Accessing mail from multiple points in LAN

I use Thunderbird running off a pop server as my email client. At
present, I mostly access my mail from a single linux box on my
home LAN. This is a little inconvenient, because I regularly work
at two or three different computers (all unix based, including
Mac OS X; I don't anticipate needing to access mail from Windows
in the near future). I've never really found a completely convenient
way to access my mail from multiple points, so I'd like to poll this
group for ideas.

I want to be able to send and receive mail from anywhere, and I
want a complete archive of all mail sent and received.

The brute force approach I've used in the past is to shut down
my mail client before leaving a computer. When I'm at a different
computer, I synchronize my mail archive there with the computer I
just left, then start up Thunderbird there. It works, but it's awkward.
And if I make a mistake, which I'm sure I will eventually, I'll
synchronize in the wrong direction some day, or sync while Thunderbird
is running, so something, and lose some mail.

Another approach would be to run NFS and have my mail archive on
an NFS partition. I've never done that, so I don't know how well
it would work in practice. Does anyone know how Thunderbird would
handle it if two clients working from different computers were
operating on the same mail archive at once? I doubt Thunderbird is
designed for that. Also, I don't have any sense of how reliable
this setup would be, or how much trouble I'd get in when my NFS
server crashes.

Another approach would be to use a web based mail system. Maybe
I'm old fashioned, but I don't trust web based systems. I access my
mail archives extensively and constantly, and I need a complete
record of all of my mail easily accessible at all times. Can I
get that with a web based system?

Another approach would be to use imap instead of pop. I don't fully
understand the imap model. It seems like it might be well suited
to my problem, but I'm not sure. Would I be able to do arbitrary
manipulations of my mail messages on Thunderbird running on one
computer, moving messages between folders, working on drafts, etc.,
and have that reflected on other instances of Thunderbird running
on other computers? How do you migrate messages from the server
to your local archives? Does it work the way I would want/expect?

Finally, I may be moving to a Mac OS X only network, so I might
be able to use software that's for Mac only (like Apple Mail). Do
any of those programs have built in syncing abilities that might
work for me?

Are there any other approaches?

Any suggestions appreciated.

On 2006-05-12, Hamad bin Turki Salami <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> in the near future). I've never really found a completely convenient
> way to access my mail from multiple points,

Use IMAP.
Davide

--
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Tech Support: And...?
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Tech Support: You already said that.

Davide Bianchi wrote:

> On 2006-05-12, Hamad bin Turki Salami <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>> in the near future). I've never really found a completely convenient
>> way to access my mail from multiple points,
>
> Use IMAP.
> Davide
>

I don't fully understand the imap model. It seems like it might be well
suited to my problem, but I have doubts. Would I be able to do arbitrary
manipulations of my mail messages on Thunderbird running on one
computer, moving messages between folders, working on drafts, etc.,
and have that reflected on other instances of Thunderbird running
on other computers?

Also, how do you migrate messages from the server to your local
archives? Presumably, at some point a message disappears from the server
and lives only on your hard drive(s) after that. Or am I mistaken?

Is there a good place where I can read up on imap for this purpose?

Hamad bin Turki Salami <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> suited to my problem, but I have doubts. Would I be able to do arbitrary
> manipulations of my mail messages on Thunderbird running on one
> computer, moving messages between folders, working on drafts, etc.,
> and have that reflected on other instances of Thunderbird running
> on other computers?

Yes, in general. Running instances on other machines may not
immediately reflect changes, but that depends on the client
not the server.

> Also, how do you migrate messages from the server to your local
> archives? Presumably, at some point a message disappears from the server
> and lives only on your hard drive(s) after that. Or am I mistaken?

You migrate messages by moving them between folders, just like
any folder. In general if you want messages accessible on all
machines on a network you don't migrate messages off the server
and into local folders. Messages will disappear when you delete
them, no sooner. ISPs tend to use commercial software that offers
features like message lifetimes, but the IMAP servers I've seen
for Linux only delete messages in response to a client program
issuing a delete command (because you deleted the message in the
client, or because one of your clients is set up to auto-move
messages to local storage after they reach a certain age (which
feature you'd want to disable)).

--
death.net: because for some problems there's only one solution.

Todd Knarr wrote:

>> Also, how do you migrate messages from the server to your local
>> archives? Presumably, at some point a message disappears from the server
>> and lives only on your hard drive(s) after that. Or am I mistaken?
>
> You migrate messages by moving them between folders, just like
> any folder. In general if you want messages accessible on all
> machines on a network you don't migrate messages off the server
> and into local folders. Messages will disappear when you delete

So if on machine A I move a message out of my inbox into a local
folder, say "Family," then that message is deleted from the server
and is then only stored on machine A? So when I go to machine B,
I don't find the message at all, even if I have a "Family" folder
on machine B? If that's the case, then it does not address my issue
at all.

As I stated in my original post, "I want to be able to send and
receive mail from anywhere, and I want a complete archive of all
mail sent and received," and "I access my mail archives extensively
and constantly, and I need a complete record of all of my mail easily
accessible at all times." If an approach doesn't satisfy these
needs, I cannot consider it.

I know that many people are much less fussy about their mail archives
than I am. That's fine, but that's not how I work. I need every
single message I've ever received and every single message I've
ever sent archived on every single machine where I use email. If
I don't have that, it's a show stopper.

