[Dovecot] IMAP subscriptions - how, for what and why?
Again, not a Dovecot issua - but can someone clarify better what IMAP subscriptions (SUBSCRIBE/UNSUBSCRIBE/LSUB) are and what they are used for?
I've seen a few times in Microsoft mail clients, the options to subscribe to folders and to "show only subscribed folders". I haven't played much with them, though. But what's the actual point? Except for being returned in the list of LSUB, what else changes when doing a SUBSCRIBE to a mailbox?
Are subscriptions supposed to be remembered by the server outside of the context of a session (so a client that connects to the server at some point and authenticates will already see in LSUB what a possibly other client has subscribed to in a previous session)?
Clarifications appreciated, regards, -- Tom
-- Tom Alsberg - hacker (being the best description fitting this space) Web page: http://www.cs.huji.ac.il/~alsbergt/ DISCLAIMER: The above message does not even necessarily represent what my fingers have typed on the keyboard, save anything further.
On Tue, 2006-01-10 at 13:03 +0200, Tom Alsberg wrote:
Again, not a Dovecot issua - but can someone clarify better what IMAP subscriptions (SUBSCRIBE/UNSUBSCRIBE/LSUB) are and what they are used for?
Pretty much the only point of subscriptions is that you don't have to look at all the mailboxes that server has to offer. This is especially useful if you have tens or hundreds of shared/public mailboxes (eg. mailing lists or some news gateway or whatever).
Timo Sirainen wrote:
On Tue, 2006-01-10 at 13:03 +0200, Tom Alsberg wrote:
Again, not a Dovecot issua - but can someone clarify better what IMAP subscriptions (SUBSCRIBE/UNSUBSCRIBE/LSUB) are and what they are used for?
Pretty much the only point of subscriptions is that you don't have to look at all the mailboxes that server has to offer. This is especially useful if you have tens or hundreds of shared/public mailboxes (eg. mailing lists or some news gateway or whatever).
Another advantage of the 1.0 version release is that some distributions might include your 0.9x version instead of the alpha because of the alpha name. A 1.0 version will keep people from installing the older and obsolete versions. And that is important I would think.
-- Marc Perkel - marc@perkel.com
Spam Filter: http://www.junkemailfilter.com My Blog: http://marc.perkel.com
On Tue, Jan 10, 2006 at 04:19:34AM -0800, Marc Perkel may have written:
Timo Sirainen wrote:
On Tue, 2006-01-10 at 13:03 +0200, Tom Alsberg wrote:
Again, not a Dovecot issua - but can someone clarify better what IMAP subscriptions (SUBSCRIBE/UNSUBSCRIBE/LSUB) are and what they are used for?
Pretty much the only point of subscriptions is that you don't have to look at all the mailboxes that server has to offer. This is especially useful if you have tens or hundreds of shared/public mailboxes (eg. mailing lists or some news gateway or whatever).
Another advantage of the 1.0 version release is that some distributions might include your 0.9x version instead of the alpha because of the alpha name. A 1.0 version will keep people from installing the older and obsolete versions. And that is important I would think.
What in the world does that have to do with this thread?
-- Brian T Glenn delink.net Internet Services
On Tue, 10 Jan 2006, Tom Alsberg wrote:
Again, not a Dovecot issua - but can someone clarify better what IMAP subscriptions (SUBSCRIBE/UNSUBSCRIBE/LSUB) are and what they are used for?
I've seen a few times in Microsoft mail clients, the options to subscribe to folders and to "show only subscribed folders". I haven't played much with them, though. But what's the actual point? Except
The "reference IMAP" server UW-imap (http://www.courier-mta.org/fud/ ;) will by default serve an user's home directory awhole. So you have three options to NOT browse all your files on the server:
use a dedicated mail server, where only your mails are storred. -> No use of "subscribe".
Use a "mail directory prefix" configured in each mail client, which is transparently added/removed during the client/server communication. Then you see files (aka mailboxes) in this hierarchie only, but any of them. -> No use of "subscribe".
If you enable "show only subscribed folders", then the subscription list is retrieved by the client and only these folders are displayed. If you like to view other folders as well, you have to subscribe to them. Actually, you can access any file (mailbox), but they are simply not shown,
Bye,
-- Steffen Kaiser
participants (5)
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Brian T Glenn
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Marc Perkel
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Steffen Kaiser
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Timo Sirainen
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Tom Alsberg