Re: "Invalid mailbox name" with mutt + Dovecot
- To: mutt-users@xxxxxxxx
- Subject: Re: "Invalid mailbox name" with mutt + Dovecot
- From: Kyle Wheeler <kyle-mutt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2008 13:13:28 -0600
- Comment: DomainKeys? See http://domainkeys.sourceforge.net/
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On Thursday, December 4 at 01:35 PM, quoth Jessica Perry Hekman:
> Two weeks ago pair replaced their IMAP server with a Dovecot
> installation. I do not know what their old server was.
I've used Dovecot for several years, and I love it (SOOOO fast!), so
these things CAN be made to work!
> Now, when I attempt to access a mailbox other than my inbox with
> mutt (something like "=spam"), mutt tells me "invalid mailbox name."
> I can access INBOX just fine.
Note that these are two different things. Your INBOX is your
$spoolfile, while $folder is what is used when you use shortcuts like
'='.
> Relevant bits of .muttrc:
>
> set folder="imaps://misilay.pair.com/../mail"
> set spoolfile="imaps://misilay.pair.com"
There's your problem. It looks like the old server was probably
UW-IMAP, or something that behaved like it. The difference is that
these older IMAP servers give you full filesystem access via IMAP.
This has bonuses: it means that each each user can keep their mail
hierarchy anywhere they like. The downside is that it requires that
the users know where their stuff is stored on the server, and has the
potential to give *too much* access.
Dovecot, as a security measure, presents the user with a much stricter
hierarchy. The user doesn't (generally) get to define where their
email is stored; they just get to define what they *call* it. Does
that make sense?
Let me put it another way: in the old server:
../mail -> ~/mail/
^ ^--- the user (you) controls THIS
`--------------- ... and consequently defines this
In the new server:
mail -> somewhere
^ ^------ the user DOESN'T control this (the admin does)
`-------------- but the user DOES control this
That gives the sysadmin a lot more flexibility to store your email
wherever and however he chooses, as long as he maintains a consistent
naming. And he doesn't have to give the imap server full access to the
entire filesystem; it's storage can be sequestered. This is *really*
helpful for virtual domains (where a single server hosts multiple
domains that each have different sets of users).
On my personal server, my users have *no* idea where their mail is
stored (it's /var/lib/vpopmail/domains/$domain/$user/Maildir/ - user
home directories are elsewhere, and dovecot can't touch them).
Anyway, if I was setting up a Dovecot server for them, I'd set up a
namespace where INBOX is /var/mail/$user (just like it used to be),
but where the rest of the storage is somewhere else, like
/mailstorage/$user/. You MAY be able to access your ~/mail/ folders,
depending on how they set up Dovecot, but the way to discover it is by
using mutt's browser. (press c<tab><tab> to bring it up) If you're
lucky, and they configured Dovecot to look for mailfolders (for ALL
users) in ~/mail/, then you would just need to set up your mutt like
so:
set folder="imaps://misilay.pair.com/"
set spoolfile="imaps://misilay.pair.com/INBOX"
~Kyle
- --
I prefer to be called "EVIL GENIUS!"
-- Jumba, from "Lilo & Stitch"
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