Cannot write to write-only IMAP mailbox

Cannot write to write-only IMAP mailbox

[Nikolaus Rath]

Hello,

I reported this bug a while ago and there has been no reply at all. I
just wanted to bring the issue up again in case someone has some time
available now that he might be willing to spend on this:

On my IMAP server I have a group called "unrecognized-ham" that cannot
be read by anyone, but can be looked up and inserted to by anyone. As
the name suggests, mail in this folder is automatically analyzed to
correct mistakes made by a bayesian spam classifier.

Unfortunately it is not possible to access this group with gnus. When
I am in a different IMAP mailbox and try to copy a message with B c,
gnus complains that the group does not exist. Any attempt to create it
fails of course. Also I cannot see the group when using group apropos
and I cannot subscribe to it with U.

In Thunderbird, there is no problem at all. The group is visible and I
can copy messages into it.

The IMAP server is cyrus 2.2. The group has an acl with:

ebox:~# cyradm localhost
IMAP Password: 
ebox.rath.org> lam unrecognized-ham
sa-learn lrswid
anyone li
ebox.rath.org> 

My gnus version is
 - Gnus v5.11
 - GNU Emacs 22.1.1 (i486-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 2.12.9)
   of 2008-05-03 on terranova, modified by Ubuntu


Here is the debug output that I got from `imap-log' und `imap-debug'
when I start gnus and try to write into the mailbox (I have only
included the parts that I consider relevant since it was quite a long
log):

,----
| * OK ebox Cyrus IMAP4 v2.2.13-Debian-2.2.13-10 server ready
| 1 CAPABILITY
| * CAPABILITY IMAP4 IMAP4rev1 ACL QUOTA LITERAL+ MAILBOX-REFERRALS NAMESPACE UIDPLUS ID
NO_ATOMIC_RENAME UNSELECT CHILDREN MULTIAPPEND BINARY SORT THREAD=ORDEREDSUBJECT
THREAD=REFERENCES ANNOTATEMORE IDLE AUTH=PLAIN SASL-IR
| 1 OK Completed
| 2 LOGIN XXXXXXX
| 2 OK User logged in
| 3 LIST "" "*%"
| * LIST (\Noinferiors) "." "INBOX"
| * LIST [[removed some stuff]
| * LIST (\Noselect \HasChildren) "." "Shared"
| * LIST (\HasNoChildren) "." "Shared.unrecognized-ham"
| * LIST (\HasNoChildren) "." "Shared.unrecognized-spam"
| 3 OK Completed (0.000 secs 46 calls)
| [....]
| 
| 30 EXAMINE "Shared.unrecognized-spam"
| * FLAGS (\Answered \Flagged \Draft \Deleted \Seen)
| * OK [PERMANENTFLAGS ()]  
| * 0 EXISTS
| * 0 RECENT
| * OK [UIDVALIDITY 1202638985]  
| * OK [UIDNEXT 116]  
| 30 OK [READ-ONLY] Completed
| [....]
| 49 EXAMINE "Shared.unrecognized-ham"
| 49 NO Permission denied
| 50 LSUB "" "*%"
| * LSUB (\Noinferiors) "." "INBOX"
| [...]
| * LSUB (\Noselect \HasChildren) "." "Shared"
| * LSUB () "." "Shared.unrecognized-ham"
| * LSUB () "." "Shared.unrecognized-spam"
| [...]
| 50 OK Completed (0.010 secs 40 calls)
| 87 OK [READ-ONLY] Completed
| 88 EXAMINE "Shared.unrecognized-ham"
| 88 NO Permission denied
| 89 LOGOUT
| * BYE LOGOUT received
| 89 OK Completed
`----
   


If you need more debug information, I'll be happy to provide it.

Best,

   -Nikolaus

-- 
 »Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a Banana.«

  PGP fingerprint: 5B93 61F8 4EA2 E279 ABF6  02CF A9AD B7F8 AE4E 425C

Re: Cannot write to write-only IMAP mailbox

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Sat, 28 Mar 2009 23:59:49 -0400 Nikolaus Rath <Nikolaus@rath.org> wrote: 

NR> I reported this bug a while ago and there has been no reply at all. I
NR> just wanted to bring the issue up again in case someone has some time
NR> available now that he might be willing to spend on this:

NR> On my IMAP server I have a group called "unrecognized-ham" that cannot
NR> be read by anyone, but can be looked up and inserted to by anyone. As
NR> the name suggests, mail in this folder is automatically analyzed to
NR> correct mistakes made by a bayesian spam classifier.

NR> Unfortunately it is not possible to access this group with gnus. When
NR> I am in a different IMAP mailbox and try to copy a message with B c,
NR> gnus complains that the group does not exist. Any attempt to create it
NR> fails of course. Also I cannot see the group when using group apropos
NR> and I cannot subscribe to it with U.

NR> In Thunderbird, there is no problem at all. The group is visible and I
NR> can copy messages into it.

It seems the problem is here:

> 49 EXAMINE "Shared.unrecognized-ham"
> 49 NO Permission denied

So nnimap tried to look at the contents of the group before writing to
it.  This can probably be avoided for this special case, and is most
likely happening in imap-mailbox-select.  Could you provide the nnimap
logs (obtained similarly to the imap logs)?

Thanks
Ted

Re: Cannot write to write-only IMAP mailbox

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Thu, 11 Sep 2008 07:59:33 -0500 Ted Zlatanov <tzz@lifelogs.com> wrote: 

TZ> The best solution I can suggest is a "read-only" group/topic variable

s/read/write/, sorry.

