Synchronizing offlineimap maildir between several computers

Synchronizing offlineimap maildir between several computers

[Julien Cubizolles]

I'm using offlineimap to get Maildir copies of several IMAP accounts
from Gnus. I need to work from two different computers. At the moment,
I'm synchronizing the .gnus.el file between the 2 computers through
unison and relying on offlineimap running on the 2 computers to have the
Maildirs synchronized with the remote IMAP servers of my mail providers.

When I switch computers, I run unison, start Gnus which calls
offlineimap.el through a hook. It's basically working fine except that
until offlineimap has finished the synchronization, the .gnus.el data is
out of sync with the maildir so I get mostly starred groups.

I'm thinking about having Gnus call unison and offlineimap as
gnus-before-startup-hook but before I'm messing with it I'm curious
about what other solutions you have come up with.

Wilk.

Re: Synchronizing offlineimap maildir between several computers

[Eric Abrahamsen]

Julien Cubizolles <j.cubizolles@free.fr> writes:

> I'm using offlineimap to get Maildir copies of several IMAP accounts
> from Gnus. I need to work from two different computers. At the moment,
> I'm synchronizing the .gnus.el file between the 2 computers through
> unison and relying on offlineimap running on the 2 computers to have the
> Maildirs synchronized with the remote IMAP servers of my mail providers.
>
> When I switch computers, I run unison, start Gnus which calls
> offlineimap.el through a hook. It's basically working fine except that
> until offlineimap has finished the synchronization, the .gnus.el data is
> out of sync with the maildir so I get mostly starred groups.
>
> I'm thinking about having Gnus call unison and offlineimap as
> gnus-before-startup-hook but before I'm messing with it I'm curious
> about what other solutions you have come up with.

I run mbsync (the equivalent of your offlineimap) in the shell, and when
that's done I run Gnus :)

Re: Synchronizing offlineimap maildir between several computers

[Julien Cubizolles]

Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net> writes:

> I run mbsync (the equivalent of your offlineimap) in the shell, and when
> that's done I run Gnus :)

You're right, sometimes I should give Emacs a break and run some process
outside of it :-)

Julien.

Re: Synchronizing offlineimap maildir between several computers

[Wes Hardaker]

Julien Cubizolles <j.cubizolles@free.fr> writes:

> Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net> writes:
>
>> I run mbsync (the equivalent of your offlineimap) in the shell, and when
>> that's done I run Gnus :)
>
> You're right, sometimes I should give Emacs a break and run some process
> outside of it :-)

Nah, just in the background:

(global-set-key "\C-Cg" '(lambda () (interactive)
                           (async-shell-command "offlineimap.py")))

And that *is* in a separate process outside of it; just starting it from
the right init system!
-- 
Wes Hardaker                                     
My Pictures:       http://capturedonearth.com/
My Thoughts:       http://blog.capturedonearth.com/

Re: Synchronizing offlineimap maildir between several computers

[Julien Cubizolles]

Wes Hardaker <wes@hardakers.net> writes:

> Nah, just in the background:
>
> (global-set-key "\C-Cg" '(lambda () (interactive)
>                            (async-shell-command "offlineimap.py")))
>
> And that *is* in a separate process outside of it; just starting it from
> the right init system!

How do you cleanly kill offlineimap ?

Julien.

Re: Synchronizing offlineimap maildir between several computers

[Wes Hardaker]

Julien Cubizolles <j.cubizolles@free.fr> writes:

>> (global-set-key "\C-Cg" '(lambda () (interactive)
>>                            (async-shell-command "offlineimap.py")))
>>
>> And that *is* in a separate process outside of it; just starting it from
>> the right init system!
>
> How do you cleanly kill offlineimap ?

You don't to run it as a daemon.  IE, you can run a single invocation of
it to check the required imap folders and then quit. 
-- 
Wes Hardaker                                     
My Pictures:       http://capturedonearth.com/
My Thoughts:       http://blog.capturedonearth.com/

Re: Synchronizing offlineimap maildir between several computers

[Julien Cubizolles]

Wes Hardaker <wes@hardakers.net> writes:

> You don't to run it as a daemon.  IE, you can run a single invocation of
> it to check the required imap folders and then quit. 

Also, it turns out that C-c C-c seems to interrupt it nicely.

Regards,

Julien

Re: Synchronizing offlineimap maildir between several computers

[Nils Ackermann]

Julien Cubizolles <j.cubizolles@free.fr> writes:

> I'm using offlineimap to get Maildir copies of several IMAP accounts
> from Gnus. I need to work from two different computers. At the moment,
> I'm synchronizing the .gnus.el file between the 2 computers through
> unison and relying on offlineimap running on the 2 computers to have the
> Maildirs synchronized with the remote IMAP servers of my mail providers.

Last time I tried to do this I ran into problems because unison does not
correctly support hard links, but some features of maildir seem to use
them.

Regards,
Nils

Re: Synchronizing offlineimap maildir between several computers

[Julien Cubizolles]

Nils Ackermann <nils@ackermath.info> writes:

> Julien Cubizolles <j.cubizolles@free.fr> writes:
>
>> I'm using offlineimap to get Maildir copies of several IMAP accounts
>> from Gnus. I need to work from two different computers. At the moment,
>> I'm synchronizing the .gnus.el file between the 2 computers through
>> unison and relying on offlineimap running on the 2 computers to have the
>> Maildirs synchronized with the remote IMAP servers of my mail providers.
>
> Last time I tried to do this I ran into problems because unison does not
> correctly support hard links, but some features of maildir seem to use
> them.

I don't synchronize the maildir through unison, only the .gnus.el file
so I never ran into this problem so far.