Switching to IMAP

Switching to IMAP

[Chris D.Halverson]

I've been using nnml since the gurus at Gnus Towers brought it
forth. Now I'm starting to see a need for IMAP access for everything
(basically I'm consulting a bit more at customer sites and don't
always have access to ssh), by switching to IMAP, I can (*gasp*) use
other tools such as IMP (web based IMAP) to get my mail remotely.

I've got about 20 nnml groups that I'd like to have available to
nnimap. I'm looking over the manual and see that I should setup nnimap
as a secondary-select-method. I currently have:

(setq gnus-secondary-select-methods   '((nnml "")))

I'd like to use SSL for my local connection, openssl is already
installed and running as is my imaps server. I'm also using procmail
to split my mail and would like to continue to do so. I'm guessing
I'll just set it up to deliver to the "real" mailboxes instead of to
the spool files I am doing now assuming I want them available to
nnimap (or any other imap client). I also have the following vars set:

      nnmail-use-procmail t
      mail-source-delete-incoming t

I can't seem to find it, but currently my nnml groups expire after 7
days if marked w/ 'E', ie. I can go back and see "deleted" messages
which is very helpful at times. It doesn't appear that this is
possible w/ nnimap, correct?

Basically, I'm just looking for a little advice before I totally hork
up my mail :) I'm a little nervous, so some advice on switching would
be very helpful. Thanks much!

cdh

-- 
Chris D. Halverson                         Complete Internet Solutions
PGP mail accepted, finger for public key   http://www.CompleteIS.com/~cdh/

Re: Switching to IMAP

[Simon Josefsson]

"Chris D.Halverson" <cdh@CompleteIS.com> writes:

> I've got about 20 nnml groups that I'd like to have available to
> nnimap.

Um, do you mean you want to move them to nnimap groups?  nnimap is a
client, not a server.  This means you can't "export" existing nnml
groups via nnimap to other imap clients.

> I'm looking over the manual and see that I should setup nnimap
> as a secondary-select-method. I currently have:
> 
> (setq gnus-secondary-select-methods   '((nnml "")))
> 
> I'd like to use SSL for my local connection, openssl is already
> installed and running as is my imaps server. I'm also using procmail
> to split my mail and would like to continue to do so. I'm guessing
> I'll just set it up to deliver to the "real" mailboxes instead of to
> the spool files I am doing now assuming I want them available to
> nnimap (or any other imap client). I also have the following vars set:
> 
>       nnmail-use-procmail t
>       mail-source-delete-incoming t
> 
> I can't seem to find it, but currently my nnml groups expire after 7
> days if marked w/ 'E', ie. I can go back and see "deleted" messages
> which is very helpful at times. It doesn't appear that this is
> possible w/ nnimap, correct?

No, nnimap do expiring.

But I'm confused, do you want to access your mail remotely, via
(nn)imap or fetching the mail via IMAP to a local nnml spool?

If you want to access your mail remotely via (nn)imap, the variables
you mention are not used at all.  The variables only have semantics
only if the backend download mail locally to split them.  nnimap
access mail remotely (such as nntp), so any procmail-splitting would
have to take place on the server.  (Or with the nnimap splitter.)

Re: Switching to IMAP

[Chris D.Halverson]

Simon Josefsson <jas@pdc.kth.se> writes:

> "Chris D.Halverson" <cdh@CompleteIS.com> writes:
> 
> > I've got about 20 nnml groups that I'd like to have available to
> > nnimap.
> 
> Um, do you mean you want to move them to nnimap groups?  nnimap is a
> client, not a server.  This means you can't "export" existing nnml
> groups via nnimap to other imap clients.

No, I want to make them be "imap" groups. I'm guessing I can just 'B
m' them to a regular mail drops in my Mail/ directory. 

> But I'm confused, do you want to access your mail remotely, via
> (nn)imap or fetching the mail via IMAP to a local nnml spool?

I want to only access them via IMAP. nnml will be out of the picture
now. Basically, I want to use IMAP in order to use things like IMP to
get to _all_ my mail even if I can't run Gnus at that time.

> If you want to access your mail remotely via (nn)imap, the variables
> you mention are not used at all.  The variables only have semantics
> only if the backend download mail locally to split them.  nnimap
> access mail remotely (such as nntp), so any procmail-splitting would
> have to take place on the server.  (Or with the nnimap splitter.)

Yeah, I figured that. I will indeed be using procmail on the
server. I'm just making sure I don't screw something up :) I know how
IMAP works and how Gnus "works" and such. I'm just looking to see if
anybody had any "hints" on switching from nnml to nnimap.

