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[ANNOUNCE] Cyrus-IMAP for SME 7 Release for testing

Offline jonroberts

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[ANNOUNCE] Cyrus-IMAP for SME 7 Release for testing
« on: July 31, 2006, 11:36:58 AM »
The cyrus-imap contrib has now been updated for SME 7 and is available for download from http://www.westcountrybusiness.com (via 'Tech Forum' link).

This update contains all new RPMS, an enhanced Server-Manager panel and an uninstall feature (Yes, finally).  There is also a script for uninstalling on SME6 and how to upgrade from SME6 to SME7.

Testing of this contrib has so far been limited to two test servers.  The SME6 version experienced problems in that it failed when certain updates were applied.  I hope this has been resolved, but there are no guarrantees.  

Make backups first - test at your own risk.  Please post your comments / feedback.
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Offline soprom

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[ANNOUNCE] Cyrus-IMAP for SME 7 Release for testing
« Reply #1 on: July 31, 2006, 08:18:09 PM »
Thanks! Great work Jon!

Works fine on a fresh install!
Also, on a modified SME7, installed and uninstalled correctly. Mails were left intact after uninstallation. This SME has fetchmail, openxchange, asterisk.
Sophie from Montréal

Offline soprom

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[ANNOUNCE] Cyrus-IMAP for SME 7 Release for testing
« Reply #2 on: August 02, 2006, 05:25:06 PM »
After a yum update, the imap reverted to the standard one.
It's because I mistakenly set properties in the server-manager email settings concerning imap and pop. They must be left set to off.
Access to imap accounts came back.
Sophie from Montréal

Offline jonroberts

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[ANNOUNCE] Cyrus-IMAP for SME 7 Release for testing
« Reply #3 on: August 02, 2006, 07:10:55 PM »
Sophie,

Thanks for this.  The original cyrus install should have already made all the settings in your script & I didn't think that a Yum update made any config changes, although maybe if one of the SME core RPMs was updated, it might have reset some settings.  (Not quite sure how YUM works in detail yet ...)

I'd think that re-running the cyrus install script would also fix the problem.  I'll give it a try to make sure as soon as I get chance.  

Keep up the testing  :-D

Jon
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Offline jonroberts

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[ANNOUNCE] Cyrus-IMAP for SME 7 Release for testing
« Reply #4 on: August 03, 2006, 05:46:46 PM »
Sophie

I've successfully performed a YUM update without a problem, so I guess it depends on what's being updated.

At least if there is a problem, its fairly easily reset using either your script or re-running the install script, but I'll keep testing just in case ...

Jon
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Offline soprom

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[ANNOUNCE] Cyrus-IMAP for SME 7 Release for testing
« Reply #5 on: August 04, 2006, 03:37:07 PM »
Sorry, it was my error since I activated pop and imap in the manager after installing the pakage. They must be left disabled. If they are re-enabled from the manager, the system revert to the standard services.

Sorry about the false alarm!
Sophie from Montréal

Offline jonroberts

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[ANNOUNCE] Cyrus-IMAP for SME 7 Release for testing
« Reply #6 on: August 04, 2006, 03:55:12 PM »
Quote from: "soprom"
Sorry, it was my error since I activated pop and imap in the manager after installing the pakage. They must be left disabled. If they are re-enabled from the manager, the system revert to the standard services.


Thanks for the update, Sophie.  You're right, of course.  For reference (for anyone else watching this thread)  the cyrus-imap install replaces the standard SME packages for both POP and IMAP, so these services are not lost. - just provided by cyrus-imap instead of dovecot.

I did consider uninstalling the redundant SME packages all together, but felt that would make it harder to uninstall cyrus & revert back to 'standard' SME if required.  That's why I opted for just disabling them.  Of course you've found the flaw in this plan, which is that if you happen to re-enable them manually, they will conflict.  Still, you can't win 'em all ...
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Offline soprom

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[ANNOUNCE] Cyrus-IMAP for SME 7 Release for testing
« Reply #7 on: August 04, 2006, 04:45:53 PM »
I did the migration from the standard mail to the cyrus mail using a mail client (thunderbird).