Ted

Re: Cannot write to write-only IMAP mailbox

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Wed, 10 Sep 2008 18:56:16 -0400 Nikolaus Rath <Nikolaus@rath.org> wrote: 

NR> On my IMAP server I have a group called "unrecognized-ham" that cannot
NR> be read by anyone, but can be looked up and inserted to by anyone. As
NR> the name suggests, mail in this folder is automatically analyzed to
NR> correct mistakes made by a bayesian spam classifier.

NR> Unfortunately it is not possible to access this group with gnus. When
NR> I am in a different IMAP mailbox and try to copy a message with B c,
NR> gnus complains that the group does not exist. Any attempt to create it
NR> fails of course. Also I cannot see the group when using group apropos
NR> and I cannot subscribe to it with U.

NR> In Thunderbird, there is no problem at all. The group is visible and I
NR> can copy messages into it.

It seems that Gnus currently requires read access to a group in order to
use it, even just to copy messages into it.  That's probably a
limitation of the backend, since Gnus expects every backend to be able
to list its articles.  

The best solution I can suggest is a "read-only" group/topic variable
that can be auto-detected, and when it's set for a group the backend
will return empty article lists instead of trying to actually list the
articles.  This may break copying articles and other functions, though,
so it's not an easy fix.

I don't know if anyone is interested in doing this work.  It's a bit of
an edge case, though of course it's useful to those who need it.

Ted

Cannot write to write-only IMAP mailbox

[Nikolaus Rath]

Hello,

I reported this bug a while ago and there has been no reply at all. I
just wanted to bring the issue up again in case someone has some time
available now that he might be willing to spend on this:

On my IMAP server I have a group called "unrecognized-ham" that cannot
be read by anyone, but can be looked up and inserted to by anyone. As
the name suggests, mail in this folder is automatically analyzed to
correct mistakes made by a bayesian spam classifier.

Unfortunately it is not possible to access this group with gnus. When
I am in a different IMAP mailbox and try to copy a message with B c,
gnus complains that the group does not exist. Any attempt to create it
fails of course. Also I cannot see the group when using group apropos
and I cannot subscribe to it with U.

In Thunderbird, there is no problem at all. The group is visible and I
can copy messages into it.

The IMAP server is cyrus 2.2. The group has an acl with:

ebox:~# cyradm localhost
IMAP Password: 
ebox.rath.org> lam unrecognized-ham
sa-learn lrswid
anyone li
ebox.rath.org> 

My gnus version is
 - Gnus v5.11
 - GNU Emacs 22.1.1 (i486-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 2.12.9)
   of 2008-05-03 on terranova, modified by Ubuntu


Here is the debug output that I got from `imap-log' und `imap-debug'
when I start gnus and try to write into the mailbox (I have only
included the parts that I consider relevant since it was quite a long
log):

,----
| * OK ebox Cyrus IMAP4 v2.2.13-Debian-2.2.13-10 server ready
| 1 CAPABILITY
| * CAPABILITY IMAP4 IMAP4rev1 ACL QUOTA LITERAL+ MAILBOX-REFERRALS NAMESPACE UIDPLUS ID NO_ATOMIC_RENAME UNSELECT CHILDREN MULTIAPPEND BINARY SORT THREAD=ORDEREDSUBJECT THREAD=REFERENCES ANNOTATEMORE IDLE AUTH=PLAIN SASL-IR
| 1 OK Completed
| 2 LOGIN XXXXXXX
| 2 OK User logged in
| 3 LIST "" "*%"
| * LIST (\Noinferiors) "." "INBOX"
| * LIST [[removed some stuff]
| * LIST (\Noselect \HasChildren) "." "Shared"
| * LIST (\HasNoChildren) "." "Shared.unrecognized-ham"
| * LIST (\HasNoChildren) "." "Shared.unrecognized-spam"
| 3 OK Completed (0.000 secs 46 calls)
| [....]
| 
| 30 EXAMINE "Shared.unrecognized-spam"
| * FLAGS (\Answered \Flagged \Draft \Deleted \Seen)
| * OK [PERMANENTFLAGS ()]  
| * 0 EXISTS
| * 0 RECENT
| * OK [UIDVALIDITY 1202638985]  
| * OK [UIDNEXT 116]  
| 30 OK [READ-ONLY] Completed
| [....]
| 49 EXAMINE "Shared.unrecognized-ham"
| 49 NO Permission denied
| 50 LSUB "" "*%"
| * LSUB (\Noinferiors) "." "INBOX"
| [...]
| * LSUB (\Noselect \HasChildren) "." "Shared"
| * LSUB () "." "Shared.unrecognized-ham"
| * LSUB () "." "Shared.unrecognized-spam"
| [...]
| 50 OK Completed (0.010 secs 40 calls)
| 87 OK [READ-ONLY] Completed
| 88 EXAMINE "Shared.unrecognized-ham"
| 88 NO Permission denied
| 89 LOGOUT
| * BYE LOGOUT received
| 89 OK Completed
`----
   


If you need more debug information, I'll be happy to provide it.

Best,


   -Nikolaus

-- 
 »It is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority.
  By definition, there are already enough people to do that.«
                                                         -J.H. Hardy

  PGP fingerprint: 5B93 61F8 4EA2 E279 ABF6  02CF A9AD B7F8 AE4E 425C