Thanks!

cdh

-- 
Chris D. Halverson                         Complete Internet Solutions
PGP mail accepted, finger for public key   http://www.CompleteIS.com/~cdh/

Re: Switching to IMAP

[Kai Großjohann]

"Chris D.Halverson" <cdh@CompleteIS.com> writes:

> I can't seem to find it, but currently my nnml groups expire after 7
> days if marked w/ 'E', ie. I can go back and see "deleted" messages
> which is very helpful at times. It doesn't appear that this is
> possible w/ nnimap, correct?

This is not correct.  The `expirable' mark works fine with nnimap.  I
use it every day.

Potential problem: the `expirable' mark is specific to nnimap, and
other IMAP clients don't know about it.  Therefore, the other clients
won't do expiration (which isn't a problem, I guess).  I'm not sure
whether another IMAP client might remove the expirable mark because it
doesn't understand it -- I hope not.

The problem with `deleted' messages is different: there is an IMAP
message flag `\Deleted' which is used by other IMAP clients to mark
messages for deletion.  Later, they do an expunge operation which
deletes all the messages flagged `\Deleted'.  nnimap can't show any
messages flagged `\Deleted'.

The `\Deleted' flag has nothing to do with expiry, though.  That's a
different flag.

kai
-- 
Beware of flying birch trees.

Re: Switching to IMAP

[Hrvoje Niksic]

Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann) writes:

> The problem with `deleted' messages is different: there is an IMAP
> message flag `\Deleted' which is used by other IMAP clients to mark
> messages for deletion.  Later, they do an expunge operation which
> deletes all the messages flagged `\Deleted'.  nnimap can't show any
> messages flagged `\Deleted'.
> 
> The `\Deleted' flag has nothing to do with expiry, though.  That's a
> different flag.

I'm not convinced of that.  Isn't the "delete" flag equivalent to the
Gnus expiry concept, the latter being more generic?

Re: Switching to IMAP

[Chris D.Halverson]

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Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann) writes:

> "Chris D.Halverson" <cdh@CompleteIS.com> writes:
> 
> > I can't seem to find it, but currently my nnml groups expire after 7
> > days if marked w/ 'E', ie. I can go back and see "deleted" messages
> > which is very helpful at times. It doesn't appear that this is
> > possible w/ nnimap, correct?
> 
> This is not correct.  The `expirable' mark works fine with nnimap.  I
> use it every day.

Yep, you are correct :)

Thanks to a little hand holding from Arcady Genkin I was successfully
able to switch with little problem. There are some differences
(obviously) and some things that I think were semi-messed up due to
not closing Emacs between trying things, but once I did and once I
subscribed the the IMAP groups that I wanted, everything has been
great! The expiry works as I like and I'm able to see everything in
Gnus and other programs. This is good. There is, of course, the side
effect that all my messages show up in programs like IMP, even if
they're marked as Expirable, but I can definitely live with that as
long as I can still see them at all.

Thanks for all the help and hints! nnimap seems to work great for me.

cdh

-- 
Chris D. Halverson                         Complete Internet Solutions
PGP mail accepted, finger for public key   http://www.CompleteIS.com/~cdh/

Re: Switching to IMAP

[Justin Sheehy]

Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@iskon.hr> writes:

> > The `\Deleted' flag has nothing to do with expiry, though.  That's a
> > different flag.
> 
> I'm not convinced of that.  Isn't the "delete" flag equivalent to the
> Gnus expiry concept, the latter being more generic?

It's very similar in concept, but Gnus does not use \Deleted to
represent expirable messages.  It used a Gnus-specific \Expirable
flag for that.  nnimap marks messages with \Deleted only when Gnus
says to delete the article.

Since IMAP messages marked \Deleted are not actually removed until an
expunge is done on the folder, this somewhat resembles a second expiry 
stage.

On a different note, I am still completely unable to get nnimap to
work unplugged.  :-/

-Justin

 

Re: Switching to IMAP

[Kai Großjohann]

Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@iskon.hr> writes:

> Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann) writes:
> 
> > The `\Deleted' flag has nothing to do with expiry, though.  That's a
> > different flag.
> 
> I'm not convinced of that.  Isn't the "delete" flag equivalent to the
> Gnus expiry concept, the latter being more generic?

Hm.  Maybe I shouldn't have said `nothing to do with'.  Hm.  I should
have said this, I think:

    The `\Deleted' flag and the expirable flag have a similar purpose
    but are distinct flags.

The documentation for nnimap mentions that Gnus can't display messages
at all which are flagged `\Deleted', but this does not apply to the
expirable flag, since it is a different flag.

kai
-- 
Beware of flying birch trees.