Copy to 'Sent' server side

[Black20VT]

Hi,

Here I am again with another suggestion

Would be nice to have the ability for the server to copy sent messages to the 'Sent' folder rather than the mail client doing this task.

This is particularly evident when sending large messages, as it's not only sent to the SMTP server, it's then having to be copied to the 'Sent' folder of the mail client, so basically duplicating the workload, which can be time consuming, especially on larger mails.

Would be great to be able to set this at per domain and then per account level.

Thanks for reading

[Black20VT]

Forgot to add, this is only applicable to IMAP mail.

Talking of which, and not sure if I should open another 'Suggestion', but would be good to set POP, IMAP & SMTP functionality per domain and per account? Should I open a new suggestion for this?

Thanks again.

[RollerNetSupport]

It's certainly possible as long as the mail is sent through our outbound server. The hard part is that they're separate systems, so we'd have to build an IMAP client into the AUTH server path so it could place a copy in the mail box. We'll look in to it.

[RollerNetSupport]

Forgot to add, this is only applicable to IMAP mail.

Talking of which, and not sure if I should open another 'Suggestion', but would be good to set POP, IMAP & SMTP functionality per domain and per account? Should I open a new suggestion for this?

Thanks again.

Do you mean restricting certain mail boxes to only allow POP or IMAP login?

[Black20VT]

It's certainly possible as long as the mail is sent through our outbound server. The hard part is that they're separate systems, so we'd have to build an IMAP client into the AUTH server path so it could place a copy in the mail box. We'll look in to it.

That would be superb, thanks for considering and I like giving people a challenge

[Black20VT]

Forgot to add, this is only applicable to IMAP mail.

Talking of which, and not sure if I should open another 'Suggestion', but would be good to set POP, IMAP & SMTP functionality per domain and per account? Should I open a new suggestion for this?

Thanks again.

Do you mean restricting certain mail boxes to only allow POP or IMAP login?

Indeed. I guess it's another security measure to prevent 'hackers' attempting to access the account via a protocol that isn't used.

Web access only should be another option aswell really...

[tburke261]

That would be nice, could save some bandwidth on both ends. When I am working at a remote site with a high-latency/low bandwidth connection this could make a nice difference.

[Seth]

This can now be accomplished with Sieve and the new mirroring option just added to outbound mail. A unique header is added to the mirrored copy so it can have rules applied to it.

Sieve example:

Code: Select all

require ["fileinto", "imapflags"];

if header :is "X-Rollernet-AuthMirror" "mailbox@example.net" {
  addflag "\\Seen";
  fileinto "Sent Items";
  stop;
}

[Black20VT]

Hi Seth,

This sounds great, however, in order for this to work, do I need to have mail mirroring enabled on the accounts? I can't see just outbound mirroring on it's own, I can only see all mirroring?

Thanks.

[Seth]

Hi Seth,

This sounds great, however, in order for this to work, do I need to have mail mirroring enabled on the accounts? I can't see just outbound mirroring on it's own, I can only see all mirroring?

Thanks.

Ah yes, I should have been more specific. It's under outbound config:

https://acc.rollernet.us/mail/outbound.php

Click on the outbound account name to bring up its detailed settings and you'll see it there. You don't need to enable mirroring for the (incoming) domain.

[Black20VT]

Ah yes, I should have been more specific. It's under outbound config:

https://acc.rollernet.us/mail/outbound.php

Click on the outbound account name to bring up its detailed settings and you'll see it there. You don't need to enable mirroring for the (incoming) domain.

Ah ha, I see.

So is it best to mirror to itself, then include the script to copy it over? Where would the mirror normally end up with no script if it's mirroring to itself?

Also, how does the effect resource usage compared to the current method of the client moving it?

Thanks.

[Seth]

Ah yes, I should have been more specific. It's under outbound config:

https://acc.rollernet.us/mail/outbound.php

Click on the outbound account name to bring up its detailed settings and you'll see it there. You don't need to enable mirroring for the (incoming) domain.

Ah ha, I see.

So is it best to mirror to itself, then include the script to copy it over? Where would the mirror normally end up with no script if it's mirroring to itself?

Also, how does the effect resource usage compared to the current method of the client moving it?

Thanks.

Yes, mirror to itself. Without the Sieve script it would just get delivered to the inbox like any normal incoming message.

Using the mirroring and BCC options will incur additional usage since the smtpauth server is processing it, and in the case of mirroring has to maintain multiple distinct filehandles in order to add the header without altering the original. When the client copies it up, it's actually not connecting to smtpauth, but rather directly to the IMAP server. This is why it gets "sent" twice, once for each server.

[Black20VT]

Yes, mirror to itself. Without the Sieve script it would just get delivered to the inbox like any normal incoming message.

Using the mirroring and BCC options will incur additional usage since the smtpauth server is processing it, and in the case of mirroring has to maintain multiple distinct filehandles in order to add the header without altering the original. When the client copies it up, it's actually not connecting to smtpauth, but rather directly to the IMAP server. This is why it gets "sent" twice, once for each server.

Thanks for the additional explanation. It might have to be something I think about, as some days, users are close to the account limits and with the mirroring in place, will push it over which is a shame. Will this feature always use additional usage? Is there any work around?

Just out of interest, how do webmail clients do it differently than IMAP clients? IMAP puts one in the account 'Sent' folder and one to the 'smtpauth' server, how does webmail work?

Thanks.

[Seth]

Yes, mirror to itself. Without the Sieve script it would just get delivered to the inbox like any normal incoming message.

Using the mirroring and BCC options will incur additional usage since the smtpauth server is processing it, and in the case of mirroring has to maintain multiple distinct filehandles in order to add the header without altering the original. When the client copies it up, it's actually not connecting to smtpauth, but rather directly to the IMAP server. This is why it gets "sent" twice, once for each server.

Thanks for the additional explanation. It might have to be something I think about, as some days, users are close to the account limits and with the mirroring in place, will push it over which is a shame. Will this feature always use additional usage? Is there any work around?

Just out of interest, how do webmail clients do it differently than IMAP clients? IMAP puts one in the account 'Sent' folder and one to the 'smtpauth' server, how does webmail work?

Thanks.

The webmail clients do it the same way a client on your computer does. If I look at the actual connections the webmail server generates, there will still be one to smtpauth to send and one to the IMAP server to store it. It still logs in with a user/pass to the smtpauth server like everyone else. (This is for security. I don't want webmail emitting its own mail.) One minor difference is because web sessions are stateless, I run imapproxy behind it to hold IMAP connections open in the background so it doesn't waste resources opening and closing a session every time something gets clicked on. A real IMAP client already does this, most of the time in IDLE waiting for us to send a new message notice.

The raw bandwidth isn't the whole picture, there's also the additional open files smtpauth has to keep track of busier it gets (suddenly it's doing a minimum of two things when one mirror is enabled). The server starts to get slower and I have to keep its response times reasonable. Sometimes that means going back and re-optimizing functions based on observed behavior, or sometimes it means buying more servers and distributing parts of the load. Either way, the increased load needs to justify itself somehow.

[Black20VT]

Ok, thanks Seth for confirming how it all works.

So just to get it right in my head, using a client to copy to 'smtpauth' and the 'sent' folder only counts for one lot of bandwidth against allowance, that's on the smtpauth part. Then the copy to sent folder doesn't use bandwidth, as that's an imap transaction, which doesn't go against allowance?

Whereas mirroring to the sent folder server side counts for 2 lots of bandwidth. 1 to the smtpauth and a second, the server side copy?

I'm just trying get it 100% clear in my head, as to prevent going over my allowances.

Thanks again.