Re: OfflineIMAP and KMail

["David L. Emerson" <demerson3x@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I use kmail and offlineimap together, and -- after doing a lot of=20
reading/research, there are two key things I remember about kmail:

1. It does not handle maildirs correctly -- you do not want to hook it=20
into a shared maildir. Its implementation is often described=20
as "broken".

2. Its locally cached imap implementation is buggy as well --=20
specifically, it has been known to accidentally and permanently delete=20
large quantities of messages.

=46rom a "setup" perspective, this boils down to something very simple:=20
When you are creating a new Account, you should NEVER Add Account of=20
type
=2D Disconnected IMAP
OR
=2D Maildir mailbox

I'm actually not sure about the regular IMAP, either (not really an=20
option for me since I am often offline and need the local cache)

Anyway, I do know that John has done some truly amazing and commendable=20
work in making offlineimap compatible with many different broken imap=20
server implementations, so offlineimap will almost definitely be better=20
at communicating with most imap servers than kmail will be -- even=20
without local cacheing.

I don't know about that "local mailbox" option, either ... I assume=20
that's for, e.g., reading an old mozilla mailbox. I think I even tried=20
it once.


Anyway, the way I managed to get everything up and running is like so:

SERVER <---> offlineimap <---> dovecot <---> kmail

It really does seem like overkill. I really and truly wish I could just=20
do: SERVER <---> kmail or even SERVER <---> offlineimap <---> kmail,=20
but sadly neither of these seems to be a very good idea.

This is actually a little bit deceptive -- offlineimap and dovecot do=20
not actually "connect" to each other, they simple access and modify the=20
same directories and files. So it would really be more appropriate to=20
draw something more like this:

SERVER <---> offlineimap <---> a bunch of maildir directories

a bunch of maildir directories <---> dovecot <---> kmail


So I have a locally running dovecot serve me messages from the=20
offlineimap maildir folders, since kmail's maildir handling is broken=20
(in addition to its imap cacheing).

I hate to be sarcastic, but ... happy hacking? It's awfully=20
resource-intensive, and there seem to be several bugs in kmail's imap=20
handling that make kmail crash or lock up from time to time. (dovecot=20
runs just fine, I never have to do anything with it.) Specifically,=20
searching for messages doesn't work very well at all in kmail over=20
imap. But, I like kmail's interface very much, so somehow all this=20
difficulty is worth it so I have a comfortable working environment.

Ah, but I haven't answered your real question, how to get all this stuff=20
talking together? Let's see what I can pull up. I'm using debian 4.0,=20
with a hacked offlineimap 5.99.4 (since AFAIK John didn't accept my=20
patch and I've been too lazy to update and fix 6.0 to work properly) as=20
well as dovecot-common and dovecot-imapd 1.0.13 (from debian backports)=20
and kmail 3.5.5.

my /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf looks like this:

protocols =3D imap
listen =3D 127.0.0.1:143
log_path =3D /var/log/dovecot
log_timestamp =3D "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S "
ssl_disable =3D yes
login_process_per_connection =3D no
mail_extra_groups =3D mail
mail_process_size =3D 80
maildir_copy_with_hardlinks =3D yes
protocol imap {
}
auth default {
  mechanisms =3D plain
  passdb passwd-file {
   args =3D /path/to/my/dovecot-passdb
  }
  userdb passwd-file {
   args =3D /path/to/my/dovecot-passdb
  }
  passdb pam {
  }
  user =3D root
}
dict {
}
plugin {
}


Here is one (line-broken) line from my dovecot-passdb:

d3x:{plain}mysecretpasswordinplaintext:3078
:3078::/home/david::userdb_mail=3Dmaildir:/path/to/offlineimap/d3x

3078 is my user id as seen in /etc/passwd. If you ever change your user=20
ID you'll have to go in and change this, otherwise dovecot won't=20
work :)

I have several lines that are similar to this, with different password,=20
account name, and account directories in the /path/to/offlineimap dir.

