[Dovecot] Testing IMAP clients with Dovecot, problems with MacMail

[Adam Jacob Muller]

On May 3, 2007, at 8:10 PM, Rick Romero wrote:

>
> On May 3, 2007, at 6:08 PM, Bill Cole wrote:
>
>> At 4:13 PM -0400 5/3/07, Stewart Dean wrote:
>>> I've been testing my user community's IMAP clients when I try to  
>>> login and then transfer a big message from the inbox into a  
>>> folder in an overquota folder directory.  I am using native  
>>> filesystem quotaing in AIXV5.3 with UWIMAP and comparing my  
>>> results with what I see with Dovecot 1.0.0. (My Dovecot built  
>>> without any plugins or quota extensions)
>>>
>>> Everything matches/works except for Mac Mail under SSL with  
>>> Dovecot..
>>>
>>> Mac Mail:
>>> 1) with UWIMAP, login and mailbox load goes OK, then the illegal  
>>> overquota xfer fails (as it should) with a popup reading 'Message  
>>> could not be moved', with (port 993) and without (port 143) SSL
>>> 2) with Dovecot,
>>> 1) login and mailbox load goes OK to port 10143, plain listen,  
>>> and the illegal xfer correctly fails as it should with a popup  
>>> messge under a plain connection, but
>>> 2) When the port number is set to the Dovecot ssl_listen port and  
>>> the SSL box is checked, Mac Mail doesn't bring up the inbox and  
>>> folders...it acts like it can't connect.
>>> Has anyone else seen this behavior, and is there a fix?  Mac Mail  
>>> is also known as Mail.app.  I am testing it at 1.3.11 and 2.1.1.   
>>> In the July '05 archive, I found this:
>>>> It looks like Mail.app treats "non-standard" ports differently.   
>>>> On the
>>>> standard port (993), the "SSL" option seems to do pure SSL; but  
>>>> with another
>>>> port specified, it does clean-plus-starttls (and hence fails  
>>>> horribly, because
>>>> it's talking to a pure SSl service)
>>> Is there anything I can do to get MacMail to behave correctly?   
>>> Or will it clear up when I shut down UWIMAP and give Dovecot the  
>>> default ports.  A Bronx cheer for Mac Mail........
>>
>> I don't think there's any way to get Mail to talk  "imaps" on any  
>> port other than 993. I also can't see any compelling reason to to  
>> do that, since it looks like all of the clients you tested should  
>> be able to use STARTTLS anyway, so having a second port for direct  
>> SSL is not useful.
>>
>> What am I missing?
>
> Evolution doesn't have a 'port' field, but if you specify host.com: 
> 587, it'll use port 587.
> Maybe Mail.App is the same.
>
> I know using aliases in Mail.App wasn't very obvious..
>
> Rick
>
>>
>> -- 
>> Bill Cole                                  bill at scconsult.com
>>
>

Mail.app on the advanced tab has a "Port" setting and a "Use SSL"  
setting. the SSL setting is for implicit SSL, without that mail.app  
will attempt to use STARTTLS.
Though clicking the Use SSL box resets the port # (143/993) you can  
in fact set a custom port, with and without implicit SSL.

- Adam