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I want to use Kolab as a private person, just as a platform for keeping all my contacts, events, tasks and mail together. It's because it's the only product that supports synchronizing mail+contacts+events+tasks with Thunderbird/Lightning, Win Mobile and Android (what I'm using) as well as Outlook etc.

The problem is I don't want to host it on my own, because I'm going to be forced to think about security, my incoming traffic will be overblown with hackers attempts to spamize the machine. Also, if my computer will be off for a minute (that happens frequently enough due to the ISP maintenance), I can lose an important mail.

And AFAIK there is not available Kolab web hosting, just enterprise services.

What if I install Kolab server on my home server, then link it somehow with an external mail server? Kolab will not be allowed to send e-mails, just to synchronize them with the other server, which is safer. And the external server uptime is a hoster pain, not mine.

So, how to make my internal IMAP-based mail server synchronize with an external mail-server? I need only e-mail synchronizing.

Regards,

noober
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  • This does not appear to relate to professional systems administration and as such, is off-topic. You may have better luck over on [Superuser](http://superuser.com/), but please have a read of their [FAQ](http://superuser.com/faq) first before posting there to ensure your question is on-topic. – EEAA Apr 18 '13 at 11:39
  • Additionally, you probably ought to learn a bit more about mail before trying to self-host. You **will not** lose mail if your server is down for a short time. Sending servers will typically queue/retry for as long as 24 hours before sending an NDR to the sender. – EEAA Apr 18 '13 at 11:41
  • @EEAA, I've heard a lot of real-life mail servers are configured to think unavailability means spam. – noober Apr 18 '13 at 11:55
  • Mail server at Superuser? LOL. – noober Apr 18 '13 at 11:55
  • Well then don't ask it there. Maybe Unix&Linux would be better. Regardless, don't abuse the system by posting off topic questions, here or elsewhere on SE. – EEAA Apr 18 '13 at 12:00
  • While the context may be off topic I don't think that the question is off-topic - this is exactly the problem faced by many small business (and even some large ones) – symcbean Apr 18 '13 at 12:12
  • @EEAA IMAP-based mail servers synchronization is off-topic here and a question on it is abusing? Twice LOL. – noober Apr 18 '13 at 12:20
  • I agree that this is more of a unix/linux question. Also that if unavailability means spam, then email is dead, for good this time. And thirdly that I've used fetchmail for this very thing. – Jenny D Apr 18 '13 at 12:23

1 Answers1

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how to make my internal IMAP-based mail server synchronize

For incoming mail then fetchmail will happily retrieve mail from a remote IMAP system and hand it over to your local MTA for delivery (or even shortcut the local MTA). Outgoing mail just needs to be configured to use a smart relay. After that it's up to you whether you send/read on the local or remote machine.

The caveat is that replication only works one way - if you delete an email on your local server then it will still be present on the remote server (and vice versa).

If you want to keep the systems in sync / can't automate removal of very old messages on the remote server, then have a look at imapsync

symcbean
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