Push mail

[nexusnet]

Can someone tell me if push mail is in any addons or built into cPanel in anyway? Can't find any information on this...

[SoftDux]

I'd love to use push mail as well. Anyone know anything about it?

[adept2003]

Push mail is specific to MS Exchange. You can either setup your own Exchange mail server & set the MX records to point to that server, or use a hosted solution.

Setting up your own Exchange box will be quite expensive, since the licence fees run into the thousands (needing a domain controller, active directory, etc.

Whichever way, push mail is a Microsoft thing...

[SoftDux]

That's not really an option, especially since we (most hosting companies) host on Linux (and sometimes only Linux). To get exchange just for that isn't viable. Surely there could be another way to "push" email to a push email client? Doesn't exchange work on a IMAP principal in anycase?

[myusername]

See the courrier site. If you run Courrier on your cPanel server I came across some docs a while back that said it supported push.

[myusername]

Okay I came across some docs on this again, Looks like it is possible. Maybe time for a fetuare request?

Per:
http://kb.mozillazine.org/IMAP:_adva..._configuration

The IDLE command is a extension to the IMAP protocol that lets the IMAP server notify Thunderbird when there is new mail by sending a command over the existing TCP-IP connection. If your IMAP server supports that you don't have to manually check for new mail or have Thunderbird poll for new mail every x minutes.

Interesting, lets see what Courrier has to say about it:
http://www.courier-mta.org/imapd.html

Realtime concurrent folder status updates
Setting the IMAP_ENHANCEDIDLE to 1 in /etc/courier/imapd enables realtime concurrent folder status updates. When relatime folder status updates are enabled all IMAP mail clients that have the same folder open will be immediately notified of any changes to the folder's contents.

The Courier-IMAP server always allows more than one mail client to have the same folder opened. However, when two or more clients have the same folder opened, the mail clients may not necessarily know when another client added or removed messages from the folder. The base IMAP protocol specification requires IMAP mail clients to explicitly check for any changes to the folder's contents. No provisions exists to notify the mail client immediately when the folder's contents are modified by another mail client.

The IDLE extension to the base IMAP protocol provides a delivery mechanism for notifying mail clients of changes to the mail folder's contents. Although at this time it's not known to which extent the IDLE extension is supported by IMAP mail clients, the Courier-IMAP server fully implements the IDLE extension provided that the following requirements are met:

cPanel doesn't have /etc/courier/imapd but it looks to be here instead:
/usr/lib/courier-imap/etc/imapd

##NAME: IMAP_ENHANCEDIDLE:0
#
# If Courier was compiled with the File Alteration Monitor, setting
# IMAP_ENHANCEDIDLE to 1 enables enhanced IDLE mode, where multiple
# clients may open the same folder concurrently, and receive updates to
# folder contents in realtime.  See the imapd(8) man page for additional
# information.
#
# IMPORTANT: IMAP_USELOCKS *MUST* also be set to 1, and IDLE must be included
# in the IMAP_CAPABILITY list.
#

Information on FAM is here, looks like they need FAM to notify them that all their images are missing.
http://oss.sgi.com/projects/fam/

[SoftDux]

I currently use IMAP folder supscription on my cellphone,and it works like a charm, I get notified the moment there's a new email waiting for me, even with my email client on my PC open.

But that doesn't really give me PUSH capabilities, since my cellphone needs to stay connected to the internet ALL the time. I think the whole idea behind PUSH is a bit misleading, since they advertising states that one doesn't need to be connected all the time. I might be wrong though?

[myusername]

I currently use IMAP folder supscription on my cellphone,and it works like a charm, I get notified the moment there's a new email waiting for me, even with my email client on my PC open.

Thats weird, I only get "similar' functionality when I am using a 3rd party inbox polling servce like Wireless Sync. The real windows mail app only checks every 15 minutes.

My desktops seems to get email immediately (usually, unless the app is hung) But I still have to click around on the "inbox" es to get them to refresh consistently.

I think the idea is a persistent connection that updates not one that has to be refreshed even though it is supposedly persistent.

You must have better luck with computers than me. The ten or so I have configured lately all act the same. They either check when they are configured, have to be refreshed, or if let sit long enough will update when the connection is temporarily severed.

[norelidd]

Your phone will need to have a constant connection to the email server. IMAP IDLE works by leaving a connection open and the server notifying the client of new mail, instead of the client having to poll the server every X minutes. Battery life or immediate notification, choose one.

Last time I checked, the default cpanel courier-imap conf files had IDLE enabled, so it should be good to go out of the box with a client that supports IMAP IDLE.

Real push email, like exchange and Cingular's xpress mail, operate using SMS messages to notify the client of new messages. When the server gets an email, it will send an SMS to the phone, and the phone will then check for new messages. Pretty simple, but rather effective.

Unfortunately, I don't think there's any real standard for this sort of functionality, so I don't think that a network-agnostic clone can be made up.

[myusername]

Sounds like you'd need an SMS gateway to do this, which last I checked needed access to the cellular network (meaning a calling plan) and had a per SMS fee, and a special piece of hardware to accomplish this.

Maybe someone has come up with a virtual way of doing this by now...

[Gene Steinberg]

Your phone will need to have a constant connection to the email server. IMAP IDLE works by leaving a connection open and the server notifying the client of new mail, instead of the client having to poll the server every X minutes. Battery life or immediate notification, choose one.

Last time I checked, the default cpanel courier-imap conf files had IDLE enabled, so it should be good to go out of the box with a client that supports IMAP IDLE.

Real push email, like exchange and Cingular's xpress mail, operate using SMS messages to notify the client of new messages. When the server gets an email, it will send an SMS to the phone, and the phone will then check for new messages. Pretty simple, but rather effective.

Unfortunately, I don't think there's any real standard for this sort of functionality, so I don't think that a network-agnostic clone can be made up.

2008 Update:

This is an old thread, but I'd like to see it considered in light of the new push for, well, push email from Apple with the iPhone 2.0 update and it's forthcoming Snow Leopard Server.

Would it be possible to provide this push capability as part of Courier so one can use it with desktop email clients or Webmail?

Surely it wouldn't require a reengineering of the core WHM/cPanel setup, would it?