Note that the password here is the password kmail uses to connect to=20
dovecot. It need not be the same password that offlineimap uses to=20
connect to  for dovecot to connect to offlineimap. It need not be the=20
same as your actual email address password. Even so, dovecot-passdb has=20
perms go-r (and so does dovecot.conf, which is owned by root)

When I set up an account in kmail, I make it a regular imap account, and=20
I have it connect to localhost as the imap server on port 143 -- to=20
match the dovecot settings. Many people have been known to have=20
offlineimap+dovecot on a "server" machine and connect to dovecot=20
via "client" machines, which may or may not suit you.


Here are some snippets from my ~/.offlineimaprc :

[general]
accounts =3D aowm, d3x, [...]
# if you have 9 accounts then this needs to be 9 if you ever want to run
# continuously.
maxsyncaccounts =3D 9
# folder name translations...
pythonfile =3D /path/to/offlineimap-config/offlineimap.py
# metadata folder...
metadata=3D/path/to/offlineimap-Metadata
socktimeout =3D 45

# account name corresponds to that in the [general] accounts list.
# It happens to be the same account name I use with dovecot, but dovecot
# and offlineimap don't really have any awareness of each other, so this
# is optional. The account name you connect to in kmail is the one you
# specify with dovecot.

[Account d3x]

localrepository =3D local-d3x
remoterepository =3D remote-d3x
autorefresh =3D 3
quick =3D 3


[Repository local-d3x]
type =3D Maildir
localfolders =3D /path/to/offlineimap/d3x   # also in dovecot-passdb

[Repository remote-d3x]
type =3D IMAP
remotehost =3D mail.myserver.org
remoteuser =3D d3x@xxxxxxxxxxxx
remotepassfile =3D /path/to/offlineimap-config/pw-d3x
ssl =3D no
#axconnections: 1 is safe; 2 or 3 MAY be quicker; never more than 5.
maxconnections =3D 2
nametrans =3D fix_dovecot_kmail   # defined in my pythonfile
foldersort=3Dmycmp   # also defined in my pythonfile

note that the remotepassfile =3D /path/to/offlineimap-config/pw-d3x holds=20
a plaintext version of the password used to access the email server --=20
this is the one that's a "really big" secret. Of course the file is=20
go-r.

My pythonfile (/path/to/offlineimap-config/offlineimap.py) is adapted=20
from Asheesh's.

I have dovecot set up to run automatically with the rc*.d scripts. If I=20
need to restart it for some reason (e.g. to reread the passdb file and=20
start serving a new mail account) "/etc/init.d/dovecot restart" does=20
the trick.

I run offlineimap manually from the command line, and let it sit there=20
with its pretty Curses.Blinkenlights :)  I also set statuschar to '*'=20
because I find it to be more visible than '.'

offlineimap crashes A LOT when connecting to one of my email servers --=20
usually it crashes once for each message it downloads -- so I have a=20
bash wrapper script that automatically restarts it for me in a=20
semi-intelligent manner. Hopefully offlineimap won't crash at all for=20
you (I think it works great for most people without crashing, I have=20
just been too lazy to give John the reports and info he would need to=20
work out this problem, and I am hoping to switch servers sometime soon=20
anyway -- that's what I've been saying for nearly a year now,=20
methinks.)

Good luck!  Now I really can say "happy hacking" without feeling too=20
guilty about not helping much :)

~David.


On Thursday 03 July 2008 5:05 pm, joshua_rickmar@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> Hello.
>=20
> A while ago, I tried to use KMail with my email provider, Lavabit.
> However, because of KMail's strange IMAP implementation, there are
> numerous bugs, like messages disappearing when moving emails and the=20
like=3D
> .
>  Here (http://www.emaildiscussions.com/showthread.php?p=3D3D447209) is a
> thread I started on Emaildiscussions.com trying to solve this problem
> using OfflineIMAP and a local IMAP server.  I wasn't very successful,=20
but
> since I have re-installed FreeBSD on my computer, I decided to give it=20
a
> second shot.
>=20
> On the OfflineIMAP FAQ, it says:
>=20
>  > However, I have made KMail version 3 work well with OfflineIMAP by
>  > installing an IMAP server on my local machine, having OfflineIMAP=20
sync
>  > to that, and pointing KMail at the same server.
>=20
> I'm just wondering how this is set up?  Specifically, what IMAP client=20
is
> this referring to?  And if dovecot will work, and I was just doing
> something wrong in that thread, what has to be fixed?
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