[Dovecot] IMAP storage - mail_location = maildir:~/Maildir:mbox:~/mail/

[Tim Alberts]

Scott Silva wrote:
> on 3-12-2008 11:07 AM Tim Alberts spake the following:
>>
>>
>> Scott Silva wrote:
>>> on 3-10-2008 6:09 PM Tim Alberts spake the following:
>>>> I'm moving to IMAP and trying to understand all the details of 
>>>> where to save email.  The system is CentOS running sendmail - 
>>>> procmail which delivers as:
>>>>
>>>> DEFAULT=$HOME/Maildir/
>>>>
>>>> I'm trying also to use Usermin as the webmail client.  I can get 
>>>> mail to deliver to $HOME/Maildir/ and I can get clients 
>>>> (thunderbird outlook etc) to view them.  However Usermin seems 
>>>> stuck with saving 'Drafts' 'Sent' and 'Trash' in $HOME/mail/ as 
>>>> mbox and Dovecot won't find them even when I use the setting:
>>>>
>>>> maildir:~/Maildir:mbox:~/mail/
>>>>
>>>> I don't know what exact question to ask to I'll just ask for any 
>>>> thoughts on this?
>>>>
>>>> Second question, different topic.  Are there problems with running 
>>>> POP3 and IMAP?  I've always run POP3 and I'm thinking to move to 
>>>> IMAP for some clients so the Usermin webmail will be better 
>>>> 'synchronized' with the users inbox.
>>>>
>>> Do you have usermin set to access mail by IMAP or the default of 
>>> accessing the mail directly on the filesystem?
>>>
>> I did have Usermin configured to read directly.  I have changed this 
>> so Usermin goes through the local IMAP server (dovecot) and Usermin 
>> seems to be working much better with the mail.
>>
>> However, I have a new problem...
>>
>> I've changed my mail location back to mbox as follows:
>>
>> mail_location: mbox:~/mail/:INBOX=/var/mail/%u
>>
>> This is working great with two exceptions.
>>
>> First, using mozilla thunderbird as a client, I can create folders, 
>> but I can't create sub-folders.  Why might this be?
> How are you trying to create the folders?
> With mbox you have to create the folders with a trailing slash 
> "foldername/".
> You can only have either a folder or another mbox, but you can't have 
> both.
OOOOOHHHHH...that worked, thank you.


>>
>> Second, I have Usermin configured to save a copy of sent mail in a 
>> folder 'Sent'. mozilla thunderbird is doing this OK, but Usermin is 
>> not.  It gives me the following error on the web interface:
>>
>
>>
>>      Failed to send mail : Failed to set IMAP flags : Error in IMAP
>>      command UID: Invalid arguments.
> I never thought usermin as a webmail client was very good anyway. It 
> seemed as more of a kludge then polished software, especially when 
> accessing mail by IMAP.
I won't argue that statement much.  I will say that I have been using 
Webmin/Usermin since I started with Linux about 10 years ago and Webmin 
has always been an outstanding graphical tool for configuring a Linux 
box and all the server apps etc.  Usermin, I have watched it's evolution 
over time, and my opinion of it today is, it is just about evolved to a 
very usable and well developed application.  Plus, it offers far more 
than just reading email.  Shell interface, MySQL interface, gives users 
the ability to change their account passwords.  Feature wise, I don't 
think anything compares to Usermin.


>
>>
>>
>>
>> Checking through the logs, I don't see any other errors so I'm having 
>> trouble find out why?  The email does get delivered, but no copy is 
>> saved.
>>
> <snip>
>>
>>> On your second question, I run bothPOP3 and IMAP on the server. Some 
>>> people with light traffic just want to get the mail to their PC, and 
>>> other users want IMAP so they can work with their mail from multiple 
>>> locations and computers.
>>>
>> That's exactly what I'm going for.  Good to hear I can expect it to 
>> work fine.
>>
>
> I still have problems with outlook on pop3, especially if the mail is 
> left on the server and also accessed with another MUA like outlook 
> express -- don't ask -- stupid PHB decision -- but I haven't had other 
> problems. I have Thunderbird as my MUA of choice, but also have both 
> outlook and outlook express accessing my IMAP store occasionally for 
> testing and debugging purposes. I'm also testing several webmail 
> softwares on the same mail store and I haven't seen any gotchas.
>
>
I too use Thunderbird, but all my clients will undoubtedly use Outlook 
or Eudora so I have more testing to find the gotchas with those too.