Courier Mail Server

> Since the search engines don't show anything when I search for
> "enhanced maildir" (bringing up only references to maildirmake's man
> page), I have to ask here. Is the "enhanced maildir" a standard, which
> software besides courier supports it?

http://www.inter7.com/courierimap/README.maildirquota.html contains an
explanation of how the enhanced maildir standard, or "Maildir++", differs
from the original maildir standard.  The Courier IMAP homepage mentions that
SqWebMail and maildrop also support Maildir++.

Any program that supports Maildir will be able to access directories created
by Courier.  Programs that use the original Maildir standard will not be
able to take advantage of Maildir++ features like multiple folders and
subfolders, but messages delivered by the Courier server will still be
accessible.

I haven't used mutt, so I may be off-base, but if it conforms to the
original Maildir standard, then you shouldn't have any problems.  The only
inconvenience would be you that you can't access email in folders you
created using your IMAP client.  Now if the makers of mutt came up with
their own way of doing subfolders that doesn't conform to Maildir++, then
you're going to have incompatability issues, in that mail moved by mutt
can't be read by your IMAP client, and vice versa.

> The requirements to
> - have all folders below inbox...

Because of the way Maildir++ defines its heirarchy, and because of the way
Courier IMAP differentiates between private and shared mail folders, this is
really just an illusion.  The inbox is the top-level cur directory; all
other mail folders are independent of it.  If you use an IMAP client that
supports the CAPABILITY command (see
http://www.inter7.com/courierimap/FAQ.html#namespace), this becomes more
obvious.

> - have all folders start with a period...

Probably because the period is the heirarchy separator.

> - implement subfolders with a file name kludge instead of using the
>   host OS directories...

I believe this was done so that a single directory could be scanned for all
relevant mail folders, making it unnecessary to recursively search a
directory tree.

My impression is that Courier and its associated programs were designed with
remote email services in mind.  Even so, it wouldn't be difficult for
somebody to come up with a local client that conforms to the Maildir++
standard, just apparently nobody has yet.  If this is really an issue for
you, your best recourse may be to keep all email in a single folder (cur,
the "inbox") that can be read by any Maildir or Maildir++ compatable
program.

---Kris Kelley

Hi Marc,

I think the directory-structure in courier-imap should not be changed.
The problem is that most MUA can't handle a structure with messages _and_ folders inside a mailfolder (like via imap).

I hope this will change in mutt soon.

BTW: Last week I posted an arcticle to mutt-users concerning this issue.
There were not a lot of responses on mutt-users, but with more advocacy of mutt/courier-users ...

Bye
  Georg

On Tue, Jan 09, 2001 at 11:20:55PM +0100, Georg Lutz wrote:
> 
> Hi Marc,
> 
> I think the directory-structure in courier-imap should not be changed.
> The problem is that most MUA can't handle a structure with messages _and_ folders inside a mailfolder (like via imap).
> 
> I hope this will change in mutt soon.
> 
> BTW: Last week I posted an arcticle to mutt-users concerning this issue.
> There were not a lot of responses on mutt-users, but with more advocacy of mutt/courier-users ...
> 
I'm a mutt user who was a Courier IMAP user.  The problem is surely
not that mutt can't hadle IMAP folders with both mailboxes and
folders in them but that it doesn't handle them very elegantly.

-- 
Chris Green (chris@...)
  Home: chris@...		 Work: cgreen@...
  WWW: http://www.isbd.co.uk/

On 2001-01-10, Chris Green wrote:
> I'm a mutt user who was a Courier IMAP user.  The problem is surely
> not that mutt can't hadle IMAP folders with both mailboxes and
> folders in them but that it doesn't handle them very elegantly.

Yes, this is correct. mutt can handle IMAP folder with messages and folders.
But it can't handle local maildirs with messages and folders.

I meant: 
 Why not just add the maildir folder-extension to mutt and browsing through the hierarchie like via imap?

(OK. Showing the folder hierarchie could be done better, perhaps in a threaded way like in the index).


