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---
date: "2004-10-10T12:47:04Z"
title: Response to WP Article
---
Here's an email I just sent in response to <a href='http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A10089-2004Mar20¬Found=true'>this Washington Post article</a>.
<blockquote>
<p>
Hi Rob,
</p>
<p>
I just read "Internet Providers Should Find Their Way to IMAP" [1], your
article on migrating email from POP3 to IMAP. I'm a UNIX system
administrator and programmer by day, and, as a hobby, I provide email
and web site hosting for a handful of family members, friends, and small
businesses. I'd like to share my experience configuring various mail
servers (also referred to as daemons), and offer some advice for readers
asking about IMAP or looking for a decent email client, and for ISPs
touting the high cost of providing IMAP service.
</p>
<p>
For readers looking for a decent email client, I recommend Mozilla
Thunderbird [2]. Thunderbird is free, easy to use, and available for
several operating systems. Thunderbird is also small (about the size
of a decent quality MP3 file), and easy to install; my parents were able
to switch from Outlook to Thunderbird without any assistance from me or
their ISP. Best of all, Thunderbird is immune to existing email worms
and viruses, has powerful built-in spam filtering, supports signed and
encrypted email, and can communicate with secure email servers (POP3s
and IMAPs). Oh, Mac users might want to try Mail [3], which comes
pre-installed in recent versions of MacOS and supports many of the
features I mentioned above.
</p>
<p>
As for ISPs, offering IMAP can be a real pain. Three of the most
popular IMAP daemons are Cyrus IMAPd, Courier IMAPd, and UW-IMAP [4].
The problem with all of them is essentially the same: each requires
complicated and haphazard configuration, and none integrate gracefully
with existing server configurations. For example, the IMAP daemons
listed above store email messages on the server in MH or Maildir format,
while most UNIX systems and POP3 daemons store email messages in mbox
format.
</p>
<p>
The solution? An IMAP daemon called Dovecot [5]. Dovecot is a free
POP3 and IMAP daemon which supports mbox and Maildir mail spool formats,
supports IMAPs and POP3s, and is incredibly easy to set up. In Debian
Linux [6], Dovecot basically configures itself. Dovecot also supports
the most common user authentication schemes out of the box: PAM,
/etc/passwd, and LDAP. Dovecot works great in Linux and Solaris (the
two most common UNIX variants used by ISPs), and also in other operating
systems such as FreeBSD and MacOS.
</p>
<p>
I'm available to answer questions from readers about IMAP and IMAP
daemons. I can be reached via email at pabs@pablotron.org or
paul@paulduncan.org.
</p>
<p>
References:
</p>
<ol>
<li>"Internet Providers Should Find Their Way to IMAP": <a href='http://tinyurl.com/5kzbc'>http://tinyurl.com/5kzbc</a></li>
<li>Mozilla Thunderbird: <a href='http://mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/'>http://mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/</a></li>
<li>Apple Mail: <a href='http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/mail/'>http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/mail/</a></li>
<li>Cyrus, Courier, and UW-IMAP: <a
href='http://asg.web.cmu.edu/cyrus/imapd/'>http://asg.web.cmu.edu/cyrus/imapd/</a>,
<a href='http://www.courier-mta.org/'>http://www.courier-mta.org/</a>, and <a href='http://www.washington.edu/imap/'>http://www.washington.edu/imap/</a>
(respectively)</li>
<li>Dovecot: <a href='http://www.dovecot.org/'>http://www.dovecot.org/</a></li>
<li>Debian Linux: <a href='http://www.debian.org/'>http://www.debian.org/</a></li>
</ol>
<p>
--<br />
Paul Duncan <<a href='mailto:pabs@pablotron.org'>pabs@pablotron.org</a>><br />
<a href='http://www.pablotron.org/'>http://www.pablotron.org/</a>
</p>
</blockquote>
<p>
<b>Update:</b> Changed the <acronym title='Washington Post'>WP</acronym>
<acronym title='Uniform Resource Locator'>URL</acronym> to a <a
href='http://tinyurl.com/'>TinyURL</a> link instead, in order to fix
page reflow.
</p>
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