Shared IMAP in Outlook

[DaiShan]

Hi guys, I've run into a bit of a problem here. I've been migrating users to the IMAP protocol for a variety of reasons, one of which to enable shared mailboxes (currently they use an elaborate forwarding scheme to get the emails to all of the people that need to see it, this increases server load and is unnecessary with IMAP) I have no problem with the mailboxes when I use Thunderbird, but if two Outlook users are using an IMAP account, they get the error message "Your IMAP server has closed the connection. This may occur if you have left the connection idle for too long." Details reveals "Lost Mailbox lock." A google search seems to suggest that it is related to the way that Outlook stores mail, but I can't seem to find a solution to the problem. Do you guys have any ideas?

 

[Tsaico]

I would be interested in the solution. I have had some problems with Outlook 2003 and IMAP... Which is weird since IMAP has been around for years...

 

[cleverhandle]

Outlook sucks as an IMAP client. Microsoft has no interest in supporting it properly because it then free IMAP servers would compete too well against Exchange. Ditch the piece of junk and use Thunderbird.

I know that, sadly, that's not always possible. What kind of IMAP server are you running here? There may be server side workaround of some sort.

 

[RebateMonger]

MS probably doesn't pay attention to IMAP because Exchange/Outlook (using MAPI) does this kind of stuff (sharing) soooo well and soooo easily. If you have Windows servers, Exchange/MAPI is the way to go. Outlook over HTTPS, Outlook Web Access, and Outlook Mobile Access make it trivial to access fully synchronized (and easily shared) mailboxes from virtually anywhere in the world using PCs, laptops, PDAs, and SmartPhones.

 

[DaiShan]

Our servers are colocated Linux, I mean I can set up Exchange(on our in office network), but why add another server and complicate the infrastructure? Also, we currently have business cable with a half duplex connection, so running a high availability server would be difficult heh. The other thing that I hate about Outlook and IMAP is that when you delete the message, you also have to purge it from the box, otherwise it sits there with a strike through it. I thought this was some configuration option I was missing, but Microsoft themselves says this is a "feature". I wrote a Macro to automatically do this for the users, but it's far from being an acceptable solution.

 

[RebateMonger]

You could also consider hosted Exchange mailboxes. They are about $10 a month per mailbox and give you all the features of Exchange (including sharing, OWA, mobile access, and Outlook over HTTPS) without the bother of running your own server.

 

[cleverhandle]

Originally posted by: DaiShan
The other thing that I hate about Outlook and IMAP is that when you delete the message, you also have to purge it from the box, otherwise it sits there with a strike through it. I thought this was some configuration option I was missing, but Microsoft themselves says this is a "feature".

The purging stuff is all part of the IMAP spec. That's the baseline for how message deletion is supposed to work in IMAP. However, very few people really like working that way and thus every other IMAP client out there besides Outlook provides an option to do a "Move to Trash folder" in place of the IMAP-spec delete. Implementing such a configuration option in Outlook would be trivial for MS. The fact that they haven't done so is just further evidence of how they manipulate users into buying more of their server products rather than actually meet their needs. Which brings me to...

Originally posted by: RebateMonger[/i]
You could also consider hosted Exchange mailboxes. They are about $10 a month per mailbox and give you all the features of Exchange (including sharing, OWA, mobile access, and Outlook over HTTPS) without the bother of running your own server.

I know that you are SBS expert, RebateMonger, and I definitely respect that. And SBS/Exchange is sometimes a great solution, but other times not. There are plenty of shops out there that don't need any of what you mention above. All they need is simple, straight-up email. And a Unix IMAP server is perfect for that. It's free, functional, and simple - far, far simpler than Exchange. If MS Outlook didn't do such a half-assed job of working with IMAP, you'd see a lot more shops running Postfix/IMAP servers for their Windows clients. It's market manipulation based on Outlook's bundled-into-Office near-monopoly position, plain and simple.

Like I said, SBS and Exchange do some cool things. I'm not saying Unix is always the answer. But don't blind yourself to the facts.

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: cleverhandle
Like I said, SBS and Exchange do some cool things. I'm not saying Unix is always the answer. But don't blind yourself to the facts.

I'm aware that Unix/Linux can run mailservers. You are aware that Exchange 2003 does some stuff that no Linux mailserver does, particularly in the area of sharing of information.

And, now, the OP is aware of it, too. So we're cool.....

Hopefully, you guys can help him/her get the shared IMAP mail accounts working properly and there's no need to switch servers.

 

[DaiShan]

Thanks for all of the replies guys. I've come up with a plan to resolve the issue: I'll be switching our IMAP daemon from uw imap to Courier IMAP which uses the maildir format for storing messages. Maildir supports multiple concurrent connections and does not require any type of lock on the box by the client application. I'll update the OP with my results (although it may be a few weeks, this is a production environment so we'll definitely want to cover all of our bases) Also this whole Linux vs Windows thing is kind of pointless, as RebateMonger pointed out different applications are needed to fill different requirements. For example this particular client needs to be able to share access to mail boxes, but they have a limited IT budget, so upgrading to an SLA ISP or renting mailboxes for the 200 employees isn't feasible, we do however make use of the Business Contact manager plugin to outlook which we run off of our in-house SQL server, it gives more functionality and integration than an LDAP backend for contact storage in Thunderbird would, plus we don't have to train 200 people on a new mail client. Different strokes for different folks as they say 🙂

 

[Nothinman]

I'll be switching our IMAP daemon from uw imap to Courier IMAP which uses the maildir format for storing messages.

