Blackberry, Horde, Thunderbird, Outlook co-existence

[Tom Malone]

Recently I have been thinking about the co-existence of the various mail 
clients and the Kolab server.

Because the POP/IMAP constraint Outlook puts on the various connectors 
using a connector along side another IMAP client has proven to be 
problematic for my users.

The main problems we have with the current setup are the two Inbox 
folders in Horde and Thunderbird and email messages disappearing into 
Outlook, and out of the IMAP clients, only to reappear later when the 
connector syncs to the server.

Therefore, I have come up with the following design that I think may 
help alleviate the problem.

What I am thinking of is as follows:

1. Create a POP only mailbox for the user.

2. Create an IMAP only mailbox for the user with a flat name space.

3. Upon delivery filter all appointments into the POP only mailbox and 
the rest of the mail to the IMAP only mailbox.

4. Setup an hacked IMAP proxy in front of the IMAP server.  The proxy 
would rewrite all traffic going through it so that requests for the 
users INBOX/Inbox becomes a request for simply INBOX.  This should 
satisfy the dual level name space that the Connectors require.

Configure the various clients as follows:

Outlook

Configure Outlook to POP the appointments from the POP mailbox.
Configure the Outlook connector to periodically fetch mail from the IMAP 
server through the IMAP Proxy.

Thunderbird

Configure Thunderbird to have an IMAP account.  Don't use the proxy for 
this account.
Configure Thunderbird to have a POP account and filter all mail coming 
into the POP account to the IMAP Inbox.

Horde

Configure Horde to look at the IMAP account. Don't use the proxy for 
this account.
Configure Horde to use the Fetch Mail functionality to periodically 
fetch the appointments from the POP mailbox and place them in the IMAP 
Inbox.

BlackBerry

Configure the BlackBerry to look at the IMAP account. Don't use the 
proxy for this account.
Configure a second email account on the BlackBerry to fetch mail from 
the POP account.

For me the two biggest question marks are the IMAP Proxy and the Outlook 
Connectors polling the IMAP Inbox.

For the proxy I would probably use Perdition and hack/configure is as 
needed.

Does anyone else have any experience with using the Toltec in timed sync 
mode on the users Inbox?  Can a folder reasonably be synced every 5 
minutes or so?   Will the new messages from the server come over before 
the old stuff gets synced?  etc...

Has anyone else tried anything similar, or have any additional thoughts 
on this setup?

Just curious.

Tom



-- 
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Thomas Malone, Systems Administration Manager
Lancer Financial Group Companies
370 West Park Avenue, Long Beach, NY 11561
(516) 431-4441 x3230 tmalone at lancer-ins.com
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