RE: [Sheflug] mailbox format

[Alex Hudson <home [at] xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 2003-10-20 at 21:12, Gareth wrote:
> I read somewhere (I think it was a Postfix list) that /var/spool/mail is
> old fashioned, and outdated.

A matter of spin. "Tried and tested".

> When ever I get Outlook or even SquirrelMail to check my mail, it creates
> stuff, folders and files in my home directory. I don't mind this, but dont
> see why I need both, in my home directory and in /var/spool/mail.

You need both because they perform different functions. Your mail spool
is mail which has not yet been delivered to you. The stuff in your home
directory is things you have received and archived. 

> the server is.... imap-2001a-15. found this url in the rpm details
> http://www.washington.edu/imap/. not much help though.

UW IMAP - not sure how good that is. I think I've heard bad things about
it; others could elaborate.

> I still don't understand why I need /var/mail/spool/filename and
> /home/username/maildir

As expained above, unless you're talking about the difference between
mbox and maildir.

I would go with a complete solution like Courier if you're unsure of
what you're doing - Courier will handle the whole lot in one package,
and is therefore more likely to be internally consistent.

If you build on top of postfix, it will work, but you'll need to tell
your imap daemon how the smtp daemon stores mail. You have to get mail
from your spool into the imap account somehow, if the two are different
(they don't have to be).

Cheers,

Alex.

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