What IMAP server?

[theYinYeti]

In my company, I need an IMAP server. I would like to be able to put all mail inside /data/mail (or something like that). So this directory probably would have a maildir for each user. Also I want to use the maildir system, not the mbox one. And it must be able to authenticate against an LDAP source (the same LDAP directory used for Windows and Unix authentication).

 

What IMAP server should I use?

 

Also, if possible, I'd like to be able to create shared mail folders. Is it possible?

 

Finally, is all the above (except maybe shared mail forlders) 100% configurable, either automatically, or with a web GUI? (I want no command line after installation).

 

Yves.

[delboy711]

Take a look at courier-imap.

It uses maildirs and has one nice feature you did not ask for which is to use different passwords for mail access than the users Linux login password. Especially useful when you are not using secure access.

 

Not too sure about automated set up though.

There is a walk through about using Courier-Imap with Postfix on my home page.

http://www.jennings.homelinux.net/mailserv...ver_config.html

[johnnyv]

have a look at www.dbmail.org while your at it.

Can store mail in a database for faster parsing. Has imap and pop3 clients.

[theYinYeti]

Thanks delboy711. I've read your article and it's very interesting. I had not thought about having different passwords for login and IMAP. I'll think about it. I may follow your advice.

But is this "userdb" thing (and passwords within) configurable from a web access? I'll do some search.

 

As for dbmail, indeed jonnyv, this seems to be powerful. Incidentally, I just found it yesterday evening. I'm not sure yet, though, because backup becomes a special case (I cannot rely on filesystem backup). Still, I'm not sure...

 

For my choice, configuration via web access will have much importance, because when I'm done and away from setting up the server, there'll be close to no Linux knowledge left for managing it. Linux still has to grow a lot.

 

Yves.

[johnnyv]

Thanks delboy711. I've read your article and it's very interesting. I had not thought about having different passwords for login and IMAP. I'll think about it. I may follow your advice.

But is this "userdb" thing (and passwords within) configurable from a web access? I'll do some search.

 

As for dbmail, indeed jonnyv, this seems to be powerful. Incidentally, I just found it yesterday evening. I'm not sure yet, though, because backup becomes a special case (I cannot rely on filesystem backup). Still, I'm not sure...

 

For my choice, configuration via web access will have much importance, because when I'm done and away from setting up the server, there'll be close to no Linux knowledge left for managing it. Linux still has to grow a lot.

 

Yves.

 

what do you mean "I cannot rely on filesystem backup"? you can automate a mysql database backup, you can use phpMyAdmin to do a database backup which writes the entire database to a text file that can include all sql statements for creating tables etc. then tar.bz2 it.

 

How is this different to backing up the maildir folders and contents?

[theYinYeti]

Yes you're right. My problem is that I'm the one with Linux knowledge here, and at most one month from now, I won't be here anymore. So I will have to automate as much things as possible (no problem with that), and make it as simple as possible.

I already devised a simple, effective, and mostly automatic backup strategy for filesystems. I'm not sure I'd dare add to that the cron execution of a database-backup script.

It all comes down to: what happens if something goes wrong? I won't be there...

 

Yves.