Bye
  Georg

On Tue, 9 Jan 2001 11:14:44 -0600, "Kris Kelley"
<kkelley@...> wrote:
>> Since the search engines don't show anything when I search for
>> "enhanced maildir" (bringing up only references to maildirmake's man
>> page), I have to ask here. Is the "enhanced maildir" a standard, which
>> software besides courier supports it?
>
>http://www.inter7.com/courierimap/README.maildirquota.html contains an
>explanation of how the enhanced maildir standard, or "Maildir++", =
differs
>from the original maildir standard.

Is there any other software besides Courier that uses Maildir++?

>I haven't used mutt, so I may be off-base, but if it conforms to the
>original Maildir standard, then you shouldn't have any problems.

Well, mutt treats maildirs and mailboxes the same, and when it
recognizes a subdirectory as a maildir, it opens it as a maildir. And
it doesn't display directories starting with a period, so directly
accessing a maildir++ is kind of uncomfortable.

>The only
>inconvenience would be you that you can't access email in folders you
>created using your IMAP client.  Now if the makers of mutt came up with
>their own way of doing subfolders that doesn't conform to Maildir++, =
then
>you're going to have incompatability issues, in that mail moved by mutt
>can't be read by your IMAP client, and vice versa.

I do not know if the makers of mutt specially intended to support
folders and subfolders. I just have made subdirectories where multiple
mail dirs are stored. That way, I can only store actual messages in
leaves of my directory tree, but it works fine. However, I only see my
indir in courier-imap.

An example here:
haber@...]:~$ tree -d .mail
.mail
|-- abuse
|   |-- cur
|   |-- new
|   `-- tmp
|-- cron-intern
|   |-- cur
|   |-- new
|   `-- tmp
|-- debian
|   |-- bugs
|   |   |-- cur
|   |   |-- new
|   |   `-- tmp
|   |-- hardware
|   |   |-- cur
|   |   |-- new
|   |   `-- tmp
|   `-- packages
|       |-- cur
|       |-- new
|       `-- tmp
|-- einkauf
|   |-- hardware
|   |   |-- cur
|   |   |-- new
|   |   `-- tmp
|   |-- misc
|   |   |-- cur
|   |   |-- new
|   |   `-- tmp
|-- fw-logs
|   |-- cur
|   |-- new
|   `-- tmp
|-- indir
|   |-- cur
|   |-- new
|   `-- tmp
|-- info
|   |-- bugs
|   |   |-- cur
|   |   |-- new
|   |   `-- tmp
|   `-- politik
|       |-- cur
|       |-- new
|       `-- tmp
<snip>

.mail/indir is where my mail is delivered to.

>> The requirements to
>> - have all folders below inbox...
>
>Because of the way Maildir++ defines its heirarchy, and because of the =
way
>Courier IMAP differentiates between private and shared mail folders, =
this is
>really just an illusion.  The inbox is the top-level cur directory; all
>other mail folders are independent of it.  If you use an IMAP client =
that
>supports the CAPABILITY command (see
>http://www.inter7.com/courierimap/FAQ.html#namespace), this becomes more
>obvious.

Does Netscape 4.75 support this? I don't have really a clue about IMAP
since I have always read my mail on a local spool (or using POP3 with
a Windows client :-( ) - this is the first time I try IMAP since our
customers (and my dedicated colleagues) demand it.

>> - have all folders start with a period...
>
>Probably because the period is the heirarchy separator.

I still fail to see why subdirectories are not used for this.

>> - implement subfolders with a file name kludge instead of using the
>>   host OS directories...
>
>I believe this was done so that a single directory could be scanned for =
all
>relevant mail folders, making it unnecessary to recursively search a
>directory tree.

But if a lot of folders are used, this could be a serious performance
penalty since some file systems (for example ext2 on Linux) don't
perform too good on a full directory.

>My impression is that Courier and its associated programs were designed =
with
>remote email services in mind.

