Date: Mon, 16 Feb 1998 09:32:49 -0500 (EST) From: Robert Watson <robert@cyrus.watson.org> To: Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au> Cc: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Mailreader with "multiple personalities"? Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.3.96.980216092120.703B-100000@trojanhorse.pr.watson.org> In-Reply-To: <199802161226.EAA06224@dingo.cdrom.com>
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On Mon, 16 Feb 1998, Mike Smith wrote: > The situation is such that I wish to manage the bulk of my mail from a > single login on a single system, mostly for portability (being a > laptop) and centralisation. > > However, I have a number of different contact addresses, and want to > retain the individuality of these, ie. mail to one should be answered > as thought it had come from that one, rather than having everything > effectively forwarded to a single mailbox. > > To aid in this process, I obviously need tools that understand the > situation. I'd prefer not to go for the multiple-login approach, as > that makes it difficult to simultaneously watch multiple mailboxes as > well as requiring multiple copies of the reader. I have this problem -- the solution I ended up using was based on multiple-mailbox delivery through email address using the CMU Cyrus server. By setting ACLs appropriately on your mailboxes, you can allow incoming email to be delivered directly to the mailbox. Then by forwarding appropriately, it ends up in the right place. For example, I still have an account on my old High School's BSD/OS mail server, as I help them out with UNIX problems. The address there is rwatson@mail.net.sidwell.edu. My .forward file on that machine delivers to robert+sfs.inbox@cyrus.watson.org. At Carnegie Mellon, rnw@andrew.cmu.edu forwards to robert+cmu.inbox@cyrus.watson.org. I also subscribe various mailing lists to different mailboxes: FreeBSD Hackers is subscribed to robert+freebsd.hackers@cyrus.watson.org, etc. With multiple mailing list subscriptions, this can be a real boon! Also, if there is cross-posting to multiple mailing lists, this delivers once copy to each mailbox rather than all to one, as programs like procmail can do. This way my back-archives of the mailing lists are pretty complete (Although I do tend to delete the subscribe requests :). I also have ACLs set so that other users on my IMAP server can read (but not modify) my mailing list archives. If they actually have an identity in my Kerberos realm, it retains read/answered state for each of them -- if they don't (I.e., come in using anonymous imap), it doesn't. Then all you need is a good Imap client. :) Which is actually the problem, in my view. I use Pine with multiple incoming folders -- I hit Tab, and it jumps to the next new message in this folder, or if there are none, scans ahead to the next incoming folder that has a new message. This is alright, but I'd rather have a more centralized view of the folders with a list of new and not new. I used Netscape's IMAP interface for a bit, but it was not for me :). The advantage to IMAP, of course, is that you can use these at the same time :). Cyrus locks at the message level, not folder level as the UWash IMAP server does. In fact, I believe UWash now runs Cyrus? Cyrus is currently a (broken) FreeBSD port due to TCL dependencies. I am told by the current maintainer of the server (tjs+@andrew.cmu.edu) that simply adding a flag to tell it where TCL is will fix things. TCL is needed only for an administrative interface, not for actual use of the server. On the other hand, most mail clients don't support IMAP ACLs just yet, so you do need the interface. :) A URL for further information is http://andrew2.andrew.cmu.edu. I have heard very impressive tales of 30,000 users having mail on a single Cyrus server machine, as the Cyrus server does not allow direct access to the mailfiles. It instead proposes a closed-machine as the mailstore. This leads to far better performance, as the file structure is optimized for mail use, not using a single file per user. Last I checked, each folder was a directory, each message had a file, and that there was also indexing information in a seperate file per folder (and subscription information, etc). Pine flies when it doesn't have to mmap the whole mailbox and then index it while you wait :). On the other hand, a smaller scale solution is to have procmail look forward keywords in your subscriptions, the To: field, etc, and auto-sort. I have not tried this, however. Robert N Watson Carnegie Mellon University http://www.cmu.edu/ SafePort Network Services http://www.safeport.com/ robert@fledge.watson.org http://www.watson.org/~robert/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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