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Greenhouse Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.gnus.user Subject: Re: emac gnus-centric gmail-phobic multi-host mail management Date: Wed, 19 Feb 2014 08:59:24 +0000 Message-ID: <87ppmjqxzn.fsf@motoko.kusanagi> References: <87r470tkr3.fsf@channing.harvard.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1392800448 4238 80.91.229.3 (19 Feb 2014 09:00:48 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 19 Feb 2014 09:00:48 +0000 (UTC) To: info-gnus-english-mXXj517/zsQ@public.gmane.org Original-X-From: info-gnus-english-bounces+gegu-info-gnus-english=m.gmane.org-mXXj517/zsQ@public.gmane.org Wed Feb 19 10:00:58 2014 Return-path: Envelope-to: gegu-info-gnus-english@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1WG31T-0000eI-Gn for gegu-info-gnus-english@m.gmane.org; Wed, 19 Feb 2014 10:00:55 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:57421 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1WG31T-0005ZZ-83 for gegu-info-gnus-english@m.gmane.org; Wed, 19 Feb 2014 04:00:55 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:43662) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1WG30X-0004ZV-OF for info-gnus-english-mXXj517/zsQ@public.gmane.org; Wed, 19 Feb 2014 04:00:01 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1WG30Q-0001Qi-EB for info-gnus-english-mXXj517/zsQ@public.gmane.org; Wed, 19 Feb 2014 03:59:57 -0500 Original-Received: from plane.gmane.org ([80.91.229.3]:55206) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1WG30Q-0001QW-7F for info-gnus-english-mXXj517/zsQ@public.gmane.org; Wed, 19 Feb 2014 03:59:50 -0500 Original-Received: from list by plane.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1WG30O-00077N-Md for info-gnus-english-mXXj517/zsQ@public.gmane.org; Wed, 19 Feb 2014 09:59:48 +0100 Original-Received: from manning1.torservers.net ([96.44.189.100]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Wed, 19 Feb 2014 09:59:48 +0100 Original-Received: from wgreenhouse by manning1.torservers.net with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Wed, 19 Feb 2014 09:59:48 +0100 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Original-Lines: 88 Original-X-Complaints-To: usenet-dbVV3NMTNubNLxjTenLetw@public.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: manning1.torservers.net X-Archive: encrypt User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/24.3 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:KUI3G8EoRg2PM62GVA/Yjexxrjg= X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: Genre and OS details not recognized. X-Received-From: 80.91.229.3 X-BeenThere: info-gnus-english-mXXj517/zsQ@public.gmane.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Announcements and discussions for GNUS, the GNU Emacs Usenet newsreader \(in English\)" List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: info-gnus-english-bounces+gegu-info-gnus-english=m.gmane.org-mXXj517/zsQ@public.gmane.org Original-Sender: info-gnus-english-bounces+gegu-info-gnus-english=m.gmane.org-mXXj517/zsQ@public.gmane.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.gnus.user:16703 Archived-At: Taking your last two questions: regcl writes: [...] > C) Compatible mail repo/backup scheme > > I need to park the mail I am sweeping somewhere, once again with the > compartmentalization issues. While I use emacs as my primary email > client, it would probably be wise not to lock myself in to emacs, so > maybe I want the mail in a form compatible with other clients on my mac > os x desktops, most likely mac mail.app. What is the lightest weight > approach here? Is it maildir with dovecot/localhost? > > > D) Replication of the mail repos. > > I don't think I want to put up a pop or imap server on the net, at least > not now. So I am thinking the problem here is primarily one of > replication of my mail directories across machines. Am I right? > > Based on my limited reading about mail, it seems like this could be done > with IMAP, but I know zilch about IMAP and I don't have a place to park > a personal IMAP server on the net. > > On the other hand I use git for all of the other replication/syncing > that I ever do. So here is the question: Can I park my mail in maildir > with sub-repos for work and play, and use git for replication between > machines? What would be the pros and cons of this approach vs learning > using IMAP? Git would be sub-optimal for syncing Maildirs around, as would a standard file-moving tool like rsync, because a fundamental idea of Maildir is that mail states are expressed by renaming/moving the file. Whenever Gnus flags something or marks it read, therefore, git or rsync would treat this like a whole new file, leading to inefficiencies. Fortunately, there are tools to parse the Maildir format and figure out which messages are in fact the same on both ends, so we can quickly rename them to express a change in "flaggedness", instead of resending the whole thing and deleting the file on the other end (yuck). Here are the two implementations I know of to efficiently sync maildirs over SSH, without exposing a new network service such as IMAP. (They also bypass the system MTAs on both ends, as they operate on the end user's maildirs directly): 1. Maildirsync : Single perl script. Requires you to write your own short shell script or cron job to handle synchronization. 2. http://syncmaildir.sourceforge.net/: a complete rewrite of maildirsync. Evidently meant to "just work" without writing own shell hax; I had trouble getting it to install on Slackware, however, so I've been happily using maildirsync. Syncmaildir seems to be packaged for Debian-like distros, so that's a consideration. My configuration looks something like this: 1. My almost-always-on homebox slurps various mail sites via fetchmail using POP3. On landing at the system MTA, the mail gets delivered (along with any local/daemon-generated mail) to various Maildirs according to rules in my ~/.procmailrc. 2. I read some mail on Gnus at the homebox. When fetchmail->procmail delivers some new mail to my priority inbox, `display-time-mode' notifies me by putting a little picture of an envelope on my mode line. :) Otherwise I don't get prodded about new mail until I poll Gnus again myself. 3. I go on the road with my netbook. On the netbook, I run my maildirsync script when I have reliable net, and then M-x gnus to read the mail. 4. Gnus nnmaildir is pretty self-contained (flags/unread state is all inside the maildir itself), so if you are only using maildir, maildirsync will be enough to share state between the two machines. Since I also read NNTP news with Gnus, however, and also use niceties like adaptive scoring, I also sync my emacs configuration dir (which contains the gnus score files and newsrc* files) using Bzr. TODO: be able to sync just one thing, instead of the sync mailidr-then-sync-bzr-repo dance. Maybe http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no/2014/02/01/emacs-cloud/ will help with this someday. Also, cronify the maildirsync end on the netbook. Hope this helps. Please don't hesitate to ask for clarification; I'd be happy to share any of the configuration files (fetchmail, procmail, gnus/message/smtpmail/bbdb, maildirsync) that might be interesting.