Re: SSH and UI configuration questions

[John Goerzen <jgoerzen@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello Jason,

On Sat, Jan 11, 2003 at 11:57:12PM +0000, jason.pettit@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

> First of all thanks for being so an active member of the Linux 
> community by developing offlineimap.  I have just started 
> investigating the tool a few days ago and have been surprised on 
> how many times you have updated the versions in the last couple 
> of weeks. 

Thanks for the kind words!  I am glad that others find OfflineIMAP useful.

[snip]

> 1) Is there a way to synchronize the same mailbox via two different 
> methods? 

Not presently, but...

> When I am out of the office I connect via SSH which means my 
> mailserver then become localhost:9143 but I would access the same 
> INBOX as I do in the office. 
>  
> Is there a way I can have these two different setups synchronize 
> the same folder? 

OfflineIMAP doesn't have that feature built in, but you can simulate it. 
I'd start by making two .offlineimaprc files, identical in every way save
for the hostname.  (Note: this procedure only works if the end result is
that you really are connecting to the same mail server!)

Then, two shell scripts.  Maybe offlineimap-work and offlineimap-home. 
They could run something like this:

#!/bin/bash
exec offlineimap -c ~/.offlineimaprc.work "$@"

Or:

#!/bin/bash
exec offlineimap -c ~/.offlineimaprc.home "$@"

As long as your ssh tunnel is taking you to the same server (this is key!),
this will work fine for you.

If the ssh tunnel takes you to a different server, this will not work
because the UIDs will be different.

> 2) I am have a problem executing the UI's at the moment I am 
> synchronize but only get to use the shell based ui.   

I take it you mean TTY.TTYUI?  The one without any color?

> The error I get when I try to define the other UI's by explicitly 
> defining them in the ui variable of my .offlineimaprc is. 

Try each of these:

offlineimap -u Curses.Blinkenlights
offlineimap -u Tk.Blinkenlights
offlineimap -u TTY.TTYUI
offlineimap -u Noninteractive.Basic

See which ones work by themselves.  Hopefully they'll all work for you.

Here are the requirements for each:

Tk.Blinkenlights:
 * You must have Tkinter installed (package python2.2-tk on Debian)
 * You must be running under X and have the DISPLAY environ var set

Curses.Blinkenlights:
 * Your Python must be compiled with Curses support.
   You can test with: python2.2 -c 'import curses'
   If you get an error, you flunk this condition; if you see nothing,
   you pass.
 * Your TERM environment variable must be set to a valid terminal.
 * You must be running on a real terminal (xterm, etc.)  -- output
   can't be redirected to a file.

TTY.TTYUI:
 * You must be running on an actual terminal (xterm, console, etc).

The others have no requirements.

> Just curious if you know the cause of this I will continue to 
> tinker. 

If you have continued difficulties, I can help you debug the problem.

Hope this helps!

-- John