Yes, I concur. However, what the Open Source world seriously needs is
a mail system that fits all, local access, remote services using
current (IMAP; POP/SASL) and obsolete (POP/APOP or even plain POP)
protocols.

>If this is really an issue for
>you, your best recourse may be to keep all email in a single folder =
(cur,
>the "inbox") that can be read by any Maildir or Maildir++ compatable
>program.

Yuck. Then I wouldn't need to use IMAP.

Greetings
Marc

--=20
-------------------------------------- !! No courtesy copies, please !! =
-----
Marc Haber          |   " Questions are the         | Mailadresse im =
Header
Karlsruhe, Germany  |     Beginning of Wisdom "     | Fon: *49 721 966 32=
 15
Nordisch by Nature  | Lt. Worf, TNG "Rightful Heir" | Fax: *49 721 966 31=
 29

On Tue, 9 Jan 2001 23:20:55 +0100, Georg Lutz <glist@...> wrote:
>I think the directory-structure in courier-imap should not be changed.
>The problem is that most MUA can't handle a structure with messages =
_and_ folders inside a mailfolder (like via imap).

Is it possible to have mutt display folders that start with a period?

>I hope this will change in mutt soon.

I don't have any problems with mutt and folders as long as I only
store messages on leaves on the directory tree (i.e. a directory
contains either subdirectories or is a maildir with only new/cur/tmp
subdirs).

>BTW: Last week I posted an arcticle to mutt-users concerning this issue.

*sigh* One more mailing list to subscribe :-/

Greetings
Marc

--=20
-------------------------------------- !! No courtesy copies, please !! =
-----
Marc Haber          |   " Questions are the         | Mailadresse im =
Header
Karlsruhe, Germany  |     Beginning of Wisdom "     | Fon: *49 721 966 32=
 15
Nordisch by Nature  | Lt. Worf, TNG "Rightful Heir" | Fax: *49 721 966 31=
 29

On Fri, 12 Jan 2001, Marc Haber wrote:

> *sigh* One more mailing list to subscribe :-/

Just filter it and throw it into a subdirectory.  :)

-Chris
-- 
Two penguins were walking on an iceberg.  The first penguin said to the
second, "you look like you are wearing a tuxedo."  The second penguin
said, "I might be..."                         --David Lynch, Twin Peaks

Hi Marc,

perhaps my configuration could help you:


in .muttrc:
---
set folder="~/Maildir"
set mask = ".*"
mailboxes =/.georglutz =.glist.bugtraq #...etc.
---

in ~/Maildir is:
---
drwx------    5 georg    georg        4096 Jan 10 22:24 .Trash/
drwx------    5 georg    georg        4096 Jan  5 19:38 .georglutz/
drwx------    5 georg    georg        4096 Jan  5 16:06 .glist.bugtraq/
drwx------    5 georg    georg        4096 Dez 19 00:13 .glist.courier/
...etc...
drwx------    2 georg    georg        4096 Jan 11 17:44 cur/
drwx------    2 georg    georg        4096 Jan 11 17:44 new/
drwx------    2 georg    georg        4096 Jan 13 14:44 tmp/
---


With mask .* mutt shows me all folders (local and via imap) , including
cur, new, tmp.


To change local folders I use only tab-completion:

Change to folder georglutz:
"c =.ge <tab>"

Change to main-folder (~/Maildir):
"c ="

Show all folders:
"c =. <tab>"


Its not perfect, but it works.



Bye
   Georg

On 2001-01-12, Marc Haber wrote:

> >Because of the way Maildir++ defines its heirarchy, and because of the w=
ay
> >Courier IMAP differentiates between private and shared mail folders, thi=
s is
> >really just an illusion.  The inbox is the top-level cur directory; all
> >other mail folders are independent of it.  If you use an IMAP client that
> >supports the CAPABILITY command (see
> >http://www.inter7.com/courierimap/FAQ.html#namespace), this becomes more
> >obvious.
>=20
> Does Netscape 4.75 support this? I don't have really a clue about IMAP
> since I have always read my mail on a local spool (or using POP3 with
> a Windows client :-( ) - this is the first time I try IMAP since our
> customers (and my dedicated colleagues) demand it.

