[Dovecot] New mailbox API (was: New mailbox format)

[Dan Hollis]

On Sat, 24 Sep 2005, Timo Sirainen wrote:
> On 24.9.2005, at 01:18, Kenneth Porter wrote:
>> --On Friday, September 23, 2005 2:29 PM -0700 Dan Hollis <test3943395 at anime.net> wrote:
>>> Actually an idea i've had in mind for a while is something more akin to
>>> PAM, eg an end user definable plugin system for mailbox handling. dovecot
>>> etc would just use API calls to plugins. People can write whatever
>>> backend they want -- maildir, sql, even gdbm, csv, xml or WEBDAV if they
>>> feel like it. And anything could use the modules -- sendmail, postfix,
>>> procmail, etc.
>> Agreed. Defining an API would be more useful than defining a format. Then 
>> one could plug in delivery and access modules with different storage 
>> modules.
> The API already exists, that's how mbox and maildir code is implemented 
> separately (src/lib-storage/mail-storage.h). It could be simpler though and 
> mailbox listing should be separated from mailbox accessing.
> That's also how I was planning on implementing ACLs, as a plugin that's 
> called before the real storage. That's also how quota plugin already works.

I was suggesting implementing it in a global system-wide generic way, the 
way PAM is done. So it would become a project in and of itself, 
independent of dovecot. PAM is independent of anything else, but is used 
by dovecot, apache, radius, samba and a zillion other applications. It 
would be nice if a generic mailbox plugin system could be created in the same way.

PMM - pluggable mail modules?  /etc/pmm.d/ and /lib/mail/ anyone? :)

-Dan