You should have said you were using UW-IMAPd at the beginning, everyone would have yelled "Stop that!". =)

Courier is definitely better than UW, but if possible you should look at Cyrus too, it's what they use at CMU and speed, shared folders, high availability and ACLs are their main focus. It's a bit more work to install (you need to setup SASL first, which actually isn't that bad) but if the mailboxes will be large and used by a lot of people it might be worth it.

 

[cleverhandle]

Yeah, I agree with Nothinman on all points there. I've only played around setting up a Cyrus server once and that was a couple years back, but it had an impressive bunch of features available at the time compared to Courier. Much better availability, better support for virtual domains and virtual users, ACL's, lots of cool stuff, more focused on relatively large installations (not that 200 people is enormous, but still...). It's more work to set up than Courier, but no more complicated than setting up whatever your MTA is.

 

[DaiShan]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

I'll be switching our IMAP daemon from uw imap to Courier IMAP which uses the maildir format for storing messages.

You should have said you were using UW-IMAPd at the beginning, everyone would have yelled "Stop that!". =)

One of the joys of inheriting a system from someone else 🙂

 

[spikespiegal]

Also this whole Linux vs Windows thing is kind of pointless, as RebateMonger pointed out different applications are needed to fill different requirements. For example this particular client needs to be able to share access to mail boxes, but they have a limited IT budget

This in a way is a similiar situation to what I'm dealing with. Basically, the prior network admin had a fetish for anything with an IBM logo on it and consequently left me with Domino Servers running on AS400s. Compared to that nightmare you're in shangri-la my friend.

Anyways, so much capital was dumped into that stupid manuever that Accounting still isn't releasing any funds to move onto a different platform. I managed to pull Domino off the As400s and migrate it to a spare Windows server (where it ran 10x better without the silly Unix emulation inside the As400). However, I'm still stuck with about 50 screaming users still running Lotus Notes who can't stand it.

If they move to Outlook Express (an upgrade from Lotus Notes), they lose any type of collaboration tools. LDAP doesn't work for beans between MS and Domino, and IMAP doesn't help me much. The result is my sales force would rather use Pop services than deal with a Lotus mail client, so everybody's got something to gripe about. I refuse to use an external Exchange host because those providers frequently subscribe to over zealous RBL lists to market good spam filtering and the result is constant calls to their support.

To be honest, I prefer Outlook 2003 over everthing else because it seems to have the greatest strength to weakness ratio. Unfortunatley you have the IMAP quirks, and you realistically can't get any other mail platform the integrate with Outlook like Exchange can. I've maintained Exchange boxes, and while I like Outlook, I still feel Exchange has a way to go and in some respects is primitive compared to my Domino servers. As typical of Microsoft though, the end user tends to push the other server platforms eventually out of the equation.

 

[netsysadmin]

spikespiegal...you know there is a connector for Outlook that allows it to connect to a Notes Domino server. Look for it on the MS office download site.

PS...My last job used Notes...I feel your pain! My new job runs Exchange so I am a happy man!

John

 

[Genx87]

Notes, ughh, utter crap.

Like I said, SBS and Exchange do some cool things. I'm not saying Unix is always the answer. But don't blind yourself to the facts.

Think he was talking about hosted exchange, which is, you pay a company to run exchange for you. The costs are usually in the 10-15 per month per user range and you gain all the functionality of having exchange in house such as shared calendars, email, public folders ect, and RPC over HTTPS which is a sweet feature worthy of an upgrade to Outlook 03.

For many small firms this is a great option instead of having to worry about hiring an expert to run exchange or another server type and the costs of requiring a more reliable connection and higher bandwidth. Pay another company 120 bucks a year per user and you have 100% uptime and the ability to grab your email anywhere in the world provided you have an internet connection through the outlook client.

 

[spikespiegal]

you know there is a connector for Outlook that allows it to connect to a Notes Domino server

Uh, yes and no. That infamous connector in Outlook 2003 actually lies on top of a Lotus Notes client install, so you really aren't connecting directly to the domino server, but just routing through the local Notes client and security credentials. It's what you call a H-A-C-K. 😀

Given most of my Notes users are running on Citrix, I'd rather shove a large screwdriver up my nose than attempt it given how difficult Notes was to get working in a TS environment.

 

[spikespiegal]

Pay another company 120 bucks a year per user

Which is already exceeding the cost of an Exchange CAL, and you are essentially leasing your network services which any CFO will cringe and scream about. Good for a really small company. Not so good for a medium to large one.

My company for instance does a lot of correspondence with the far east, and hosted services are too aggresive when it comes to RBL filtering. I'm sorry, but none of these services are as reliable as a local mail server on a business class internet connection - been there - done that.

If you can't afford part time IT people to keep an eye on your mail server, then it makes sense.

 

[DaiShan]

Update: I converted all mailboxes to Maildir format, and switched to Courier. The whole process (server side) took about an hour (using a script I wrote to convert mbox to maildir) In terms of mail, everything is working pretty smoothly.

 

[Genx87]

Originally posted by: spikespiegal

Pay another company 120 bucks a year per user

Which is already exceeding the cost of an Exchange CAL, and you are essentially leasing your network services which any CFO will cringe and scream about. Good for a really small company. Not so good for a medium to large one.

My company for instance does a lot of correspondence with the far east, and hosted services are too aggresive when it comes to RBL filtering. I'm sorry, but none of these services are as reliable as a local mail server on a business class internet connection - been there - done that.

If you can't afford part time IT people to keep an eye on your mail server, then it makes sense.

Exactly, 120 bucks is more than a cal, however to pay a guy 10,20, 40K a year to keep it up and running + a line better than DSL is a lot more expensive 🙂

If you are a company over 50-75 people I'd consider looking at an in house solution. Otherwise it gets spendy for small companies to host their own exchange.