qutestions about IMAP mail

[Dave Chamberlin]

Ok - so I have installed the UW-IMAP server software on my rp7400 (hpux 11.11), but need some direction on how to actually use it. I have sendmail currently running on the box. Does it have to be shutdown? ie - is this other mail and sendmail mutually exclusive? I have read several documents on the UW website, but I need something more generic and user oriented. Any help would be appreciated. thanks

[Jeff_Traigle]

Sendmail is a mail transport agent (MTA), which is required for a mail server. (It could be postfix or some other MTA, but sendmail is what is used in HP-UX.) Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) a protocol for email clients (e.g. Outlook, pine, Mail.app) to access mailboxes on the system (usually remotely). Running IMAP on a server that doesn't have sendmail running to accept mail delivery on the system is pretty pointless so they are definitely not mutually exclusive. :) They handle totally separate aspects of an email server.

[Dave Chamberlin]

That clarifies the architecture a bit. Does IMAP run as a daemon or background process? If so - how does it start/terminate? Where would you suggest I go so can I find out how to use IMAP server with a client like pine? Thanks

[Jeff_Traigle]

It typically runs as a daemon (started through the normal init process with a script in /sbin/init.d and symlinks to start and stop at appropriate runlevels in /sbin/rc?.d). It's possible (if remember correctly) to run it from inetd, but that unnecessarily burdens the system more. Assuming you used UW-IMAP from the Internet Express bundle from software.hp.com, all of that should be set up for you already. I haven't used the package so I don't if the default set up is reasonable or functional.

For the client, you just need the protocol (IMAP daemons typically support the older POP protocols as well), name of the server, and the port it uses for IMAP (143 is the default) or POP (110 is the default for POP3).