WIth the standard services, I downloaded the mail items with POP. Then after switching to cyrus, I dragged the mail items from the local pop to the imap account.

It's Ok for a small group but there must be a better way for a larger group.
Sophie from Montréal

Offline jonroberts

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[ANNOUNCE] Cyrus-IMAP for SME 7 Release for testing
« Reply #8 on: August 04, 2006, 05:10:08 PM »
Quote from: "soprom"
It's Ok for a small group but there must be a better way for a larger group.


Sophie - I agree, but its not an area I've ever spent much time looking into.  I use cyrus-imap as a back-end for Outlook users.  This works by syncronising the contents of the local Outlook folders (.pst file) with the IMAP server.  So if I ever need to upgrade / migrate, I can build an emtpy cyrus-imap DB & reconnect the Outlook PST files & re-sync from local to server.

Of course, that's no help to you.  I guess you could do something similar with an IMAP client that will 'download' the content of the user folders for 'off-line' access & then use this offline data to re-sync (ie import) back into cyrus-imap - but that's pretty much what you're doing already with Thunderbird.

I googled a bit and found a couple of items (nothing definitive).  Here's a link that may be of interest (I expect there's more out there if you've got the patience to dig a little deeper).

http://barnson.org/node/81
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Offline mudtoe

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[ANNOUNCE] Cyrus-IMAP for SME 7 Release for testing
« Reply #9 on: September 18, 2006, 09:06:57 AM »
I just installed CYRUS, and I've got a couple of questions.  First, I think I've found a bug in that it looks like CYRUS doesn't pay attention to the Local Networks settings, as I've been unable to establish an IMAP connection to it via Outlook or IMAPNotify from a VPN subnet that I have setup in SME as a local network.  It works fine from a machine on the local network, and it works find from the machine having the problem if I pass the IMAP datastream through a proxy server that's on the same subnet as CYRUS.

Second question, who is Sherwood?  That's what I have on my SME admin screen for CYRUS as the topic under the heading "Unknown".  

Lastly, and this is probably more a toltec question than an CYRUS one, but when I install toltec (I installed CYRUS so that I could use toltec to share calendars and such), does all the email data get preserved when I switch the email account from IMAP to toltec?  

Thanks for the assistance,

mudtoe

Offline jonroberts

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[ANNOUNCE] Cyrus-IMAP for SME 7 Release for testing
« Reply #10 on: September 18, 2006, 10:53:37 AM »
Mudtoe - I've never needed to connect to Cyrus via a VPN connection & so haven't come across this problem.  However, I have just created a VPN connection to a client site running Cyrus (on SME6) and was able to connect via Toltec.  I was also able to open IMAP folders on that server using Outlook Express, so I'm not sure I can replicate what you're seeing.

'Sherwood' is the name of the people that did the original work for the Cyrus-Imap contrib, but I thought I'd removed the reference to them (at least in the English version).  Which version of SME are you running?  I think a reboot may solve the label problem, but to be sure issue the following 3 commands:

 /sbin/e-smith/db /home/e-smith/db/navigation/navigation.en set sherwood panel Description "cyrus-IMAP" DescriptionWeight 6750 Heading Configuration HeadingWeight 6000
signal-event console-save
signal-event reboot

Finally, Toltec is for use with Outlook.  Do I understand that you are using IMAP for your e-mail with Outlook?  Toltec will share the folders in your standard PST file (your Personal Folders) by synchronising them with the Cyrus-IMAP server.  If you're using IMAP for e-mail, then you've probably got 2 sets of folders (your IMAP accounts & your Outlook personal folders) in which case installing Totlec wont affect your Inbox.  

When I use Toltec, I just use one set of folders (the Personal Folders) & POP for retrieving mail into the Inbox & allow Totlec's synchronisation to enable me to share the other folders.
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Offline soprom

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[ANNOUNCE] Cyrus-IMAP for SME 7 Release for testing
« Reply #11 on: September 18, 2006, 02:52:50 PM »
With a VPN connection, it could help to set a reference to the host name in the client's PC in the hosts file.
Sophie from Montréal

Offline mudtoe

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« Reply #12 on: September 19, 2006, 04:52:51 AM »
I ran the commands and rebooted, but sherwood is still alive and well.  I'm going to put the machine having the subnet problem on the same subnet as the SME server just to make sure the problem has nothing to do with something screwy in the machine itself.  Rebooting the SME server didn't solve the subnet problem.  

