SUMMARY: IMAP between Netscape s/w

From: Jochen Bern (bern@penthesilea.uni-trier.de)
Date: Mon Mar 08 1999 - 13:11:37 CST


Well, I didn't get around to try the suggested solutions yet (server in
question developed a hardware problem in the meantime), so I wanted to
summarize ahead of having it fixed so as not to leave loose ends
around for too long.

Short short summary of question: Solaris box running Netscape Messaging
Server, notably with SSL-ized IMAP service, at one site, user accessing
it with Netscape Communicator (via SIMAP) from three different sites;
One site (mine) initially not Win-based, Communicator failed to retrieve
new emails until we switched the user to Win, then fails to pick up
new (server side, which is the point why we selected IMAP in the first
place) subfolders.

Short short summary of replies: 2 suggestions for the existing setup
(see below), 3 suggestions to switch to another (ditto); NO me-too, NO
we-use-that-but-don't-have-that-problem. I'm somehow under the impression
that people running such a setup are pretty rare in the first place. :-}

The suggested different mechanisms:
a) One of the free (ad-supported) email-via-web-browser accounts.
   (I like!! >:-> But alas, we're talking about a ~400 MB mail archive
   here, the *one* spec sheet about such a service that I could locate
   mentioned a 5 MB limit.)
b) Use NFS to have him have inbox and archives everywhere.
   (Not an option with Win boxes where "we should avoid further expenses
   to equip Win boxes with X server software" :-/ *and* "quite WAN"
   connections *and* one point of switching away from the original
   solution (OpenWin mailtool over X11) being that he receives both Win
   world and Unix world email attachments, thus having to run "MUAs"
   in both worlds alternatively to have helpers able to deal with the
   respective attachments available to the "MUA".)
c) Novell GroupWise Mail.
   (I contacted the local Win expert, he's working on some switchover
   to Novell for the site that hosts the server, but it's not going
   to happen soon.)

Suggestions for the Netscape setup:

[Eric Sobalvarro]
> FYI:
> Messenger IMAP is vulnerable you should update to 3.6 asap.

(Yie. :-{ )

[Tony Chandler]
> The problem you have sounds remarkably like you have the old imap out
> of sync on the client issue, with Netscape Communicator this is easily fixed
> by removing the imapmail folder on the pc client located under the user tree,
> and ns_imap on the unix client. These 2 folders contain the cached headers
> of the messages held on the server, and the bodies if the client has been
> taken into an offline mode.

(I mentioned that I had cleaned out the Netscape *cache* directory
trying to fix things, but though I knew about ns_imap, I totally forgot
about it. :-{ )

> Now the sub-folders issue, I get round this be doing a search for a
> silly sender address, like xxxxxx@xxxxxxxx.xxx under search messages using
> the server as the top level, but this will only work for the top two levels,
> if there are sub-folders of sub-folders, you have to visit/view the
> sub-folder parent first before the sub-folder will be visible.

(Will try that ASAP. Deeply nested directories are luckily rare here.)

> The only other problem I've seen is with the permissions off the
> files on the server spool area. Make sure they are all the same, I've moved
> users from one drive to another, and if careful attention to file
> owner/permissions is not taken the user can't see their email anymore.

(No move, no disk change, everything as initialized and maintained
by NMS in my case.)

> By the way, if you get funny IMAP mail issues, normally these can be
> fixed by removing the IMAP cache folder from the client, a pain, but does
> invariably work.

Thanks to:
Mark Hargrave <hargrme@wisdom.maf.nasa.gov>
Eric Sobalvarro <eric@razorjack.com>
Leif Ericksen <leif@imho.net>
Dennis Russell <Dennis_Russell@epa.state.il.us>
Tony Chandler <Tony.Chandler@xilinx.com>

Regards,
                                                                J. Bern

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