots of large emails, then VM inside emacs really starts to suck.
I'd move to Mutt, but I haven't spent the time to re-create the VM keybindings in mutt yet, which is what's holding me back.
And if you have users who want both types of access, just tell them no. It's *not* worth the hassle, and things *will* break.
John
participants (3)
-
Aki Tuomi
-
Brent Busby
-
John Stoffel