Friday, March 04, 2005
IMAP Adventure
I've always wished I had some never failing server standing in a corner making no fuss and always delivering what it is supposed to, no questions asked. On it I would place, among other things an IMAP server where I could keep all my mail. Why? Because my mail clients always fail on me. Either that or something else forces me to change client.
On windows I was perfectly satisfied with using Outlook, on linux I was perfectly satisfied with using Kmail. However, after the Mandrake 1o.1 install Kmail mysteriously and uncompromislingly failed. It would stand around for maybe a minute before it had consumed 50% of the system memory (some 760 mb) and then it simply died. (I haven't even started to begin to understand where error messages in Linux disappear. They certainly don't pop up in your face, I mean, okay when windows bring you a nasty looking "something" that contains incomprehensible numbers and letters that's not so much better ... just marginally... but still... when there isn't even a pop up telling us the application programmer was to lazy to handle that exception, I for one start to suspect even the error handling system is burning.)
Back to mailing. Okay, so I'm wishing for an IMAP server since I always end up having to change clients. Well, I said to myself, I can run the IMAP server on the same computer, no need for that server in the corner. Said and done, I got hold of courier-imap, seems very nice, or at least it seemed very nice before the restart from hell... well I installed courier, pretty easy under mandrake:
Okay, so far so go. I'm able to log in with my user name and password (server is localhost, if you use SSL make sure your client connects on IMAP SSL port 993, took me some time to figure that one out! Some clients have a special port field, others may be set up with the server somehost:993 and you'll get the same result, some clients are not worthy of IMAP SSL connections...)
Well... I restarted my computer after a couple of days and now... well logging in is not working anymore. As far as I've been able to judge it's not due to the client (both evolution and thunderbird fails) and it doesn't work with or without SSL, it is possible to reach the server with telnet (on port 993, and on port 143, normal IMAP, the server identifies and would probably, if I knew IMAP protocol, talk to me perfectly nice... until i gave it the wrong password...)
I think I managed to fuck the imap up with the same etc/hosts hack as I described before... question is, how do i get back on track? #:-S
On windows I was perfectly satisfied with using Outlook, on linux I was perfectly satisfied with using Kmail. However, after the Mandrake 1o.1 install Kmail mysteriously and uncompromislingly failed. It would stand around for maybe a minute before it had consumed 50% of the system memory (some 760 mb) and then it simply died. (I haven't even started to begin to understand where error messages in Linux disappear. They certainly don't pop up in your face, I mean, okay when windows bring you a nasty looking "something" that contains incomprehensible numbers and letters that's not so much better ... just marginally... but still... when there isn't even a pop up telling us the application programmer was to lazy to handle that exception, I for one start to suspect even the error handling system is burning.)
Back to mailing. Okay, so I'm wishing for an IMAP server since I always end up having to change clients. Well, I said to myself, I can run the IMAP server on the same computer, no need for that server in the corner. Said and done, I got hold of courier-imap, seems very nice, or at least it seemed very nice before the restart from hell... well I installed courier, pretty easy under mandrake:
$ urpmi courier-imapEven better, courier is set up with the same username password as the users on the box, and the mails are stored in your home catalogue so backing them up is also easy. You even get SSL connection with the install (no clue how long the certificate lasts, apache had a 1 year license with mdk 10.0, no clue how that's set up now).
Okay, so far so go. I'm able to log in with my user name and password (server is localhost, if you use SSL make sure your client connects on IMAP SSL port 993, took me some time to figure that one out! Some clients have a special port field, others may be set up with the server somehost:993 and you'll get the same result, some clients are not worthy of IMAP SSL connections...)
Well... I restarted my computer after a couple of days and now... well logging in is not working anymore. As far as I've been able to judge it's not due to the client (both evolution and thunderbird fails) and it doesn't work with or without SSL, it is possible to reach the server with telnet (on port 993, and on port 143, normal IMAP, the server identifies and would probably, if I knew IMAP protocol, talk to me perfectly nice... until i gave it the wrong password...)
I think I managed to fuck the imap up with the same etc/hosts hack as I described before... question is, how do i get back on track? #:-S
