[Dovecot] Shared mboxes

[Steve Campbell]

On 3/6/2012 3:17 PM, Stan Hoeppner wrote:
> On 3/6/2012 8:28 AM, Steve Campbell wrote:
>
>>> http://wiki.dovecot.org/SharedMailboxes
>> That's where most of my questions originated, but thanks for the reply.
> Steve, all the information you need is behind that link.

I've gone over that set of links on that page a dozen times. Perhaps I'm 
trying to put a square peg in a round hole by using mbox, but they keep 
providing information on it, so I guess I was just pounding away.

But then there's that "don't use maildir and mbox together". All of the 
accounts on this server are carry-overs from the UW-IMAP server, so 
perhaps I should have converted those to maildir. Seems as though it's 
OK when they don't apply to the same type namespace.
>
>> Maybe I'm misunderstanding concepts here
> Very possibly.
>
>> What I've done in the past with the old imap server is to create an
>> account (unix account), so the smtp server puts the mbox (what is
>> referred to as the INbox) in /var/spool/mail. Users who needed to
>> "share" this mailbox would be give the account user name and the
>> password for this account and would add an Imap account to their mail
>> client. This would sometimes cause locking problems or client corruption
>> due to email removals mostly. This is basically a normal, non-shared
>> account.
> Locking problems with multiple users hitting mbox files is unavoidable.
>   The same is true when a single user hits an mbox from multiple client
> devices simultaneously--PC, smart phone, tablet, etc.  Which is why you
> do not want to use mbox file format for shared mailboxes, but maildir
> instead, because each email is a separate file.  Please note, from the
> link I provided:

I've experienced that type of locked mailbox before on the old server. 
Users insist on accessing their email account as a pop account on their 
desktop with the "check for new mail every so many minutes" turned on 
and still keep their smartphones on while accessing it as an imap 
account so they can still download the files to their desktop when they 
return.
>
> **********************************************************************
> Maildir: Per-user \Seen flag
>
> With Maildir a dovecot-shared file controls if the \Seen flags are
> shared or private. The file must be created separately inside each
> Maildir, although if the file already exists in the Maildir root it's
> automatically copied for newly created mailboxes. If dovecot-shared file
> doesn't exist in Maildir, the \Seen flags are shared. If it exists, the
> \Seen flag state is stored only in the user's index files. By making
> each user have their own private index files, you can make the \Seen
> flag private for the users.
> **********************************************************************
>
>
> Simple concept above:  each user of the shared mailbox sees "new" mail.
>   One user accessing new mail and marking it as read doesn't mark that
> message as read for other shared users.  You can not do this with mbox
> file format, only maildir.
>
>
> **********************************************************************
> Maildir: Keyword sharing
>
> Make sure you don't try to use per-user CONTROL directory. Otherwise
> dovecot-keywords file doesn't get shared and keyword mapping breaks.
>
> Other mailbox formats
>
> Currently you can't have any per-user flags with other mailbox formats
> than Maildir.
> **********************************************************************
So just to clarify, is it OK to have a maildir account setup on this 
server for these shared/imap access only accounts along with the mbox 
accounts already on there?

Thanks for the patience and help

steve