Re: OfflineImap on CYGWIN

[John Goerzen <jgoerzen@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Mar 08, 2004 at 05:02:05PM +0100, Javier Jarava (SECUWARE) wrote:
> OfflineImap on CYGWIN   

This may or may not work :-)

One problem is that the Maildir spec mandates the use of a : in
filenames, while that is a big no-no on Windows.

I have never tested OfflineIMAP on Windows, and don't really know if it
will work there.  However, I will apply patches to make it work there
:-)

> With the defaul UI, I get a TK pop-up and little else. And my monitoring
> tools tell me that there is no outbound connection.

Strange, no idea why that would happen.

> CURSES:
> cohen@lazarus ~/Mail
> $ offlineimap -u Curses.Blinkenlights
> ERROR: No UIs were found usable!

Not really surprising since Windows doesn't have Curses... but I bet you
could install a Cygified curses somehow.

> <snip error lines>
> 
> OSError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/home/cohen/Test-jarava-com'

Does /home/cohen exist?  The exception traceback on this would be quite
useful.  Also, I'd suggest running with -1 to disable threading until
you have the basic setup working.

> Ok, so I create the Test-jarava-com folder (do the docs mention that the
> folder should exist _prior_ to getting the mail? I'm not too sure)

OfflineIMAP should create it for you, if indeed it is a folder name.

> $ mkdir Test-jarava-com

This will likely confuse OfflineIMAP, since Maildir folders have a
specific format and just mkdiring it doesn't create them with that
format. 

>   File "/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/offlineimap/imaplib.py", line
> 153, in __init__
>     self.open(host, port)
>   File "/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/offlineimap/imaplib.py", line
> 228, in open
>     self.sock.connect(sa)
>   File "<string>", line 1, in connect
> error: (116, 'Connection timed out')

That looks like it just couldn't connect to the remote.  Are you sure
you have the remote machine specified correctly, and that it is
reachable from that host?

> I don't know _why_ it's getting the "timeout" error.
> The mail server _is_ responding (not blazingly fast, but I've been able
> to log-on using "stock" python and IDLE:

Hum, very strange.  I'm afraid I probably won't be able to help you out
there; I've never seen that happen before, and it may well be a problem
at some level below OfflineIMAP.

> In any case, I'd be more than interested in getting it running on Cygwin
> (or on "pure Windows, if possible); I'd be willing to do testing if
> necessary. I've read about the MAILDIR-on-Windows problem... I guess
> that mutt-on-cygwin might be able to read some "maildir-type" dirs??

It will have to be hacked, but should be able to.

> In any case, my "final" objective is to sync a "Local-imap" server
> (probably cygwin's UW server, but that's the subject for another
> hack-session); but if offlineimap fails on "startup", then I guess the
> rest if but a dream...

That may, actually, prove easier -- then you may be able to ignore the
Maildir problem.  OTOH, UW-IMAP is not a very good IMAP server and if
someone is having troubles with OfflineIMAP, about 50% of the time
they're using UW-IMAP :-)

> Does it seem like there is any chance of my succeeeding?

Yes; that socket thing is weird, though, and I don't know what to do
about it.

-- John