Home IMAP server

[Jeffrey F. Bloss]

Dotan Cohen wrote:

<snippage>

> Assuming that I go with the IMAP server on my home machine, I'd need:
> (please correct me if I'm wrong)
> 
> 1) A static IP (which I have)

This isn't absolutely necessary. The typical solution for dynamic IP
addresses is to use an automatic DDNS redirect service like Yi.org or
DynDNS.com. Even with a static IP and your own domain, you might want
to consider a free redirect unless you can reconfigure your domain MX
to use your home server directly. Something you might not want to do
for a number of reasons. 

Either way there's some other minor considerations that make having a
"name" assigned to your home mail server preferable to accessing it by
IP. Most of them have to do with incoming mail and SPAM/RBL stuff which
may or may not be an issue depending on whether or not your mail server
has any public exposure.

> 2) The machine must always be turned on (which it is)
> 3) Fetchmail, which would pull the email from the server and store it.
> Then the IMAP server (dovecot for example) would make the mail
> available to both Kmail running locally, and Kmail on the laptop.

I would *strongly* urge you to include an SMTP server in the
configuration. It's possible to have Fetchmail do local mail delivery
with the -mda (?) switch, but this raises certain security and
functionality issues you might want to research.

Opinions vary on this of course. I'd suggest some Google time and
searches on things like 'fetchmail without SMTP' and 'fetchmail IMAP
support'. I think you'll come away with the opinion that it's generally
better to have the proper tool for the proper job. ;)

> 4) I'd continue sending email via SMTP on the server. That means that
> sent mail will only be available on the machine that it was sent from.

Here again I would probably want to use the local mail server for
outgoing delivery. It keeps things "centralized" and under your control.
Configuring most SMTP servers to relay mail through a "smart host" like
your domain account's mail server is a snap compared to everything
else. And you can still send directly through your domain/Gmail
accounts from KMail if you want, using different profiles. KMail does
allow multiple send profiles, right? It's been a while....

> 5) If I continue using bogofilter in Kmail, it will only filter the
> mail on that machine. Or, is there a way to have bogofilter in the
> IMAP server itself? That way it will learn from when I tag ham/spam on
> both machines.

Yup, this is why you'll probably want to run a full blown mail
server. :) Setting up the extra goodies will be a lot less cumbersome
once you understand how it all works. Bogofilter/Spamassassin and
things like ClamAV can be configured to observe ALL your incoming and
outgoing mail centrally. One setup to configure and maintain, rather
than trying to "sync" spam databases and what not between your laptop
and any permanent home workstations you might have.

-- 
     _?_      Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend.
    (o o)         Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.
-oOO-(_)--OOo-------------------------------[ Groucho Marx ]--
    grok!              Registered Linux user #402208
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 892 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-users/attachments/20061227/1245ac8c/attachment.sig>