Does Dovecot allow different clients to subscribe different subsets of IMAP folders?
I have a working Dovecot IMAP server (v. 2.2.9) where I have a single user but a lot of folders (over 800 in total, hierarchically arranged, about 50 of which are in active use.)
I have multiple clients (including k9Mail on Android and Thunderbird on Linux and Windows). These clients all present a consistent subscription to a single subset of the available folders .
What I'd like to be able to do is (somehow) allow different devices (different email clients) to subscribe to a different subset of folders. For example, I may want K9mail on my phone to be subscribed only to my "main Inbox" - but for Thunderbird on Windows to also be subscribed to active mailing-list folders.
Does Dovecot support such a mode of operation? If so, how do I configure it? If not, what options are there to achieve the desired end result - i.e. different devices/IMAP clients subscribed to different subsets of the universe of folders available to a single user.
Mandatory details: Version : 2.2.9 Configuration: See http://paste.ubuntu.com/11564807/
Hi Steve,
I don't know if dovecot can use different 'subscriptions' but you can create different accounts and then link (ln -s) the relevant folders in each respective maildir.
Cheers, B
On Thu, Jun 04, 2015 at 01:40:57PM +0100, Steve wrote:
I have a working Dovecot IMAP server (v. 2.2.9) where I have a single user but a lot of folders (over 800 in total, hierarchically arranged, about 50 of which are in active use.)
I have multiple clients (including k9Mail on Android and Thunderbird on Linux and Windows). These clients all present a consistent subscription to a single subset of the available folders .
What I'd like to be able to do is (somehow) allow different devices (different email clients) to subscribe to a different subset of folders. For example, I may want K9mail on my phone to be subscribed only to my "main Inbox" - but for Thunderbird on Windows to also be subscribed to active mailing-list folders.
Does Dovecot support such a mode of operation? If so, how do I configure it? If not, what options are there to achieve the desired end result - i.e. different devices/IMAP clients subscribed to different subsets of the universe of folders available to a single user.
Mandatory details: Version : 2.2.9 Configuration: See http://paste.ubuntu.com/11564807/
Hi Steve,
I don't think the IMAP protocol has the concept of a "user agent". So there is no way for an IMAP server to distinguish between client programs.
You could use POP and poll different mailboxes - but your clients probably don't support that. So you'll have to use different users.
But that give you a cool solution: Use shared mailboxes.
You could share all mailboxes of you main user to all the "device-users" and then use the clients to subscribe only to those mailboxes that are of interest.
That way you can change what a client sees using the client program, without logging into the server as root. Especially nice, when you are traveling and decide you need to read a mailbox with your mobile you hadn't though about before.
Greetings Daniel
Am 04.06.2015 um 14:40 schrieb Steve:
I have a working Dovecot IMAP server (v. 2.2.9) where I have a single user but a lot of folders (over 800 in total, hierarchically arranged, about 50 of which are in active use.)
I have multiple clients (including k9Mail on Android and Thunderbird on Linux and Windows). These clients all present a consistent subscription to a single subset of the available folders .
What I'd like to be able to do is (somehow) allow different devices (different email clients) to subscribe to a different subset of folders. For example, I may want K9mail on my phone to be subscribed only to my "main Inbox" - but for Thunderbird on Windows to also be subscribed to active mailing-list folders.
Does Dovecot support such a mode of operation? If so, how do I configure it? If not, what options are there to achieve the desired end result - i.e. different devices/IMAP clients subscribed to different subsets of the universe of folders available to a single user.
Mandatory details: Version : 2.2.9 Configuration: See http://paste.ubuntu.com/11564807/
Hi Daniel,
Hmm - I'm happy to use different 'user names' to log into Dovecot... as long as each of these logins can still subscribe to the same universe of folders I have available at present. I can envision using steve_mobile and steve_desktop as logins, as long as these still provide access to the same mailboxes as I have in steve's Maildir folder.
I'm guessing that this would mean I can't/shouldn't use PAM for Dovecot authentication? I don't really want to create 'dummy' (shell-account) "users" on my server... but, I guess, it would be OK if I were to use some other authentication mechanism, and pointed all these Dovecot-only logins to the same Maildir folder.