With regard to the VPN and hosts file, I'm using the direct numeric IP addresses in the outlook email configurations, so I don't think I've got any kind of DNS problem.  It's not a routing problem either as I'm able to access the SME server and Horde web pages from the same machine.

Thanks for the info on Toltec.  I do already have several folders for Outlook, one for the calendar, contacts, and Todo list, which is a local PST file for each copy of Outlook, and a number of shared IMAP folders, one for each email address I'm using.  Is there any benefit to converting the email accounts back to POP3, putting them back in the local PST file, and then letting Toltec control the sharing between the copies of Outlook?  I thought I saw a comment that said the new mail indicator wouldn't work with Toltec, and that issue already exists with IMAP under Outlook, although once in a while I get a new mail icon in the tray.  I'm using a program I downloaded called IMAPNotify that sits in the tray and performs the notification function for IMAP email accounts.

P.S.

I'm seeing lots of the following messages in the message log since I installed CYRUS.  Everything seems to be working, but even though I don't know exactly what these mean, I get the idea that something is broken:

Sep 19 00:12:31 srw-smeserver imap[3522]: sql_select option missing
Sep 19 00:12:31 srw-smeserver imap[3522]: auxpropfunc error no mechanism available
Sep 19 00:12:31 srw-smeserver imap[3522]: _sasl_plugin_load failed on sasl_auxprop_plug_init for plugin: sql

Offline soprom

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[ANNOUNCE] Cyrus-IMAP for SME 7 Release for testing
« Reply #13 on: September 19, 2006, 07:53:46 PM »
What I found about these errors is this:
Quote
This is a result of Cyrus trying to use the /usr/lib/sasl2/pwauxprop
SASL plugin. It appears that this plugin handles password policies such
as minimum length and whether the user has to have numbers in the
password or not. Use of this plugin requires reading in the password
server database in /var/db/authserver. When DirectoryServices calls
this plugin it’s running as root, so it can easily read the database
in. However, Cyrus runs as the cyrus user which has no ability to read
that file. As such the plugin fails. Since cyrus has no need to check
password policy, you don’t really have a way to change your pass
through Cyrus, this isn’t an issue.


Other responses on forums are saying that these lines are "Ok" but still there show up constantly...
Quote
So there's nothing wrong with your setup. It is just Cyrus SASL being rather
strange in how it treats this "error".

You might take this to the Cyrus SASL list though, so they can get an idea how
annoying this "feature" is.
Sophie from Montréal

Offline mudtoe

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[ANNOUNCE] Cyrus-IMAP for SME 7 Release for testing
« Reply #14 on: September 19, 2006, 11:59:42 PM »
Can I change the permissions on that one particular file so that the cyrus userid can access the file?  I'm not an expert Unix person, so I'm not sure how granular the file permissions are (i.e. can I simply allow access to that one user, or would I have to open up the file to everyone?).  I would like to get rid of these messages, if for no other reason than they are clogging up the message log and making it difficult to see what else is going on.  

On another topic, I've confirmed that the problem is with CYRUS not recognizing the local networks settings from SME Server.  I took the laptop that was having the problem and put it on the same subnet as the SME server, and when I did that I was able to access the IMAP folders directly, without using the proxy server.   If someone knows where and how to report this bug to the CYRUS people I'll do it, along with the bad message thing.

I installed Toltec this afternoon, and it seems to be working OK, except for the fact that I guess I should have emptied my contacts folder before I synchronized, because it duplicated everything from both computers I was testing it on (they had identical contact lists because I had manually synchronized them a week or so before), and I had two of everything.  I deleted everything and started over by just restoring one system's contact list and allowing it to be propagated to the other system.  I kind of thought Toltec had the ability to identify and discard duplicates during a synchronization, but I guess not.  

mudtoe