[kdepim-users] IMAP shared mailboxes: issues with kmail?

[Ingo Klöcker]

On Tuesday 20 January 2009, Wilhelm Meier wrote:
> Am Dienstag 20 Januar 2009 schrieb Ingo Klöcker:
> > I'm subscribed to kdepim-users, so replying to the list suffices.
> >
> > On Tuesday 20 January 2009, Wilhelm Meier wrote:
> > > Am Dienstag 20 Januar 2009 schrieb Ingo Klöcker:
> > > > On Monday 19 January 2009, Wilhelm Meier wrote:
> > > > > Hi,
> > > > >
> > > > > are there any known issues with symlinked-shared-mailboxes
> > > > > and kmail?
> > > > >
> > > > > I use dovecot with virtual users (LDAP), so there are no
> > > > > unix-permissions related
> > > > > problems here: all mailboxes are owned by the local user
> > > > > vmail.
> > > > >
> > > > > Each user maildir has some symlinks to shared mailboxes. This
> > > > > works fine if I use squirrelmail as a MUA.
> > > > >
> > > > > kmail instead seems to have some problems: if I save a mail
> > > > > into the shared-folder, the other users are seeing this new
> > > > > mail almost immediately. But if I delete(!) a mail from the
> > > > > shared-folder, the list of the other kmails remains untouch.
> > > > > Refreshing does nothing. I have to close kmail and restart.
> > > > >
> > > > > Is this related to some sort of wrong config of the shared
> > > > > mailboxes or is this a (known) dovecot <-> kmail problem?
> > > >
> > > > KMail does not watch its folder storage for changes. So it is
> > > > by design (we wanted to keep it simple) that a running KMail
> > > > does not notice all changes done by other processes.
> > >
> > > If I turn on "auto-expunge=true" the mail-files in the
> > > MDA-storage (MDA=dovecot) are deleted, but only if I select the
> > > INBOX in KMail instance which did the deletion. In this case the
> > > other KMails instance see the changes if they refresh the list.
> > >
> > > This would be fine, if I hadn't select the INDOX. It would be
> > > better if the expunging takes place immediately or after a
> > > timeout / refresh-timeval.
> >
> > Ahh, misunderstanding. The different KMails are all using IMAP to
> > access the shared folders. Correct?
> >
> > For technical reasons KMail does not support change notifications
> > by the IMAP server. But I still do not really understand what
> > problems you are observing. You delete a message in a shared folder
> > with one KMail, but other KMails notice that the message has been
> > deleted only after a restart?
>
> Yes, mostly.
>
> If auto-expunge=false, the other KMail only notice the deleted
> message after restart. In this case the mail-files (on the
> impa-server) get deleted when the KMail starts.
>
> If auto-expunge=true, the messages vanishes in another KMails list
> (if I select a random other folder and then select the shared folder
> again), if the first KMail compresses the folder on a
> context-menu-action or if I switch to the INBOX.
>
> So, I think here are two problems:
>
> 1) the expunge of the KMail deleting the message should take place
> immediately or after some timeout without the need to select the
> INBOX

Hmm. AFAIK expunging should not be necessary. If a message is marked as 
deleted in a folder all other MUAs accessing this folder will 
immediately notice that the message is marked as deleted.


> 2) the notification of the expunged message should reach the other
> KMail, even if I stay in the shared-folder.

Due to technical reasons KMail cannot listen to IMAP notifications. The 
workaround is polling, i.e. frequently checking for changes.


Quite frankly, I think the problem really is with your setup. You make 
the assumption that symlinking the storage of the IMAP server should 
work, but apparently it does not work because the deleted flags are not 
shared among the symlinked instances of the shared folder. Is 
symlinking really the standard procedure for sharing folders with 
dovecot? Hmm, according to [1] it is, another option being namespaces.

I suggest to ask for help/advice on the dovecot mailing list because to 
me this seems to be a problem with the symlinking approach for sharing 
folders and not a problem with KMail.


Regards,
Ingo


[1] http://wiki.dovecot.org/SharedMailboxes
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