Subject: Shared Folders and UW IMAP

From: Sean S Coleman <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2001 18:41:36 -0600 (MDT)

I am in the process of evaluating shared folders under UW IMAP and am
having some difficulties. I need to find out if the behavior I am
experiencing is as expected or I am doing something wrong.

I created a user on the IMAP server called imapshared and gave it a
home directory and a public mail folder with permissions set so all could
read the messages. Before continuing, let me state that I realize that
this stuff is very dependent on the mail client but I just want to make
sure I understand what is happening.

I can't get any of the common mail clients, ie Outlook, Eudora 5.1 or 
Netscape messenger to see the shared folder under the imapshared
directory. If I look at the output of tcpflow when I tell these clients
to get the folder list, the IMAP server only returns the folders under
that users home directory. 

In order to see the shared folder, I have to set in the properties either
#shared (Eudora) or ~imapdshared in Outlook Express to see the shared
folder. This causes the client to fail to see the inbox for the actual
user. It appears that what I have to do is create a seperate account or
personality where I can specify #shared so I can both see the shared
folder and my Inbox. Is this exactly the case or am I missing something?
For Netscape, you can't create a second account so you can specify a
different root directory for the shared folders. How do you deal with this
situation?

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From: Mark Crispin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2001 17:52:33 -0700 (PDT)

On Thu, 26 Apr 2001 18:41:36 -0600 (MDT), Sean S Coleman wrote:
> directory.

I'm surprised to hear this, because I had heard that Netscape insisted upon
showing namespaces even when you didn't want it to do so.

In any case, namespace support is a client issue, and you should bring up the
issue with the vendor(s) of your client of choice.

I suspect that future versions of Outlook will support namespaces, because
Microsoft was one of the instigators of the NAMESPACE extension.

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From: Rich Graves <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2001 21:00:50 -0400 (EDT)

> Netscape messenger to see the shared folder under the imapshared

All the common clients suck. Mulberry reportedly works.

I have never gotten Eudora or OE to work, but this _usually_ works with
Netscape:

File/Subscribe
Create folder #shared/blahblah/nada

That usually jolts Netscape enough to realize that there's a #shared/
namespace available. Then you can subscribe to the folders you want and
delete the "nada" folder.

I've heard reports that Netscape on the Mac sometimes decides that shared
folders don't exist and unsubscribes them.

You might find it easier to write a script to cat the folder you want onto
~user/.mailboxlist
-- 
Rich Graves <[email-masked]>
UNet Systems Administrator

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From: Sven Carstens <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2001 11:49:58 +0200 (MEST)

> sure I understand what is happening.

We implement shared folders in a completely namespace independend way.
- users mail dir is ~/Mail
- inside there is a symlink to the shared folders
- the access rights are managed via the group
- watch the rights you're giving away!

Only drawback so far:
- Microsoft OE sometimes kicks the users out of a selected box if another user
  is opening it.
- Microsoft OE is piece of crap for imap
- namespaces would be much better

CU Sven