Re: destination/maildir: Manuals seem to use different standards / how to configure correctly?

Hi Peter,

If your goal is to read a remote mailbox via IMAP, filter the messages into
folders, and store them into a maildir structure for later consumption via
an IMAP client like Thunderbird, then you're on the right path with
getmail, dovecot-lda, and sieve. I use these tools to maintain a mirror of
a gmail mailbox and they work extremely well, but it takes a bit of head
scratching to get figured out initially. I don't use Thunderbird, so can't
comment on that.

Here's how I feed dovecot-lda from getmail:

[destination]
type = MDA_external
path = /usr/libexec/dovecot/*dovecot-lda*
arguments = ("-e",)
unixfrom = true


After you've got getmail working, focus on dovecot & sieve. Here are the
pointers I'd offer:

https://wiki2.dovecot.org/LDA
https://wiki2.dovecot.org/MailboxFormat/Maildir
https://wiki2.dovecot.org/Pigeonhole/Sieve

The relevant Dovecot config bits are more or less (& where these are
located depends on how you've got Dovecot configured):

protocols = imap
mail_location = maildir:~/Maildir
postmaster_address = [email protected]
lda_mailbox_autocreate = yes
mail_plugins = $mail_plugins sieve


I wouldn't spend any time on procmail, while it was a great tool, it has
long since been replaced by modern tools like sieve. You'll spend most of
your time getting your mail.sieve file figured out as this controls which
folders the messages are stored in. Dovecot provides a very powerful set of
tools to manage the various flavors of mail stores including maildir and of
course it also provides mailbox access via IMAP. Keep reading the manuals
and you'll get it!

Apologies to the rest of the list as this has strayed far from getmail!

--Larry

On Sun, Jul 8, 2018 at 8:54 AM, mick crane <[email protected]> wrote:

> On 2018-07-08 13:31, Peter Nabbefeld wrote:
>
>> Hi Larry,
>>
>> thank You for Your reply! getmail works fine, however, it seems I
>> cannot use Sieve - the purpose for using dovecot is to make
>> Thunderbird happy.
>>
>> I want to get my emails from the provider's server into a maildir, so
>> mails are already stored when dovecot "sees" them.
>>
>> So I need to organize my emails while they are received by getmail,
>> before putting them into the maildir - do You have any idea?
>>
>
> If you can't use sieve ? guess you can use procmail to deliver although I
> think people don't use it so much now.
>
> "path = /usr/bin/procmail" in getmailrc0
>
> then make a .procmailrc with the filter options
> I'm not sure of the exact syntax as I don't have my .procmailrc anymore.
> also can't remember how setup maildir structure before, may have done it
> manually, but this time think used roundcube and the folders plugin to make
> the directories.
>
>
> mick
>
>
>
>
> Am 08.07.2018 um 13:03 schrieb Larry Fahnoe:
>>
>>> Hi Peter,
>>>
>>> Yes, if you have delete = false you can make many different test runs
>>> without making any changes to the source IMAP server. For your initial
>>> tests, use something like:
>>>
>>>     message_log_verbose = true
>>>     verbose = 2
>>>     message_log = ~/.getmail/log
>>>
>>>     max_messages_per_session = 10
>>>
>>>     delete = false
>>>     read_all = true
>>>
>>>
>>> Once you're happy with the way getmail/dovecot_lda/sieve is working,
>>> turn down the logging, remove max_messages_per_session and set delete =
>>> true. Takes a few reads of the various bits of documentation, but these
>>> tools work really well together.
>>>
>>> --Larry
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sun, Jul 8, 2018 at 4:34 AM, Peter Nabbefeld <[email protected]
>>> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>     Hi,
>>>
>>>     syncing isn't a solution, as I want to remove all my messages from
>>>     the provider's server, when I'm ready, so offlineimap and imapsync
>>>     won't help. getmail's maildir shall be used by dovecot as "mail
>>>     buffer".
>>>
>>>     I've noticed the following two options:
>>>     * read_all (boolean) — if set, getmail retrieves all available
>>>     messages. If unset, getmail only retrieves messages it has not
>>>     seen before. Default: True.
>>>     * delete (boolean) — if set, getmail will delete messages after
>>>     retrieving and successfully delivering them. If unset, getmail
>>>     will leave messages on the server after retrieving them. Default:
>>>     False.
>>>
>>>     If I understand that correctly, this is exactly what I'd expect
>>>     for a "dry run", when using defaults: Just copy but change nothing
>>>     (with the exception of some headers after receiving).
>>>
>>>     Kind regards
>>>
>>>     Peter
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>     Am 07.07.2018 um 15:05 schrieb RW:
>>>
>>>         On Sat, 7 Jul 2018 09:44:42 +0200
>>>         Peter Nabbefeld wrote:
>>>
>>>             Hello,
>>>
>>>             I'm trying to setup a dovecot installation with getmail
>>>             and found
>>>             these instructions:
>>>
>>>             1.
>>>             http://pyropus.ca/software/getmail/configuration.html#destin
>>> ation-maildir
>>>             <http://pyropus.ca/software/getmail/configuration.html#desti
>>> nation-maildir>
>>>             using "~/Maildir/"
>>>
>>>             2.
>>>             https://wiki2.dovecot.org/HowTo/TriggerGetmailOnIMAPAccess
>>>             <https://wiki2.dovecot.org/HowTo/TriggerGetmailOnIMAPAccess>
>>>                  using "~/.maildir"
>>>
>>>             3. Using Arch Linux, I've set "mail_location =
>>>             maildir:~/Maildir" in
>>>             "/etc/dovecot/conf.d/10-mail.conf" as advised in their wiki.
>>>
>>>             As these folder names seem having to do with storage
>>>             format, I don't
>>>             want just to guess, so which variant would be correct?
>>>
>>>         It doesn't matter, unless there's something else that cares.
>>>
>>>
>>>             Just to make sure, I'm using the correct toolset:
>>>
>>>             I want to move all my mail documents off of my provider
>>>             (GMX), and I
>>>             want everything to be stored locally. So I want getmail to
>>>             fetch
>>>             everything, including folder structure
>>>
>>>         getmail doesn't do that itself, but you might be able to get
>>>         dovecot sieve to read the folder name from the
>>>         X-getmail-retrieved-from-mailbox header and file automatically
>>>         creating missing folders as it goes. It would rely on some sieve
>>>         extensions that I don't use, so I'm not sure.
>>>
>>>         Alternately there are IMAP syncing programs, such as
>>>         offlineimap and
>>>         imapsync, that can sync directly to the maildir folders or
>>>         through imap.
>>>         Note that there is no standard for creating maildir subfolders
>>>         so, if
>>>         you sync directly make sure that any such program creates them
>>>         in a way
>>>         that they can be read by dovecote.
>>>
>>>         If you just a one-off transfer from the remote imap server to the
>>>         local imap server it might be easier to just use a mail client
>>>         to move
>>>         the mail manually - and then switch to getmail for new mail.
>>>
>>>
> --
> Key ID    C7D6E24C
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected]
> For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
>
>


-- 
Larry Fahnoe, Fahnoe Technology Consulting, [email protected]
           Minneapolis, Minnesota       www.FahnoeTech.com