Managing IMAP

Chapter 10. Introduction to the UW IMAP Server

This chapter provides a high-level picture of the University of Washington IMAP server. The server is part of the IMAP4rev1/C-Client Development Environment written by Mark Crispin of the University of Washington. Crispin is also the author of the IMAP RFC itself, as well as several of the ancillary RFCs related to IMAP.

The primary strength of the UW server is its flexibility. While the Cyrus IMAP server has very specific requirements about the format of the mailstore, UW goes to great lengths to support numerous formats. If Cyrus with all its advanced administration and information-sharing features can be thought of as doing a lot with a little bit, UW is the converse, doing a little bit with a lot. UW lacks the application-layer quotas and access-control support of Cyrus, but its ability to handle many different mail formats makes it an attractive choice for sites that have a chaotic mail infrastructure. It’s also the best server for sites that need to bring IMAP up in a hurry with a minimum of time spent on configuration and migration.

What Is UW IMAP?

The University of Washington IMAP server (UW IMAP) is an IMAP server that uses inetd or a similar Internet superdaemon to provide users IMAP access to a mailstore.

Usually when people refer to UW IMAP, they’re referring specifically to the IMAP daemon component of the IMAP4rev1/C-Client Development Environment. The development environment bundle includes an IMAP test utility called ...