IMAP: IDLE and authentication

[#1]

I'm in the process of switching from POP3 collection to IMAP. It's working but a couple of questions have arisen and I'd be grateful for some clarification:

• I gather that IDLE is supported for 'push' notification. That seems to be working but there's a delay of some three minutes or so. Is this normal? When I tried IDLE with a mail server on my own test rig the notifications were immediate.


• I came across a thread in here that seemed to be saying that the authentication requires identification in the form of a full email address, i.e. mailbox@username.plus.com and that supplying just the mailbox+username won't work (or only partly works). I only spotted that after using the mailbox+username form, and it appears to work just fine. Is this perhaps superseded advice or something?

Thanks.

[#2]

I think the point with the other thread was that the Plusnet IMAP implementation allows either username+mailboxname or full email address to be given. In the thread cited the user's email client  wouldn't accept the former (+) style but was happy with the latter (full email) one. So problem solved.
Since your client works there's no need to change.
I'm not familiar with use of IDLE so I'll pass on that.

[#3]

Ah, right, that makes sense, thanks. It was while running a bit of Python code to test the IDLE issue that I noticed that both styles of ID work.

[#4]

Quote from: Boxersoft

I gather that IDLE is supported for 'push' notification.

Yes.
[quote author="Plusnet's IMAP servers"]~$ telnet imap.plus.net 143
Trying 212.159.8.86...
Connected to imap.plus.net.
Escape character is '^]'.
* OK [CAPABILITY IMAP4rev1 UIDPLUS CHILDREN NAMESPACE THREAD=ORDEREDSUBJECT THREAD=REFERENCES SORT QUOTA IDLE ACL ACL2=UNION] Courier-IMAP ready. Copyright 1998-2011 Double Precision, Inc.  See COPYING for distribution information.

[#5]

Yes, thanks Bob, I noticed that after I posted. Is it normal for it to take as long as three minutes (sometimes nearer five) for notifications to reach clients then? I thought IDLE was typically near instantaneous.

[#6]

My guess is it's something to do with this.

Quote

Without FAM or Gamin, and IMAP_ENHANCEDIDLE set, the Courier IMAP server will manually check for changes to the folder's contents every 60 seconds, in IDLE mode (instead of in real time).

It doesn't look like enhanced idle mode is enabled for a start:

Quote

~$ telnet imap.plus.net 143 Trying 212.159.8.86... Connected to imap.plus.net. Escape character is '^]'. * OK [CAPABILITY IMAP4rev1 UIDPLUS CHILDREN NAMESPACE THREAD=ORDEREDSUBJECT THREAD=REFERENCES SORT QUOTA IDLE ACL ACL2=UNION] Courier-IMAP ready. Copyright 1998-2011 Double Precision, Inc.  See COPYING for distribution information. . login [-REDACTED-] . OK LOGIN Ok. . select INBOX * FLAGS (\Draft \Answered \Flagged \Deleted \Seen \Recent) * OK [PERMANENTFLAGS (\* \Draft \Answered \Flagged \Deleted \Seen)] Limited * 8 EXISTS * 0 RECENT * OK [UIDVALIDITY 1395238770] Ok * OK [MYRIGHTS "acdilrsw"] ACL . OK [READ-WRITE] Ok . IDLE + entering idle mode

[#7]

Quote

Without FAM or Gamin, and IMAP_ENHANCEDIDLE set, the Courier IMAP server will manually check for changes to the folder's contents every 60 seconds, in IDLE mode (instead of in real time).

What I'm typically seeing is 180+ seconds, not 60.

Quote

It doesn't look like enhanced idle mode is enabled for a start:

No likelihood of getting it enabled, I suppose?

[#8]

Quote from: Boxersoft

No likelihood of getting it enabled, I suppose?

I should have anticipated this question I guess
I'll look into what can be done (ref: 460444).

[#9]

Thanks, appreciated.