I had no big problems.

I installed courier-imap together with qmail, maildrop and sqwebmail in a s=
mall
network (~ 10 clients), IMAP-Client is NS-Messenger(German, 4.75).

All traffic is ssl-secured.

There is no direct access via shell.
Filtering is done via sqwebmail and maildrop.

Namespace is set automaticaly with following settings in NS:
uncheck "Nur abonnierte Ordner anzeigen"
check   "Server unterst=FCtzt Ordner mit Unterordnern und Nachrichten"
check   "Server kann Namensbereiche au=DFer Kraft setzen"

To work properly with NS-Messenger you have to set the
"--enable-workarounds-for-imap-client-bugs"-Option at compile-time.


>=20
> >> - have all folders start with a period...
> >
> >Probably because the period is the heirarchy separator.
>=20
> I still fail to see why subdirectories are not used for this.
>=20
> >> - implement subfolders with a file name kludge instead of using the
> >>   host OS directories...
> >
> >I believe this was done so that a single directory could be scanned for =
all
> >relevant mail folders, making it unnecessary to recursively search a
> >directory tree.
>=20
> But if a lot of folders are used, this could be a serious performance
> penalty since some file systems (for example ext2 on Linux) don't
> perform too good on a full directory.
>=20
> >My impression is that Courier and its associated programs were designed =
with
> >remote email services in mind.
>
>=20
> Yes, I concur. However, what the Open Source world seriously needs is
> a mail system that fits all, local access, remote services using
> current (IMAP; POP/SASL) and obsolete (POP/APOP or even plain POP)
> protocols.
>


Yea, thats exactly what courier fits;-)
On my private computers I use the hole courier-package - local and remote v=
ia imap.


Bye
  Georg=20

On Sat, 13 Jan 2001 15:47:11 +0100, Georg Lutz <glist@...> wrote:
>On 2001-01-12, Marc Haber wrote:
>> Yes, I concur. However, what the Open Source world seriously needs is
>> a mail system that fits all, local access, remote services using
>> current (IMAP; POP/SASL) and obsolete (POP/APOP or even plain POP)
>> protocols.
>
>Yea, thats exactly what courier fits;-)

Courier makes local access a little harder, and it is not clear if
APOP will be supported in the future. It surely isn't now.

Greetings
Marc

--=20
-------------------------------------- !! No courtesy copies, please !! =
-----
Marc Haber          |   " Questions are the         | Mailadresse im =
Header
Karlsruhe, Germany  |     Beginning of Wisdom "     | Fon: *49 721 966 32=
 15
Nordisch by Nature  | Lt. Worf, TNG "Rightful Heir" | Fax: *49 721 966 31=
 29

On Sat, Jan 13/01, Marc Haber <courier-users.lists.sourceforge.net@...> wrote:
> On Sat, 13 Jan 2001 15:47:11 +0100, Georg Lutz <glist@...> wrote:
> >On 2001-01-12, Marc Haber wrote:
> >> Yes, I concur. However, what the Open Source world seriously needs is
> >> a mail system that fits all, local access, remote services using
> >> current (IMAP; POP/SASL) and obsolete (POP/APOP or even plain POP)
> >> protocols.
> >
> >Yea, thats exactly what courier fits;-)
> 
> Courier makes local access a little harder, and it is not clear if
> APOP will be supported in the future. It surely isn't now.

I don't see the point in trying to put all the imap stuff into the local
client. Why not just run an imap server locally and let the server do
it's job? It's not like the client is going to be much faster than imap
over loopback once you've jammed all the stuff into it that should be in
the server where it belongs.

-- 
  Artificial Intelligence stands no chance against Natural Stupidity.
            GAT d- -p+(--) c++++ l++ u++ t- m--- W--- !v
                 b+++ e* s-/+ n-(?) h++ f+g+ w+++ y*

On Fri, Jan 12, 2001 at 06:35:17PM +0100, Marc Haber wrote:
> Well, mutt treats maildirs and mailboxes the same, and when it
> recognizes a subdirectory as a maildir, it opens it as a maildir. And
> it doesn't display directories starting with a period, so directly
> accessing a maildir++ is kind of uncomfortable.

