[GLLUG] imap servers

[Darrel Clute]

Ed's Remarks
> It's not so much me as the other people that use the system that I need
> to convince.  If we get IMAP setup, that will be the only way I'll need
> to access the mail.  But other people still login and use MUTT or PINE
> to check their mail locally.  MUTT will do maildir, so that's not a
> problem, but PINE doesn't look like it supports maildir.  I guess I
> could suggest the PINE users do IMAP to localhost, kinda roundabout but
> it should work.
>
> The other problem with maildir is that we'd have to replace sendmail
> with a MTA that can handle maildir format.  That adds another piece of
> software to learn and maintain...  Personally I'd go with Exim for mail
> and Courier-IMAP for IMAP and POP because that's what I'm maintaining on
> some other systems, but I'm not the primary sysadmin for the machine in
> question.
>
> So maildir may be a possibility, it'll just take some work to convince
> everyone. =P  Of course, some of those people are on the list here, so
> maybe they'll read this and help me convince everyone else to make the
> switch... ;)
>
Couriers full version comes with the IMAP POP WEB and MTA and would allow
you to use one server package for email instead of using several different
products.  True there are both advantages and disadvantages to setting up
either system and since you arent the primary admin then it is more of a
diplomatic problem than personal prefrence.  One problem that presents
itself with using the full Courier server is that it will not accept 8-bit
MIME types so if your users are currently receiving 8-bit MIME you may not
want to go with the full version of Courier.

Courier-IMAP by itself, I believe, will support mbox and maildir (not
positive so check me on that) and would be compatible with sendmail.  This
in itself may solve your problem if my memory serves me correctly.  (You
could also raise a similar question to the Courier mailinglist to see what
they may suggest at courier-users@lists.sourceforge.net)

Also to push maildir over mbox just show the security benefits you receive
with maildir but mbox lacks.  Also there are security issues with your
system receiving 8-bit MIMEs so this may be another reason to convert to
Courier.

In any case set-up a couple of test servers with different email servers
set-up and present this to the primary sysadmin and show the benefits and
weaknesses of each system.

Darrel