Lars: You're hardest challenge yet

Lars: You're hardest challenge yet

[Wes Hardaker]

You know....

If I didn't want to fuss with all this nnimap and nnpop and nntp and
...

I might want to write a nngnus backend.  That way, I could leave a
running gnus, at work say, and have a remote gnus (ie, master/slave
doesn't work) communicate with it to transfer newsrc info and
articles...

he he he...  Lars?  todo list?  (evil smirk)

-- 
"Ninjas aren't dangerous.  They're more afraid of you than you are of them."

Re: Lars: You're hardest challenge yet

[Jason L Tibbitts III]

>>>>> "WH" == Wes Hardaker <wjhardaker@ucdavis.edu> writes:

WH> I might want to write a nngnus backend.  That way, I could leave a
WH> running gnus, at work say, and have a remote gnus (ie, master/slave
WH> doesn't work) communicate with it to transfer newsrc info and
WH> articles...

Oh, man.  I have to bounce around between machines often and currently
resort to remote display over a 28.8Kbps line so that I can get the few
extra goodies that running in X gives.  If I could run emacs locally but
still access my 300MB of mail in NNML directories on the file server I'd be
eternally grateful.

(I actually tried it over NFS once.  I don't recommend this for those who
find watching grass grow anything less than mildly exciting.)

 - J<

Re: Lars: You're hardest challenge yet

[Steinar Bang]

>>>>> Jason L Tibbitts III <tibbs@hpc.uh.edu>:

>>>>> "WH" == Wes Hardaker <wjhardaker@ucdavis.edu> writes:
WH> I might want to write a nngnus backend.  That way, I could leave a
WH> running gnus, at work say, and have a remote gnus (ie, master/slave
WH> doesn't work) communicate with it to transfer newsrc info and
WH> articles...

> Oh, man.  I have to bounce around between machines often and currently
> resort to remote display over a 28.8Kbps line so that I can get the few
> extra goodies that running in X gives.  If I could run emacs locally but
> still access my 300MB of mail in NNML directories on the file server I'd be
> eternally grateful.

Actually nnimap could offer most of this service, because you can read 
news over IMAP, giving you a centralized .newsrc (or equivalent).

Maybe we should go for a Gnus-based IMAP server...? Written in Common
Lisp? 

Re: Lars: You're hardest challenge yet

[Justin Sheehy]

Jason L Tibbitts III <tibbs@hpc.uh.edu> writes:

> If I could run emacs locally but still access my 300MB of mail in
> NNML directories on the file server I'd be eternally grateful.

I do this.  Right now, I access some of my mail via nnml on a remote
fileserver and some via nnimap.  The nnml speed is not fast but is
acceptable.  The nnimap speed is hard to judge fairly because
performance issues are taking an inevitable and correct back seat to
basic functionality and because nnimap at this point is doing a lot of
debugging which slows things down.

> (I actually tried it over NFS once.  I don't recommend this for those who
> find watching grass grow anything less than mildly exciting.)

However, it becomes somewhat more acceptable with AFS or DFS.

-- 
Justin Sheehy

In a cloud bones of steel.
  

Re: Lars: You're hardest challenge yet

[Wes Hardaker]

>>>>> On Tue, 29 Sep 1998 08:15:46 GMT, Kurt Swanson <ksw@dna.lth.se> said:

Kurt> What do you mean "master/slave doesn't work"?  It works
Kurt> perfectly fine for me.  I use it rarely though, preferring a
Kurt> remote display via X:

Nah...  Too slow.  Even over my 128k isdn line, I'd prefer to have a
locally running copy.  Too spoiled I guess...

And using a remote FS is too slow...  Plus, I want something like a
caching feature like the agent provides...

Actually, I'm probably going to switch to imap soon, but I don't like
th server's I've played with so far...

-- 
"Ninjas aren't dangerous.  They're more afraid of you than you are of them."

Offline and IMAP (was: Re: Lars: You're hardest challenge yet)

[Mikael MC Cardell]

wjhardaker@ucdavis.edu (Wes Hardaker) writes:

> Nah...  Too slow.  Even over my 128k isdn line, I'd prefer to have a
> locally running copy.  Too spoiled I guess...
> 
> And using a remote FS is too slow...  Plus, I want something like a
> caching feature like the agent provides...

