Webmail applications that are kind to the IMAP server?

[JP Howard]

On Mon, 02 Sep 2002 13:55:57 -0400, "Cyrus Daboo"
<daboo at cyrusoft.com> said:
> What is really required for a persistent connection webmail system
> using apache is in effect a full imap client on the webserver for
> each user. That client would then maintain the persistent connection
> keeping the mailbox in the 'open' state, eliminating the need to
> re-authenticate, select, sort etc. Since that does not fit the apache
> process model you would likely have to have these clients run as
> separate processes and then have apache processes communicate with
> those to generate the html sent to the user. This is the 'imap
> gateway' type approach described by the Squirrel Mail people. Clearly
> it is a major engineering task to do and will increase the load of
> the webserver way beyond what it is now.

Actually, a simpler answer is to just create a "socket pool". Simply
create a daemon that stores a socket for each user in a
hash/dictionary. The daemon listens for a request like "get <username>
<password>" and passes the socket from the pool (creating one if
necessary by logging in to the IMAP server). Then the web app just uses
the socket as per usual, and when done sends an "unlock <username>"
back to the daemon.