Hello Marc,

I have set:

set mask="[^.]"

in .muttrc.

This will allow mutt to see Maildir++, when trying to change folders with c.

Regards
Mirko

Sam,

Rather than having virtual users set their pop server to mail.domain_x.com,
and then setting thier client pop username to user@..., is it
possible to have two domain names for the mail server in DNS and then let
the virtual user use the actual domain for the pop server?

Normal scenario with mailserver hostname= mail.domain_x.com

username: user@...
servername: mail.domain_x.com


My scenario with mailserver still running on hostname= mail.domain_x.com with
but with another DNS Address record of mail.domain_v.com

username: user
servername: mail.domain_v.com


Know what I mean?  Will courier complain since it thinks the hostname is
one name, but trying to pop in with the alternate alternate hostname?

I think I could have explained this better.

Patrick

Sam wrote:
>Try:
>
>username: user@...
>server:   mail.domain_v.com
>
>If you've already had mail.domain_v.com set up to point to the same
>machine, and you're already authenticating as user@..., then you
>don't need to change a thing.
>-- 
>Sam

The problem is the mail client, ACT something or other, won't take a long
username and a long servername, such as username@...  with
server also being mail.server2.com.  It truncates the username to
mail.server2.com for some odd reason.

The final result being we can't put the @mail.server2.com in the username
field.

Will pointing mail.server2.com at mail.server1.com via DNS be sufficient
even though Courier is used to the server running under the other domain
name, mail.server1.com, the primary domain name?

Patrick

> The problem is the mail client, ACT something or other,
> won't take a long
> username and a long servername, such as
> username@...  with
> server also being mail.server2.com.  It truncates the username to
> mail.server2.com for some odd reason.
>
> The final result being we can't put the @mail.server2.com
> in the username
> field.

I have been told by someone that some mail clients such as netscape
will strip @ out of the login. In Vpopmail a '%' like
(user%domain.com) is used as opposed to '@' (user@...). Would
it be possible to switch to something besides the @ for the
login.... Perhaps this would work with ACT.

--Cindy



  Cindy Smith
  NetAdmin
  KTC iNet

>The login userid simply gets looked up in the account database.  For a
>simple single-domain machine, this goes against /etc/paswd.
>
>A machine that handles mail for multiple domains will use a combination of
>hosteddomains plus userdb/ldap/mysql to map complete addresses from
>user@... to some mailbox some.  POP3/IMAP will use the same
>userdb/ldap/mysql back end to get to the same mailbox.
>
>In all cases it is always possible to throw records into userdb to map
>arbitrary login userids to arbitrary mailboxes.
>-- 
>Sam

Thanks again Sam for helping me out.  I understand now how locals and
hosteddomains interact as "front-ends" to the back-end auth mechanisms,
either stripping or not stripping the domains from the email address before
authentication.  I didn't understand until this little exercise why that
was necessary.  What a dimwit!

I took domain2.com out of hosteddomains and put it into locals so the
domain is stripped from the address, then put just the user name in userdb,
and now the client enters only their username as the pop account instead of
username@... or the old username%domain2.com vpopmail syntax.

This, because a customer couldn't use username@... for username, and
wanted their own servername instead of our mail server name.  I've been
running qmail for two years without ever needing to do something so basic
as this, jumping into virtual domains from the start and taking them for
granted.  Ok, I'll stop frothing.

Thanks for the patience and insruction,
	
Patrick Price

Cindy Smith wrote:

>I have been told by someone that some mail clients such as netscape
>will strip @ out of the login. In Vpopmail a '%' like
>(user%domain.com) is used as opposed to '@' (user@...). Would
>it be possible to switch to something besides the @ for the
>login.... Perhaps this would work with ACT.
>
> Cindy Smith
>  NetAdmin
>  KTC iNet

Cindy,

I've been meaning to ask someone if % is still valid in an address and
whether that can be controlled by what is put into the authentication
(userdb/ldap/mysql) or aliases.  I don't know.

 user@... as opposed to user%domain.com ?