Same thing here. In fact, I don't even like the overhead of PPP, so I
tend to just use Kermit from my home SPARC and browse through what I
want to respond to offline. Then I save a bunch of messages as BABYL
files and read it all in an nndoc group in my local Gnus.

I have severly twisted message.el so it delivers outgoing mail to a
special file which I later upload and run. It's a shell script,
really, that delivers all my replies, which are buried inside it.

> Actually, I'm probably going to switch to imap soon, but I don't like
> th server's I've played with so far...

Neither do I. When I started hacking some on nnimap, I constantly ran
my head into the UofW IMAP server. Gaaah! I had a look at the Cyrus
server ages ago, but people tell me it's better now. Perhaps I'll have
another look.

I've had plans of writing my own IMAP server a long time now. I've
been thinking about things such as a IMAP frontend for INN or
something. Anyone want to help out?

-- 
RFC 822: MC <mc@hack.org>
RFC 1738/2396: <URL:http://www.hack.org/>
GSM: +46 707 59 14 24
ICBM: ~58°23'53'' N, 15°34'50'' E

Re: Offline and IMAP (was: Re: Lars: You're hardest challenge yet)

[Wes Hardaker]

>>>>> On 01 Oct 1998 21:36:36 +0200, Mikael MC Cardell <mc@hack.org> said:

>> Actually, I'm probably going to switch to imap soon, but I don't like
>> th server's I've played with so far...

Mikael> Neither do I. When I started hacking some on nnimap, I
Mikael> constantly ran my head into the UofW IMAP server. Gaaah! I had
Mikael> a look at the Cyrus server ages ago, but people tell me it's
Mikael> better now. Perhaps I'll have another look.

The biggest problem is configuration.  My ideal case would be a imap
server that allows me to specify the location in which I want to place 
folders.  The UofW software opens every file in your home directory
looking for folders?  That's the impression I got by trying to run it
once and finally hitting C-g 10 minutes later.  Running it against a
fake user on my linux box with nothing in it's home directory is much
better...

>From my glances at the Cyrus software, it didn't have this option
either (and since it was designed for use on systems where the users
didn't have log-in shells, I'm assume it does something equally as
stupid).

Actually, I want procmail to deliver mail into my imap folders, but I
think this is a pipe-dream at this point...  sigh...

Mikael> I've had plans of writing my own IMAP server a long time
Mikael> now. I've been thinking about things such as a IMAP frontend
Mikael> for INN or something. Anyone want to help out?

I'd love to, but I'm swamped with more projects than I can even count...

-- 
"Ninjas aren't dangerous.  They're more afraid of you than you are of them."

Re: Offline and IMAP (was: Re: Lars: You're hardest challenge yet)

[C. R. Oldham]

Wes Hardaker wrote:

>
> Actually, I want procmail to deliver mail into my imap folders, but I
> think this is a pipe-dream at this point...  sigh...
>

I do this.  There's a program called 'dmail' included with the UW imap-utils
distribution that was designed to be called from procmail.  It returns the
appropriate error codes to procmail to indicate delivery failures, etc.

Here's my recipe for the ding list:

:0    # The ding list
* ^TOding@gnus.org
| /usr/local/bin/dmail +Mail/!inbox.ding # will go to !inbox.ding

I think dmail does not allow delivery to nonexistent folders, though.  You have
to create the folder first.

--
| Charles R. (C. R.) Oldham     | NCA Commission on Schools        |
| cro@nca.asu.edu               | Arizona St. Univ., PO Box 873011,|
| V:602/965-8700 F:602/965-9423 | Tempe, AZ 85287-3011           _ |
| "I like it!"--Citizen G'Kar   | #include <disclaimer.h>       X_>|

Re: Offline and IMAP (was: Re: Lars: You're hardest challenge yet)

[Wes Hardaker]

>>>>> On Thu, 01 Oct 1998 15:43:40 -0700, "C. R. Oldham" <cro@nca.asu.edu> said:

>> Actually, I want procmail to deliver mail into my imap folders, but I
>> think this is a pipe-dream at this point...  sigh...

