Re: isync plus dovecot?

[Rainer@krugs.de (Rainer M. Krug)]

Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net> writes:

> Dan Christensen <jdc@uwo.ca> writes:
>
>> Eric Abrahamsen <eric@ericabrahamsen.net> writes:
>>
>>> I'm finally trying to ditch nnml for mail reading, and move to imap.
>>> Offlineimap plus dovecot seems to be a popular solution (I am offline a
>>> lot), but I also saw a lot of complaints about offlineimap, and the
>>> suggestion of isync/mbsync as a replacement.
>>
>> I've used offlineimap for a couple of years, and I find it works well.
>> I've posted on the offlineimap list a way to get it to sync some of
>> the Gnus specific flags, like gnus-expire.  If you can't find the
>> message, let me know and I'll dig it up.
>>
>>> Specifically, you tell offlineimap to deliver to dovecot with a line
>>> like:
>>>
>>> preauthtunnel = /usr/lib/dovecot/imap -o mail_location=maildir:$HOME/Maildir
>>>
>>> I can't find the equivalent command for mbsync.
>>
>> Nothing in my .offlineimaprc mentions dovecot, and I don't use a
>> preauthtunnel.  I just tell offlineimap to connect to an IMAP server
>> at 127.0.0.1 and to another IMAP server at a certain host name.
>>
>>> Is it enough just to have mbsync dump to a Maildir directly, and then
>>> tell gnus to access that maildir via dovecot?
>>
>> That might work too, but I decided to let dovecot be in charge of the
>> Maildir directory, and make both Gnus and offlineimap interact with that
>> directory via the IMAP protocol.  My method of syncing the non-standard
>> flags relies on this.
>>
>> I'm also curious to hear about alternatives to offlineimap, so I hope
>> some people reply with their experience.
>
> Ugh, clearly I just don't know enough about how this all actually works
> to make an informed decision. I don't even really get what letting
> dovecot "be in charge of the Maildir directory" really means. And if the
> other Eric is able to use the native Gnus agent and it works fine
> offline, why is everyone jumping through all these hoops?

preauthtunnel simply means (from my ignorant understanding of dovecot et
al) that you don't have to supply a password to connect to the local
imap server, but that you (the user) use dovecot (imap) directly to
access you maildir. It is *still* via docecot and even Erics setup
should work with the usage of the preauth tunnel instead of localhost. 

Direct Maildir access is a different story.

Rainer

>
> Maybe I'll just spend some time with google until I actually understand
> what's happening...
>
> Thanks,
> Eric
>
> PS I'm also using gmail. Actually I have four addresses, all of them
> google, three of them google apps domains. Yeesh
>
>
>