Re: Battling mail timing issues

...I have an email account on a system where the sysadmin does not want to run a POP server (understandable, given the security issues around POP); this means that my access to the mail on that server is restricted to actually logging in and reading it there. ...

How exactly do you do this? That's the starting point to solve your problem, I think - build your way of managing mail around the mailbox access methods that the remote sysadmin offers and maintains.

To second an already expressed opinion - exim+dovecot is a fine solution, we are offering some hosting based on such a combination and it works well for years already.

If you have shell and ssh access to the remote server - (a far more dangerous option than running a POPS enabled mailserver, if you ask me) - it might be that forwarding X with ssh's -X option (if you're on Linux) and/or tunneling a local port to a remote one that you are allowed to access (with something like -L local_port:localhost:remote_port) would lead to a convenient solution too.

Krambambuli

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Comment on Re: Battling mail timing issues

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Re^2: Battling mail timing issues by oko1 (Deacon) on Aug 21, 2008 at 20:06 UTC
exim+dovecot is a fine solution [...] I'm sure that it is - but it's not available to me, since I don't run that system and the administrator has already said that he doesn't want to install a mail retrieval method beyond what's currently available. 'ssh -X' forwarding isn't necessary either, since I don't use GUI mail clients; in fact, SSH forwarding is not a solution at all, since it doesn't address my problem (synchronizing files, etc., rather than accessing a service.) Thank you for your suggestions, in any case. -- Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. -- HG Wells	[reply]
Re^3: Battling mail timing issues by Krambambuli (Curate) on Aug 22, 2008 at 12:16 UTC
... he doesn't want to install a mail retrieval method beyond what's currently available. But what is available ? Is there nothing than direct file access through shell utilities to the Inbox ? If so, ok, I haven't said nothing :). But otherwise ssh -L should solve your problem with ease and confort. Krambambuli --- occasionally enjoying Mark Jason Dominus's Higher-Order Perl	[reply]