[plug] [OT] Local-user IMAP

[Craig Ringer]

Cameron Patrick wrote:
> 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).

Agreed. NFI. I can't imagine how that could refer to cyrus.

> 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.

Indeed. Much as I like Cyrus, it doesn't sound like it's at all well 
suited to the things you want it to do.

>> - 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

Surely mutt should also hold the connection open and re-use it, so it 
doesn't need to authenticate again anyway?

--
Craig Ringer