Reading mail on two different hosts

Reading mail on two different hosts

[Juri Pakaste]

Hi.

I'm trying to set up Gnus so that I could read the mailing lists I
subscribe both on the university computers and at home. The idea is
that Gnus (or perhaps procmail) would split the mail at the
university, I could read there what I want, and download later all of
it home, deleting the files at the university computers (my quota is
10 megs, so I can't keep much mail there with all the other stuff that
is eating the up the disk space). In addition, it would be nice if the
Gnus at home knew what I had read at the university.

I was thinking that I could perhaps split my mail into nnmbox folders
at the university, and then tell Gnus at home to use ange-ftp to fetch
them, and insert them into the nnml groups I use normally.

Is this possible? And how much tinkering with elisp would this
require?

-- 
Juri Pakaste/Juri.Pakaste@Helsinki.FI

Re: Reading mail on two different hosts

[Richard Pieri]

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>>>>> "JP" == Juri Pakaste <pakaste@cc.Helsinki.FI> writes:

JP> I was thinking that I could perhaps split my mail into nnmbox folders
JP> at the university, and then tell Gnus at home to use ange-ftp to fetch
JP> them, and insert them into the nnml groups I use normally.

nnmail-spool-file may be set to a list of files for incoming mail
spools.  Gnus will go to each, in order, and drag them over to the local
mail area.  ange-ftp is possibly not the best way to do it, simply
because there is no file locking whatsoever involved with FTP.  So, if
anything attempts to access those files on the 'server' while you are
transferring them, almost any kind of corruption could occour.

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-- 
Richard Pieri/Information Services \ Always give generously - a small bird or
<ratinox@unilab.dfci.harvard.edu>   \ rodent left on the bed tells them, "I
http://www.dfci.harvard.edu/         \ care". -A cat's guide to life

Re: Reading mail on two different hosts

[Juri Pakaste]

>>>>> "RP" == Richard Pieri <ratinox@unilab.dfci.harvard.edu> writes:

>>>>> "JP" == Juri Pakaste <pakaste@cc.Helsinki.FI> writes:
 JP> I was thinking that I could perhaps split my mail into nnmbox
 JP> folders at the university, and then tell Gnus at home to use
 JP> ange-ftp to fetch them, and insert them into the nnml groups I
 JP> use normally.

 RP> nnmail-spool-file may be set to a list of files for incoming mail
 RP> spools.  Gnus will go to each, in order, and drag them over to
 RP> the local mail area.  ange-ftp is possibly not the best way to do

Okay. But if I do it this way, will it preserve the marks on what's
read, etc? Does Gnus store that information with some additional
header (umm... "Status"?), or in a separate file?

 RP> it, simply because there is no file locking whatsoever involved
 RP> with FTP.  So, if anything attempts to access those files on the
 RP> 'server' while you are transferring them, almost any kind of
 RP> corruption could occour.

Oh. Is there a way that would avoid this? Scp, perhaps?

-- 
Juri Pakaste/Juri.Pakaste@Helsinki.FI

Re: Reading mail on two different hosts

[Colin Rafferty]

Juri Pakaste writes:

>>>>>> "RP" == Richard Pieri <ratinox@unilab.dfci.harvard.edu> writes:
>>>>>> "JP" == Juri Pakaste <pakaste@cc.Helsinki.FI> writes:

JP> I was thinking that I could perhaps split my mail into nnmbox
JP> folders at the university, and then tell Gnus at home to use
JP> ange-ftp to fetch them, and insert them into the nnml groups I
JP> use normally.

RP> nnmail-spool-file may be set to a list of files for incoming mail
RP> spools.  Gnus will go to each, in order, and drag them over to
RP> the local mail area.  ange-ftp is possibly not the best way to do

JP> Okay. But if I do it this way, will it preserve the marks on what's
JP> read, etc? Does Gnus store that information with some additional
JP> header (umm... "Status"?), or in a separate file?

If you are serious about using ange-ftp, you could just set up home
machine to have your university groups as local groups, with the
location specified using ange-ftp protocols.

You will have all the marks form what you did at school, and if you move
them to your home groups, all the marks go with it.

Conversely, if your home machine is always online, you can directly
split your email from school into your home disks with the following
elisp:

   (setq nnml-directory "/pakaste@my.machine.home:/home/pakaste/Mail/"
         nnmail-crosspost-link-function 'copy-file)

-- 
Colin

Re: Reading mail on two different hosts

[Kai Grossjohann]

>>>>> Juri Pakaste writes:

  Juri> I'm trying to set up Gnus so that I could read the mailing
  Juri> lists I subscribe both on the university computers and at
  Juri> home. The idea is that Gnus (or perhaps procmail) would split
  Juri> the mail at the university, I could read there what I want,
  Juri> and download later all of it home, deleting the files at the
  Juri> university computers (my quota is 10 megs, so I can't keep
  Juri> much mail there with all the other stuff that is eating the up
  Juri> the disk space).

That's what Soup is for.  On your home computer, you set up Gnus to
use nnsoup as main backend.  On your university computer, you "brew a
soup" (add the unread articles of a group to a special SOUP
directory).  You then "pack the soup into a packet" (tar the SOUP
directory).  You transfer the packet back home.  On your home
computer, Gnus will read stuff automagically from the soup packets,
because of the nnsoup backend.  You can also set up Gnus at home so
that replies sent by news and/or mail are put into a so-called "reply
packet", which you can then pack and transfer back to university,
where you fire up Gnus and send the reply packets.

When you brew a soup, the articles added to the soup will be marked
with a special mark.  If you set that to read and if you set your
expire time right, all the articles added to a soup will automatically
be deleted from your university system right away.

kai
-- 
Life is hard and then you die.

Re: Reading mail on two different hosts

[Juri Pakaste]

>>>>> "KG" == Kai Grossjohann <grossjohann@charly.informatik.uni-dortmund.de> writes:

>>>>> Juri Pakaste writes:
 Juri> I'm trying to set up Gnus so that I could read the mailing
 Juri> lists I subscribe both on the university computers and at
 Juri> home. The idea is that Gnus (or perhaps procmail) would split

 KG> That's what Soup is for.  On your home computer, you set up Gnus
(...)

Oh, yeah... I'd forgotten SOUP could be used for mail, too. It does
have the problem that I have to manually brew and pack the soups, and
then transfer them home, etc. Of course, it isn't that big a job, and
at least the trasferring part can be somewhat automated (in fact, just
as much as with my original idea) with correctly placed calls to shell
scripts or elisp functions.

OTOH, it certainly is far better than nothing, and I'll probably do it
that way if I can't come up with a way to avoid the brewing and
packing part. Thanks for the suggestion.

-- 
Juri Pakaste/Juri.Pakaste@Helsinki.FI