Out of Topic: IMAP

[Jeff A. Earickson]

ZOn Thu, 8 Feb 2007, Roger Jochem wrote:

> Date: Thu, 8 Feb 2007 10:47:48 -0200
> From: Roger Jochem <roger at rudnick.com.br>
> Reply-To: MailScanner discussion <mailscanner at lists.mailscanner.info>
> To: MailScanner discussion <mailscanner at lists.mailscanner.info>
> Subject: Out of Topic: IMAP
> 
> Since almost everyone here nows a lot about e-mail, server configuration, and 
> that kind of stuff, I was wondering: how many of you use IMAP instead of POP3 
> for mail access?

We use both.  We used to use UW IMAP but switched to dovecot maybe 1.5
years ago, just about the time the first beta of 1.0 came out.  It was
a huge win over UW IMAP in terms of performance even then.  It has just
gotten better since, despite "not 1.0" yet.  Timo's rc code is way better
than most 2.0 version code I have seen.

We use mbox format.  To get the true advantages of IMAP, you need to use
maildir format, not a trivial switch.  We warn users to pick IMAP or POP,
but don't use both at the same time (mailbox corruption will occur, people
learn).  Most of our students use IMAP via horde/imp webmail, others use
it via Eudora or Pine (eg, me).  The older staffers use POP mostly.  We
hope to make POP disappear eventually.

>
> I allways used POP3 on my server, and reading about IMAP shows me a lot of 
> advantages... A problem would be the server disk size, but since disks are 
> not so expansive nowadays, I'm considering changing the protocol when I 
> upgrade my server.

Yup, IMAP gobbles up disk.  If you go to maildir format, it will also gobble
up inodes.  Consider using a filesystem that avoids fixed inode counts, like
UFS.  We use ZFS (Solaris 10) for our IMAP/home directory space.

Jeff Earickson
Colby College