Simple: Don't have any local folders, period. Keep them all on your
local IMAP server.

Problem solved.

> As I stated in my original post, "I want to be able to send and
> receive mail from anywhere, and I want a complete archive of all
> mail sent and received," and "I access my mail archives extensively
> and constantly, and I need a complete record of all of my mail easily
> accessible at all times." If an approach doesn't satisfy these
> needs, I cannot consider it.

This is a good question, and one that I've wondered about myself for quite a
while. I'm currently using a solution similar to yours, but instead of
synchronizing my mail archive to the remote host, I just run my mail client
(KMail) on the server host, but display it on an X server on the remote
host. This mostly works well, but it can be slow or unreliable over some
network links, and like you I have to be sure to kill any running mail
client before I start another one.

Exporting the directory with the mail archive via NFS or Samba might work if
the locking mechanisms are good (I doubt they are on Samba; I'd guess they
are in NFS, but have no experience with it, and don't know if it's workable
in a mixed Unix/Windows environment), but there's still the problem of what
would happen if multiple clients are simultaneously modifying the archive,
e.g. by fetching messages from the POP server. Probably you'd eventually
lose some mail, or worse get a corrupt mail archive.

I think the best though most complicated solution is to run an IMAP server
on your LAN. Use e.g. getmail to download all of the mail to it, and have
all of your clients get their mail from the LAN IMAP server. Then the IMAP
server can store your entire mail archive (at least from now on, and with
some work you could probably import all of your old mail too), and the whole
archive is available to all of the clients that connect. This would take
some work to set up, but a big advantage would be that it's multiple-client
safe: unlike POP, IMAP is designed to allow multiple clients to connect
safely.

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To reply by email, change "deadspam.com" to "alumni.utexas.net"

Hamad bin Turki Salami <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> So if on machine A I move a message out of my inbox into a local
> folder, say "Family," then that message is deleted from the server
> and is then only stored on machine A? So when I go to machine B,
> I don't find the message at all, even if I have a "Family" folder
> on machine B? If that's the case, then it does not address my issue
> at all.

Well, no it doesn't. What part of "local folder" failed to be
completely clear?

> As I stated in my original post, "I want to be able to send and
> receive mail from anywhere, and I want a complete archive of all
> mail sent and received," and "I access my mail archives extensively
> and constantly, and I need a complete record of all of my mail easily
> accessible at all times." If an approach doesn't satisfy these
> needs, I cannot consider it.

Yes. Create folders as appropriate on the IMAP server and leave
your e-mail on the server. Your client will be able to treat those
folders just like any other folder, you can move mail between them,
read messages, reply to messages, everything you'd want. And *any*
machine can access the server and see the messages. This seems to
be exactly what you're asking for. Just don't try to do it with
local folders on each machine, that Just Won't Work.

--
death.net: because for some problems there's only one solution.

Hamad bin Turki Salami wrote:
> Todd Knarr wrote:
>
>>> Also, how do you migrate messages from the server to your local
>>> archives? Presumably, at some point a message disappears from the server
>>> and lives only on your hard drive(s) after that. Or am I mistaken?
>> You migrate messages by moving them between folders, just like
>> any folder. In general if you want messages accessible on all
>> machines on a network you don't migrate messages off the server
>> and into local folders. Messages will disappear when you delete
>
> So if on machine A I move a message out of my inbox into a local
> folder, say "Family," then that message is deleted from the server
> and is then only stored on machine A? So when I go to machine B,
> I don't find the message at all, even if I have a "Family" folder
> on machine B? If that's the case, then it does not address my issue
> at all.
>
No, all the folders are stored on the IMAP server. It's how I run my
home system here - I can move messages between server folders and it's
reflected (sometimes with a prod) by all the clients I have open. My
home machine permanently has Thunderbird running. I can connect in using
secure IMAP from work and read the same stuff, and occasionally other
machines in the house get used as well. I've also stuck webmail on top,
Squirrelmail works quite happily with the IMAP server and gives the same
functionality as the dedicated mail clients.

> As I stated in my original post, "I want to be able to send and
> receive mail from anywhere, and I want a complete archive of all
> mail sent and received," and "I access my mail archives extensively
> and constantly, and I need a complete record of all of my mail easily
> accessible at all times." If an approach doesn't satisfy these
> needs, I cannot consider it.
>
As with all things, if you take steps to delete mail off the server then
you'll lose access to it. However, the beauty of IMAP is that if you've
accidentally moved something to a local folder, you can usually move it
back to an IMAP folder and recover it. It's also a way to migrate to
IMAP from POP3 - just set up both accounts on the same mail client and
drag/copy the messages across. That's how I migrated all my mail.

--
Dave
mail da (E-Mail Removed) (without the space)
http://www.llondel.org
So many gadgets, so little time

Andrew Schulman wrote:
> I think the best though most complicated solution is to run an IMAP server
> on your LAN. Use e.g. getmail to download all of the mail to it, and have
> all of your clients get their mail from the LAN IMAP server. Then the IMAP
> server can store your entire mail archive (at least from now on, and with
> some work you could probably import all of your old mail too), and the whole
> archive is available to all of the clients that connect. This would take
> some work to set up, but a big advantage would be that it's multiple-client
> safe: unlike POP, IMAP is designed to allow multiple clients to connect
> safely.

This sounds like an interesting approach. But what do you do when you
travel?