[plug] [OT] Local-user IMAP

[Cameron Patrick]

James Devenish wrote:

>     <http://mutt.sourceforge.net/imap/>
>     1.2.1.3. Using a tunnel to your IMAP server
>         set tunnel="ssh -q mailhost /usr/libexec/imapd"
> 
> What caught my eye was the fact that I initially inferred that the
> /usr/libexec/imapd process was a method for a local UNIX user to
> access its own IMAP mailboxes on the localhost. However, I think my
> interpretation is wrong because I don't understand how this could work.

Your interpretation is correct, but I also can't see how this could
possibly work in the particular case of Cyrus (where the mail spools
aren't directly accessible to the users that own them).

Do you /really/ have to use Cyrus IMAP?  Using e.g. dovecot or
courier, I believe that you could achieve what you want trivially,
because they don't care if a local process starts screwing about with
the Maildirs directly.  I'm pretty sure that courier also supports
"shared" mailboxes which may be useful for what you want.

>  - Can anyone guess what the mutt webpage is trying to demonstrate?

It's called "pre-authenticated IMAP" or some such.  In most non-Cyrus
Unixy IMAP servers, mailboxes are usually stored as Maildirs or mboxes
in a user's home directory; the IMAP servers su:s to the appropriate
user when it has authenticated the client, and accesses the mailboxes.
Thus anything that the IMAP server can do, a programme running as the
user who owns the mailboxes can do.  The guts of the IMAP server can
also be used for this purpose so that a programme can speak IMAP down
a pipe and get to the mail like that.

Sorry, that was a lousy explanation but I figure you're a bright chap
and should be able to work out what I'm going on about :-)

>  - When using mutt to shuffle mail between IMAP mailboxes belonging
>    to a single user, it is necessary to "enter your password every time"
>    within a single mutt session?

No, it isn't -- mutt should remember the password.  /My/ mutt does.
Doesn't yours? :-P

Cameron.