By any chance, is there a 'howto' detailing a suitable sample configuration for such a setup?
BTW - I would definitely want to be able to change subscriptions from any device... I just want independent subscriptions for my tablet/phone/desktop/VM clients - as I use email in different ways from these different environments.
On 04/06/2015 15:24, Daniel Tröder wrote:
Hi Steve,
I don't think the IMAP protocol has the concept of a "user agent". So there is no way for an IMAP server to distinguish between client programs.
You could use POP and poll different mailboxes - but your clients probably don't support that. So you'll have to use different users.
But that give you a cool solution: Use shared mailboxes.
You could share all mailboxes of you main user to all the "device-users" and then use the clients to subscribe only to those mailboxes that are of interest.
That way you can change what a client sees using the client program, without logging into the server as root. Especially nice, when you are traveling and decide you need to read a mailbox with your mobile you hadn't though about before.
Greetings Daniel
Hi Steve,
for some reason I didn't get you message though the mailing list (my ml settings?), but only directly. For the sake of completeness I'm replying here - I hope that's OK.
Shared mailboxes are really easy to implement. Just enable the namespace (type = shared) in /etc/dovecot/conf.d/10-mail.conf
http://wiki2.dovecot.org/Namespaces http://wiki2.dovecot.org/SharedMailboxes/Shared
You may want to share index files, so you'll have the same [un]read flags on all devices. Simply do _not_ configure INDEXPVT, or configure it to a common directory.
If you wish to share keywords so you'll have the same "important"/"red"/"star" flags on all accounts, do _not_ configure pre-user CONTROL, or configure it to a common directory.
I think this should work:
namespace { type = shared separator = / prefix = shared/%%u/ location = maildir:%%h/Maildir subscriptions = no list = children }
You'll have to configure ACLs too.
/etc/dovecot/conf.d/90-acl.conf plugin { acl_shared_dict = file:/var/lib/dovecot/shared-mailboxes } plugin {
Without global ACLs:
acl = vfile }
10-mail.conf: mail_plugins = $mail_plugins acl quota 20-imap.conf: mail_plugins = $mail_plugins imap_acl imap_quota
Then you can get/set ACLs with:
doveadm acl get -u mobile@mail.com shared/main@mail.com <--- INBOX doveadm acl set -A shared/main@mail.com mobile@mail.com lookup read ... doveadm acl get -u mobile@mail.com shared/main@mail.com
doveadm acl set -A shared/main@mail.com mobile@mail.com/Spam lookup read ...
You'll have to find a way to do this for all your mailboxes in some shell script or with python or whatever.
Good luck Daniel
Am 04.06.2015 um 16:43 schrieb Steve:
Hi Daniel,
Hmm - I'm happy to use different 'user names' to log into Dovecot... as long as each of these logins can still subscribe to the same universe of folders I have available at present. I can envision using steve_mobile and steve_desktop as logins, as long as these still provide access to the same mailboxes as I have in steve's Maildir folder.
I'm guessing that this would mean I can't/shouldn't use PAM for Dovecot authentication? I don't really want to create 'dummy' (shell-account) "users" on my server... but, I guess, it would be OK if I were to use some other authentication mechanism, and pointed all these Dovecot-only logins to the same Maildir folder.
By any chance, is there a 'howto' detailing a suitable sample configuration for such a setup?
BTW - I would definitely want to be able to change subscriptions from any device... I just want independent subscriptions for my tablet/phone/desktop/VM clients - as I use email in different ways from these different environments.
On 04/06/2015 15:24, Daniel Tröder wrote:
Hi Steve,
I don't think the IMAP protocol has the concept of a "user agent". So there is no way for an IMAP server to distinguish between client programs.
You could use POP and poll different mailboxes - but your clients probably don't support that. So you'll have to use different users.
But that give you a cool solution: Use shared mailboxes.
You could share all mailboxes of you main user to all the "device-users" and then use the clients to subscribe only to those mailboxes that are of interest.
That way you can change what a client sees using the client program, without logging into the server as root. Especially nice, when you are traveling and decide you need to read a mailbox with your mobile you hadn't though about before.
Greetings Daniel
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participants (3)
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b-dovecot.org＠grmbl.net
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Daniel Tröder
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Steve