C> I do this.  There's a program called 'dmail' included with the UW
C> imap-utils distribution that was designed to be called from
C> procmail.  It returns the appropriate error codes to procmail to
C> indicate delivery failures, etc.

thank you thank you thank you!!!

I'll go grab it...

You know, the uwash stuff is amazingly bad at configuration...  The
fact that you have to *edit the C code* to change defaults, is simply
astoundingly bad...

-- 
"Ninjas aren't dangerous.  They're more afraid of you than you are of them."

Re: Offline and IMAP (was: Re: Lars: You're hardest challenge yet)

[mdorman-ding]

Wes Hardaker <wjhardaker@ucdavis.edu> writes:
> You know, the uwash stuff is amazingly bad at configuration...  The
> fact that you have to *edit the C code* to change defaults, is simply
> astoundingly bad...

Actually, with late-model versions of the UW imapd, you can create a
~/.imapdrc (or is it .imapd.conf?  I don't remember) that the imapd
will read for configuration.  In it you can specify stuff like where
your folders are, etc.  I suspect you could get it to do what you want
this way.

The caveat is that it's not well documented---no man page, just a
sample file in the source distribution.

Mind you, I've not used it, I'm not a UW imapd expert, etc.  But I
think with a little skull sweat you could get what you want.

Mike.

Re: Offline and IMAP (was: Re: Lars: You're hardest challenge yet)

[Justin Sheehy]

"C. R. Oldham" <cro@nca.asu.edu> writes:

> There's a program called 'dmail' included with the UW imap-utils
> distribution that was designed to be called from procmail.

Do you know if dmail works against the Cyrus server?

-Justin

Re: Offline and IMAP (was: Re: Lars: You're hardest challenge yet)

[Justin Sheehy]

Mikael MC Cardell <mc@hack.org> writes:

> Neither do I. When I started hacking some on nnimap, I constantly ran
> my head into the UofW IMAP server. Gaaah! I had a look at the Cyrus
> server ages ago, but people tell me it's better now. Perhaps I'll have
> another look.

The Cyrus server at this point is pretty good, and the development
people are fairly responsive.

-Justin

Re: Offline and IMAP (was: Re: Lars: You're hardest challenge yet)

[Justin Sheehy]

Wes Hardaker <wjhardaker@ucdavis.edu> writes:

> The UofW software opens every file in your home directory looking
> for folders?

Yep.  Serious bogusness.

> From my glances at the Cyrus software, it didn't have this option
> either (and since it was designed for use on systems where the users
> didn't have log-in shells, I'm assume it does something equally as
> stupid).

Well, not exactly.  The concept in Cyrus is that the IMAP store is not
meant to be seen by anyone but the IMAP server.  It doesn't matter if
you have a shell on the machine or not.  The only useful way to access
IMAP data is through the server.

It stores all data in its own space, not touching or caring about your
home directory.  As it should be.

-- 
Justin Sheehy

In a cloud bones of steel.
  

Re: Offline and IMAP (was: Re: Lars: You're hardest challenge yet)

[Steinar Bang]

>>>>> Justin Sheehy <justin@linus.mitre.org>:

> It stores all data in its own space, not touching or caring about
> your home directory.  As it should be.

But UoW has the advantage of letting people use procmail to put stuff
in different mbox (or other format) folders.

Re: Offline and IMAP (was: Re: Lars: You're hardest challenge yet)

[Wes Hardaker]

>>>>> On 02 Oct 1998 07:48:21 -0400, mdorman-ding@debian.org said:

mdorman-ding> Actually, with late-model versions of the UW imapd, you
mdorman-ding> can create a ~/.imapdrc (or is it .imapd.conf?

Right, which it tells you not to ever ever use (yeah right).

mdorman-ding> The caveat is that it's not well documented---no man
mdorman-ding> page, just a sample file in the source distribution.

And in there when it documents the folder location (in 4.2 at least),
it is a global setting that can only be set in the /etc/imapdrc file
and will be ignored in personal ~/.imapdrc files...

-- 
"Ninjas aren't dangerous.  They're more afraid of you than you are of them."

Re: Offline and IMAP (was: Re: Lars: You're hardest challenge yet)

[Simon Josefsson]

Steinar Bang <sb@metis.no> writes:

> > It stores all data in its own space, not touching or caring about
> > your home directory.  As it should be.
> 
> But UoW has the advantage of letting people use procmail to put stuff
> in different mbox (or other format) folders.

