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Re: How can I share a mailbox between multiple OSes



David Witbrodt:
>
> This is a newbie question.  I just installed Debian and several other
> OSes onto my old machine.  As I have been reading the docs, and have
> started configuring things to my liking, I found myself wondering
> whether an email application exists that would allow me to store my
> mailbox files on a common data partition, which could be then used by
> whatever OS was currently running.

You could use mutt with a common Maildir, but I wouldn't recommend that.
What you *really* want is to set up an IMAP server on the host where
your mails are stored. IMAP is similar to POP, but all the mails are
stored on the server and mailclients handle them as if they were stored
locally. Almost all current mailclients know IMAP and your problem is
solved.

For easy setup and maintenance I recommend dovecot. Just install it,
edit a few lines in /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf and point your mail
clients to it.  Finished. It is really easy.

If several people have access to this mailbox, I suggest creating a
special user for these shared mails since in its default configuration,
dovecot uses standard user credentials which probably also give shell
access to the system running dovecot. Alternatively, you can also use a
MySQL or PostgreSQL database for user authentication.

J.
-- 
People talking a foreign language are romantic and mysterious.
[Agree]   [Disagree]
                 <http://www.slowlydownward.com/NODATA/data_enter2.html>

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