Syncing Gnus (was: mail group by author?)

[David Engster <deng@randomsample.de>]

Vegard Vesterheim <vegard.vesterheim@uninett.no> writes:
> I'm intrigued about the possibility for virtual folders in
> archiveopteryx, I hope to get a chance to try this soon.

Please let me know how this works out for you.

> I typically use several different computers, so I prefer a server-side
> solution. One of my biggest gripes about Gnus is that some
> meta-information (.newsrc.eld etc.) is stored on the client instead of
> the server. This means that the count of unread messages typically is
> wrong when I move from one computer to another.
>
> Yes, I know about solutions like this:
> http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/GnusSync

Maybe the following is helpful:

- Tramp:

In your .emacs set:

(require 'gnus-load)
(require 'message)
(setq gnus-startup-file "/scpx:login@server:.newsrc")
(setq message-directory "/scpx:login@server:Mail/")
(setq gnus-directory "/scpx:login@server:News/")

Disclaimer: I've only tested this very shortly, so I'm not sure if this
is working correctly.

To speed this up, set up a ssh master connection beforehand (e.g. do
"ssh -f -N -M login@server" in the shell and specify ControlMaster for
the host in your .ssh/config). Otherwise, it will not only be dead slow,
but might also raise some administrator's eyebrows.

One day there might even be IMAP storage in Tramp. :-)

- sshfs:

http://fuse.sourceforge.net/sshfs.html

Mount single directory using sshfs and again set gnus-startup-file,
message-directory and gnus-directory accordingly. Never tried this, but
I don't see why this shouldn't just work.

Needless to say, both these methods are slower than just using rsync,
which is why I prefer the latter.

-David