With Cyrus IMAPD you can mail user+gnus@foo.com and have the mail be
delivered to the INBOX.gnus mailbox directly.

/s

Re: Offline and IMAP

[Jochen_Hayek]

>>>>> "CRO" == C R Oldham <cro@nca.asu.edu> writes:

    CRO> Wes Hardaker wrote:
    >> 
    >> Actually, I want procmail to deliver mail into my imap folders, but I
    >> think this is a pipe-dream at this point...  sigh...
    >> 

    CRO> I do this.

Lucky you.

But not in all places you are free to install / use programs
on the site, where your IMAP folders are.

.

Re: Offline and IMAP

[Jochen_Hayek]

>>>>> "JS" == Justin Sheehy <justin@linus.mitre.org> writes:

    JS> Wes Hardaker <wjhardaker@ucdavis.edu> writes:
    >> The UofW software opens every file in your home directory looking
    >> for folders?

    JS> Yep.  Serious bogusness.

As I stated in another follow up in this thread,
it's not *in* but *under* your home directory.
And you decide where this is,
e.g. in $HOME/iMail ...

Not that the UWASH would remember that later,
but it's just dealing with any home directory relative file names.
And that's not a problem, if you re-think that issue, right?
.

Re: Offline and IMAP

[Jochen_Hayek]

>>>>> "WH" == Wes Hardaker <wjhardaker@ucdavis.edu> writes:

>>>>> On 01 Oct 1998 21:36:36 +0200, Mikael MC Cardell <mc@hack.org> said:

    WH> My ideal case would be a imap server that allows me to specify
    WH> the location in which I want to place folders.

I don't want to seduce you to use something else than emacs/gnus,
but your view on IMAP might be different,
if you use Netscape Collabra or MS Outlook just a single time,
to operate on *any* IMAP server.

    WH> The UofW software opens every file in your home directory
    WH> looking for folders?

Not *in* but *under*,
exactly speaking the IMAP RFC deals with even *hierarchical* folders.
so basically e.g. in Netscape Collabra, you (can) specify a subdirectory
(e.g. iMail (note the difference!!!)),
that carries your mail folders.

Even nnimap (and any other tool, I think) allows / expects that subdirectory.

In the case of the UWASH thing, all folders besides from the INBOX
are (as you found) under your home directory, resp. in a subdir thereof.
But AFAIK there is no user accessable option to enforce that.
Further on that facility `user+emacs.ding@mail.address'
would even be quite risky for it (only for UWASH???),
because the (trustworthy) sender of a message decides into which mail folder
a message goes.

    WH> That's the impression I got by trying to run it
    WH> once and finally hitting C-g 10 minutes later.

That's just nnimap -- for whatever reason ...

Other tools access remote IMAP folder much faster.

    WH> Actually, I want procmail to deliver mail into my imap folders,
    WH> but I think this is a pipe-dream at this point...  sigh...

That's exactly where I also started -- but only `wishwise'.
My IMAP+web space provider does not support procmail for the cheap accounts,
as I have one.
So I was stuck.

But then I wrote a utility in python
doing something comparable to procmail,
i.e. moving messages but *on* the IMAP server from one folder to other folders
depending on an expression (using functions etc.).

I find it quite readable,
and I announced it on the fetchmail list,
because it borrows code&concept from {fetchmail,fetchmailconf},
the latter one also being written in python.
But without much response.

Oh, my utility sends the user's password unencrypted,
because it's too hard to do Kerberos under `python circumstances'.
.

Re: Offline and IMAP

[Mark Moll]

On Wed, 7 Oct 1998 Jochen_Hayek@ACM.org wrote:
> >>>>> "CRO" == C R Oldham <cro@nca.asu.edu> writes:
> 
>     CRO> Wes Hardaker wrote:
>     >> 
>     >> Actually, I want procmail to deliver mail into my imap folders, but I
>     >> think this is a pipe-dream at this point...  sigh...
>     >> 
> 
>     CRO> I do this.
> 
> Lucky you.
> 
> But not in all places you are free to install / use programs
> on the site, where your IMAP folders are.

