Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1998 01:32:09 +0000 (GMT) From: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> To: nick.hibma@jrc.it Cc: matthew@netsol.net, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Imap4 Message-ID: <199808260132.SAA29380@usr04.primenet.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.GSO.3.95q.980825094938.394d-100000@elect8> from "Nick Hibma" at Aug 25, 98 09:51:27 am
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> > Can anyone tell me what imap4 is? i found it in 2.2.7 inetd.conf. > > Mail server. It is built around the idea that you do not pull down all > the mail to your system but keep it on the mail server. In that way you > can read mail from several locations without logging in to various > machines. It is also built with slow links in mind. So an IMAP > connection is very useable on a 28k8 modem if you decide to just quickly > browse the subjects. Sorting and deleting is all done on the server not > on the client. The wire protocol is similar to LISP: lots of silly parenthesis. There is also the issue that it is impossible to implement an IMAP client/server automaton using YACC/LEX and/or LALR parser technology because of this (it wants stack-based parsing), without providing a seperate start-state-stack, at a minimum (I have created grammars for IMAP4 servers and clients, so I have some experience here; not happy experience, but the code works...). The primary idea is that the server stores the messages on behalf of the client. This allows for diskless/dataless clients, like palm-pilots, digital cellular phones, JAVA-Phone's, and NC's, to manage mail. It also means that the client machine you use is less important than your credentials, since it tracks against credentials. Many ISPs dislike IMAP4 because it takes a lot of storage, and only gives back increased modem usage and wire traffic in return for the extra storage it consumes -- wait a minute, I get why they don't like it... ;-). One of the most annoying this is that, without a full IMSP implementation, of which there is not one of, there is no provision for fanning out envelope information into sub-mailboxes (which would make IMAP4 useful for virtual domain hosting, where POP3 fails to retain envelope information because of a stupid agrument between Eric Allman and Eric Raymond about "who is the MTA"), nor is there provision for client specification of server side filtering rules (which would make it otherwise more useful than POP3). Basically, it's an interesting "also ran" that won't displace POP3 any time soon until its flaws are noted and corrected. But it's a nice marketing bullet-item, if you're into that sort of thing... Terry Lambert terry@lambert.org --- Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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