I didn't get my hands on the actual ACT application nor did I see what it
was doing, as usual I get to troubleshoot based on secondhand information
then figure out how to configure Courier to get around the alleged problem.
 So far Courier has overcome every feeble challenge I've thrown against it,
and it's easy on the CPU load, too!

Patrick Price

On Sun, 14 Jan 2001 12:01:08 -0800, jhenders@... wrote:
>I don't see the point in trying to put all the imap stuff into the local
>client. Why not just run an imap server locally and let the server do
>it's job? It's not like the client is going to be much faster than imap
>over loopback once you've jammed all the stuff into it that should be in
>the server where it belongs.

Debugging. If mails show up mangled, I'd like to be able to see if the
mail spool is ok. mutt already supports maildirs, and multiple
maildirs as folders.

Greetings
Marc

--=20
-------------------------------------- !! No courtesy copies, please !! =
-----
Marc Haber          |   " Questions are the         | Mailadresse im =
Header
Karlsruhe, Germany  |     Beginning of Wisdom "     | Fon: *49 721 966 32=
 15
Nordisch by Nature  | Lt. Worf, TNG "Rightful Heir" | Fax: *49 721 966 31=
 29

On Sun, 14 Jan 2001 23:21:43 +0100, Mirko Zeibig
<mirko@...> wrote:
>I have set:
>
>set mask=3D"[^.]"
>
>in .muttrc.
>
>This will allow mutt to see Maildir++, when trying to change folders =
with c.

This seems to work fine, but is rather uncomfortable to use.

Greetings
Marc

--=20
-------------------------------------- !! No courtesy copies, please !! =
-----
Marc Haber          |   " Questions are the         | Mailadresse im =
Header
Karlsruhe, Germany  |     Beginning of Wisdom "     | Fon: *49 721 966 32=
 15
Nordisch by Nature  | Lt. Worf, TNG "Rightful Heir" | Fax: *49 721 966 31=
 29

On Sat, 13 Jan 2001 15:10:30 +0100, Georg Lutz <glist@...> wrote:
>perhaps my configuration could help you:

Yes, it helps.

>in .muttrc:
>---
>set folder=3D"~/Maildir"
>set mask =3D ".*"
>mailboxes =3D/.georglutz =3D.glist.bugtraq #...etc.
>---
>
>in ~/Maildir is:
>---
>drwx------    5 georg    georg        4096 Jan 10 22:24 .Trash/
>drwx------    5 georg    georg        4096 Jan  5 19:38 .georglutz/
>drwx------    5 georg    georg        4096 Jan  5 16:06 .glist.bugtraq/
>drwx------    5 georg    georg        4096 Dez 19 00:13 .glist.courier/
>...etc...
>drwx------    2 georg    georg        4096 Jan 11 17:44 cur/
>drwx------    2 georg    georg        4096 Jan 11 17:44 new/
>drwx------    2 georg    georg        4096 Jan 13 14:44 tmp/
>---
>
>
>With mask .* mutt shows me all folders (local and via imap) , including
>cur, new, tmp.

Right.

>To change local folders I use only tab-completion:
>
>Change to folder georglutz:
>"c =3D.ge <tab>"

I consider this mucho ugly ;)

It's one more key to press, and the folder browser doesn't work.

However, I will probably still use direct spool access since IMAP even
to localhost is much slower.

Greetings
Marc

--=20
-------------------------------------- !! No courtesy copies, please !! =
-----
Marc Haber          |   " Questions are the         | Mailadresse im =
Header
Karlsruhe, Germany  |     Beginning of Wisdom "     | Fon: *49 721 966 32=
 15
Nordisch by Nature  | Lt. Worf, TNG "Rightful Heir" | Fax: *49 721 966 31=
 29