Subject: adding a namespace for spam

From: Ralf Utermann <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2004 15:40:46 +0200

Hello,

we currently test a mail system doing spam detection before
delivery. Spam, which has been detected, as well as training
mailboxes for good and spam, should be located in a separate
directory (per user) on the server, not in the users home directory (because
the spam training program has no access to the Homes).

Could this be implemented with a separate namespace? Any hints
about how to do this?

Another possibility would be to trigger the imapd to run the
spam training on specific mailboxes in the normal namespace;
the the spam classifier would run with iampd's (that is the
users) credentials and could access the Homes.
Would be nice, because we wouldn't need a cron job testing for
new training stuff and the spam detection database would be immediately
up to date for the users.

For testing purposes I work with a separate imapd on a
different port, with a changed mymailboxdir and SUBSCRIPTIONFILE

For production I would prefer to have the 'spam system' mailboxes
within the normal imap account, so people don't need to login
to two accounts.

Any comments or ideas?
Thanks, Ralf
-- 
         Ralf Utermann
_____________________________________________________________________
         Universität Augsburg, Institut für Physik   --   EDV-Betreuer
         Universitätsstr.1
         D-86135 Augsburg                     Phone:  +49-821-598-3231
         SMTP: [email-masked]         Fax: -3411
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From: Mark Crispin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2004 17:37:20 -0700 (Pacific Daylight Time)

> Could this be implemented with a separate namespace? Any hints

I don't think that there's much point in having a separate namespace as 
opposed to just creating a mailbox (or a directory of mailboxes) named 
"spam" or "junk" to deposit the spam.

Some clients handle namespaces poorly, so a simple mailbox or directory is 
probably a better place for the spam...

-- Mark --

http://staff.washington.edu/mrc
Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate.
Si vis pacem, para bellum.

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From: Ralf Utermann <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 10:19:20 +0200

Mark Crispin wrote:
> Some clients handle namespaces poorly, so a simple mailbox or directory 
> is probably a better place for the spam...
Mark, thanks for the quick response.
I would also prefer the simple way -- my problem is that the users' homes
live in a filesystem with ticket based access (DCE/DFS) where the spam
tool has no access. Currently I handle this by running a patched imapd
on a separate port, and this one uses a standard Unix filesystem to
store the mailboxes.
However there are several minor problems with this solution:
- from our webmail gateway, which is just out-of-the box squirrelmail, one
   can not have concurrent access to two accounts, so I cannot train the
   spam database from this client.
- even in a normal imap client it would be easier to handle everything
   within one account
- needed quite some patches to make imapd listen on a separate ssl port,
   run with a different name than "imaps", change mymailboxdir() and 
SUBSCRIPTIONFILE

You say, namespaces are not a good solution. Would it possible to
hardcode a special name for a directory into imapd, so that everything
starting with 'spamctl' would not map to file in the standard home, but
a different directory on a local filesystem?

Thanks, Ralf

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From: Rich Graves <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2004 09:37:11 -0400 (EDT)

On Fri, 22 Oct 2004, Ralf Utermann wrote:

> tool has no access.

You might be able to work around that with something like 
http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~help/afs/authenticating_daemons.html

> a different directory on a local filesystem?

Sure. Look how the special name "INBOX" is handled in env_unix.c.

I've been looking at doing something similar to map "Sent" and "Sent Items"
to "sent-mail" (it's annoying how different programs have different 
defaults, and no one follows our directions to change them) but never 
actually put it in place.
-- 
Rich Graves <[email-masked]>
UNet Systems Administrator

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From: Ralf Utermann <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2004 15:45:26 +0200

> http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~help/afs/authenticating_daemons.html
Looks interesting, but rebuilding this infrastructure for our DCE/DFS
on AIX which is to be discontinued ...
[...]
> actually put it in place.
Played around with this and basically this works, but how can the
imap clients see the contents of this directory for subscribe operations?
I can create mailboxes wich live in a separate directory, but how
can I add this directory, so it's contents get listed for 
subscribe/unsubsribe?

Thanks, Ralf