dovecot - Feb 2010 - Question re: storing non mail files via IMAP

Hey Timo,

I have a question regarding how dovecot might behave if a mail client
(like, for example, Thunderbird) decided to store some of its config
files on the IMAP server itself.

Would there be a decent way of doing this with dovecot that wouldn't
cause problems for other clients that didn't know about these files?

Maybe there's a way to define a special folder that dovecot knows about
at the top level of each users mail location that can be used for this
kind of thing?

All I'm thinking of are certain config related files, so they would be
small, and would only be downloaded when they didn't already exist - ie,
when someone adds their existing account to a new PC, the first time
they logged in, TB could simply download all of the config files,
restart itself, and voila, your pre-configured TB is ready to go...

Charles Marcus wrote:
> Hey Timo,
> 
> I have a question regarding how dovecot might behave if a mail client
> (like, for example, Thunderbird) decided to store some of its config
> files on the IMAP server itself.
> 
> Would there be a decent way of doing this with dovecot that wouldn't
> cause problems for other clients that didn't know about these files?
> 
> Maybe there's a way to define a special folder that dovecot knows about
> at the top level of each users mail location that can be used for this
> kind of thing?
> 
> All I'm thinking of are certain config related files, so they would be
> small, and would only be downloaded when they didn't already exist -
ie,
> when someone adds their existing account to a new PC, the first time
> they logged in, TB could simply download all of the config files,
> restart itself, and voila, your pre-configured TB is ready to go...
Yeah.  Something like a Mozilla Weave server for Firefox.

I'm interested.


\\||/
Rod
--

On February 3, 2010 4:49:50 PM -0500 Charles Marcus 
<CMarcus at Media-Brokers.com> wrote:
> I have a question regarding how dovecot might behave if a mail client
> (like, for example, Thunderbird) decided to store some of its config
> files on the IMAP server itself.
>
> Would there be a decent way of doing this with dovecot that wouldn't
> cause problems for other clients that didn't know about these files?
isn't that called ACAP?

On 3.2.2010, at 23.49, Charles Marcus wrote:
> I have a question regarding how dovecot might behave if a mail client
> (like, for example, Thunderbird) decided to store some of its config
> files on the IMAP server itself.
Some webmails already do that, IIRC something used
".name-of-that-webmail" mailbox for its configs.
> Would there be a decent way of doing this with dovecot that wouldn't
> cause problems for other clients that didn't know about these files?
Well, it would show up as a regular mailbox..
> Maybe there's a way to define a special folder that dovecot knows about
> at the top level of each users mail location that can be used for this
> kind of thing?
You could create a hidden namespace and mailboxes under it would be visible only
to clients that actually try to use the namespace. Of course, there would have
to be some way of knowing if server supports this or not..

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On Wed, 3 Feb 2010, Charles Marcus wrote:
> I have a question regarding how dovecot might behave if a mail client
> (like, for example, Thunderbird) decided to store some of its config
> files on the IMAP server itself.
Alpine/pine does so.
The kolab suite does so.
Kmail "groupware" extension does so.

The main problem is that other MUAs should keep there hands off these 
folders, but in the end, the config data is wrapped in a mail message, 
usually MIME.

If it is performant to store, say, calender data on IMAP, well, ... .

E.g. (Al-)Pine stores (well, can store) configdata and addressbooks on 
IMAP.

Regards,

- -- 
Steffen Kaiser
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