You could have your mail sent/forwarded to a non-IMAP server, where each
message upon arrival is piped through procmail. Procmail will then use
something like dmail to deliver to an IMAP folder. Here in the CS dept at
CMU there's a program called rdeliver which delivers a message to a folder
on a (Cyrus) IMAP server. This is not part of the Cyrus distribution, but
I guess this does the same thing as dmail.

-- 
Mark Moll

Re: Offline and IMAP

[Wes Hardaker]

>>>>> On Wed, 07 Oct 1998 15:58:36 GMT, Jochen_Hayek@ACM.org said:

>>>>> "WH" == Wes Hardaker <wjhardaker@ucdavis.edu> writes:

JH> I don't want to seduce you to use something else than emacs/gnus,
JH> but your view on IMAP might be different,

he he...

JH> if you use Netscape Collabra or MS Outlook just a single time, to
JH> operate on *any* IMAP server.

JH> Not *in* but *under*, exactly speaking the IMAP RFC deals with
JH> even *hierarchical* folders.  so basically e.g. in Netscape
JH> Collabra, you (can) specify a subdirectory (e.g. iMail (note the
JH> difference!!!)), that carries your mail folders.

Right....  I think the *default* value if not specified by the client
should be a sub directory which is reasonable.  Yes, I can force
gnus/imap to look in one place as well, you are right.

JH> In the case of the UWASH thing, all folders besides from the INBOX
JH> are (as you found) under your home directory, resp. in a subdir thereof.

Right...  And it opens everything in existence looking for mail.
Ick.

WH> That's the impression I got by trying to run it
WH> once and finally hitting C-g 10 minutes later.

JH> That's just nnimap -- for whatever reason ...

Yes and no.  I had *no* mail in an IMAP folder yet.  It was because
the imap server defaulted to looking in my home directory for mail
folders, and it probably found some tar files, etc..., instead.

Opening nnimap for a newly created user with no home directory was
very fast.

(and nnimap is definitely slow, you're right.  Thats on purpose, from
what I understand, for development purposes).

JH> Other tools access remote IMAP folder much faster.

Of course.  elisp is not exactly an ideal programming language for
speed ;-)

WH> Actually, I want procmail to deliver mail into my imap folders,
WH> but I think this is a pipe-dream at this point...  sigh...

JH> That's exactly where I also started -- but only `wishwise'.

I have it working now actually...

(not that I read my mail using IMAP yet...)

JH> Oh, my utility sends the user's password unencrypted,
JH> because it's too hard to do Kerberos under `python circumstances'.

I haven't gotten nnimap to do kerberos yet either...  It's supposed to 
work with "itest", but I haven't found (or looked for) it yet.

-- 
"Ninjas aren't dangerous.  They're more afraid of you than you are of them."

Re: Offline and IMAP

[Wes Hardaker]

>>>>> On Wed, 07 Oct 1998 15:57:50 GMT, Jochen_Hayek@ACM.org said:

>>>>> "JS" == Justin Sheehy <justin@linus.mitre.org> writes:

>>> The UofW software opens every file in your home directory looking
>>> for folders?

JS> Yep.  Serious bogusness.

JH> As I stated in another follow up in this thread, it's not *in* but
JH> *under* your home directory.

Which is *in* by default.
-- 
"Ninjas aren't dangerous.  They're more afraid of you than you are of them."

Re: Offline and IMAP

[Mark Moll]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: TEXT/PLAIN, Size: 618 bytes --]

Mark Moll <mmoll@cs.cmu.edu> writes:
> Here in the CS dept at CMU there's a program called rdeliver which
> delivers a message to a folder on a (Cyrus) IMAP server.

I turns out there are only two perl scripts needed for this. Attached
you'll find rdeliver.tgz, which contains:

   0 rdeliver/
   0 rdeliver/bin/
4956 rdeliver/bin/rdeliver
   0 rdeliver/etc/
3806 rdeliver/etc/rdeliverd
   0 rdeliver/man/
   0 rdeliver/man/man1/
1876 rdeliver/man/man1/rdeliver.1

I know nothing about perl, so these scripts might not be all that useful.
OTOH, it might not be that hard to tailor it for your IMAP server...

-- 
Mark

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