Jul
07
2005

Server Side Mail

IMAP, Webmail and the rest...

Thursday, July 7, 2005 - 09:44:45 pm
(Posted Under: Geek, Linux Linux)
Last week, or actually the week before is probably when I started, I took the plunge, and converted from local mail storage, to server side storage, and the step from POP to IMAP. Something I'd been tossing up for a while, but had been to scared to make the transition. I've been really skeptical about IMAP, to the extent that when I did change over, I kept a second copy of my mail via POP, so it'd be basically no work to fall back to my old setup.

Even more shocking is the fact that I've also installed webmail! I'm so bitterly against webmail!

So I've been changed over for about two weeks, and I can say there is no looking back. I can't say how good it is to be able to read mail simply from multiple different mail clients, without being attached to any of them! I've gone with Courier IMAP + Squirrelmail, a combo that I'm quite familar with from work. Or should I see my former work.

An initially sore point was IMAP clients only checking for new mail on the Inbox folder. After a bit of Googling, I found the solution to that for Mozilla (Thunderbird and Netscape) based clients. That was really the only thing that had me still a bit iffy regarding commiting to the setup.

Having my mail accessible via a shell, or webmail, while my workstation isn't on is so invaluable. Which was one of the main selling points, getting frustrated if I wanted to check a mail remotely. Similarly, one Sent folder! Oh my god, that is so good. I've configured mutt to use the sent folder in the maildir, and no longer do I have the problem of some sent mail in Netscape, some on the server and some....well, Netscape and mutt were the only two clients I'd been using. Having mutt, Thunderbird and Squirrelmail (and any other IMAP client I choose) use the same Sent, Trash etc. folders is really nice). As is the ability to read any mail in any mail client. Rather than having to explicitly read some accounts (that I never POPped) on the server in mutt, while my main account in Netscape on my workstation.

Similarly, I've become such a webmail whore. [smile] Well, I certainly like using webmail remotely, at least. Last week I installed a flags plugin for Squirrelmail, which has made it even more handy. With the addition of that, Squirrelmail became good enough to almost replace a standalone mail cliennt. Almost. [smile] It's also pretty nice when I'm remote and have my firewall too tight...er, not configured and I lock myself out.

The one slight annoyance left was address books. However, last week I got an LDAP directory setup, with Thunderbird and Squirrelmail both using it. It's not perfect, most clients (pretty much all except Evolution on linux) don't support writing to LDAP address books. Though, not a huge issue, because I very rarely actually add address book entries. It's largely just for using existing entries that I need it for. The other catch is that Squirrelmail doesn't seem to automatically replace typed address with entries from an LDAP server. I can leave with it, but it did cause a mail or to getting addressed to @example.com this week! [wink]

Finally - procmail, procmail, procmail. [smile] I'd be using procmail server side to filter tagged spam, and quarentine potential spam, and the Netscape client side to filter mail into folders. Particularly because last December I got sick and tired of hearing the 'new mail' sound every five minutes, and set up a filter server side so Netscape would never see the spam I was receiving. Now having everything filtered server side with procmail is way cool. As is being able to view / manipulate spam and quarentined mail through a mail client (other than mutt), but not being alerted audiably everytime there was such a new mail is way cool. Similarly it is also being able to read my other accounts (which I'd previously only stored server side, and now have merged into my Maildir) in any sed mail client.

In summary, I love my new mail setup. I definately don't see any way that I'll go back! I'm even getting close to turning off the POP failback!

Post Comment



All fields are required. Email addresses will not be published, but are required for anti-spam purposas.

Switch Styles

About Style Switching.

!Weblog Index

Jun July 2005 Aug
SU MO TU WE TH FR SA
1 2
3 4 5 6 7 8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24 25 26 27 28 29 30
31

Categories

RSS FeedRSS Feed