[X-Unix] local IMAP server?

[Stroller]

On Mar 18, 2005, at 4:55 pm, Michael Gmail wrote:
>
> I've been avoiding Entourage because I don't want all my mail in a 
> proprietary database. But Entourage speaks IMAP, doesn't it? Is there 
> any reason I couldn't set up a local IMAP server on my own machine, 
> then store all my mail there and access it from any IMAP mail client I 
> feel like using?

No reason at all. It would probably work very well.

> How difficult is it?

On Linux I did it in my spare time over the course of a few days. 
Installation is pretty-well documented for Linux but for Mac OS X you 
can use Fink or Darwin ports. This article 
<http://www.stepwise.com/Articles/Workbench/eart.index.html> tells you 
how to compile  from source, but I prefer Courier to UW. Courier uses 
fairly standard Maildirs containing a single file per email - I _think_ 
UW normally uses mbox (?) format which, although standard, is a single 
text file per folder.

> Am I overlooking anything?

What I found complicated was wrapping my head around the other mail 
transport layers. You don't need to worry about SMTP / Postfix / 
sendmail, because Entourage / Mail.app on your Mac can talk directly to 
your ISP's mailserver. but when you've finished installing your IMAP 
server you'll want some way of getting mail from the mailboxes you have 
with your ISP to your IMAP inbox. I use fetchmail for this - it can be 
told to call maildrop for message-filtering. You'll probably find 
yourself reading a few manpages.

> Can existing mail be imported?

Yes. Add a new account for the server in Entourage & then drag & drop 
from your local servers onto the server.

Stroller.