[ale] imap server

[Jim Sculley]

Benjamin Wald wrote:
> Hey all,
>
> I have a question that I'd like some advice on.
>
> I am interested in setting up my own imap server to host all of my
> email.  The basic idea is this:  I have recently become more interested
> in sending only PGP signed emails and using encryption where possible.
> The problem is I have all my mail forwarding to gmail, so I can check
> all my accounts in one place.  To send a signed or encrypted reply to an
> already existing email I need to download the email to a client computer
> to respond to it.  Since I often use several computers and OSes for
> regular email reading its a crap shoot which computer a specific email
> resides on.  So to send a signed/encrypted reply I would need to find
> the computer and/or OS with the proper email and reply to it from there.
>
> My plan to fix this is to set up a server which downloads all the mail
> from gmail.  (or I could set up my other email addresses to directly
> forward to this server, I don't know what would be easier.)  This server
> would then serve the mail via imap so I could use various programs on
> different computers and access the same mail to send replies and such.
>
> I've already received suggestions to use fetchmail and/or courier mail
> server but I don't know anything about these programs and I'd like some
> help setting this all up.
>   

Fetchmail--->Postfix---->Spamassasin---->Cyrus Imap Server (with 
web-cyradm for easier setup)---->Mozilla Thunderbird Email


Web-cyradm also uses MySQL to store information about accounts, domains, 
etc....

I faced this same issue several years ago and have been happily using 
the above setup.  I even have the IMAP server fetching USENET articles 
from the groups I'm interested in and serving them up as IMAP folders.  
The system also forwards all system emails from my 3 Linux boxes to one 
account on the IMAP Server.  The only thing I don't have working at the 
moment is sending mail from 'remote' locations.  I'm certain it is 
possible, I just haven't sat down to get SMTP AUTH set up.

Fetchmail setup is very easy.

Spamassasin setup is easy.

Postfix setup is moderate.

Cyrus IMAP/web-cyradm can be difficult, but if you know someone who has 
set it up successfully, it is easier.  I probably made every mistake you 
can think of is setting this up the first time around.  Just last 
weekend I set up a new server with all this and it was much less painful.

Feel free to email me if you want more specific information. 

Jim S.