jwma Deployment - IMAP Related Information
 
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Introduction

IMAP stands for Internet Message Access Protocol. This protocol succeeds the Post Office Protocol POP (version 2 and 3), allowing remote access, storage and manipulation of complete set's of folders and messages directly on the server. In other words, no matter where you go, and which IMAP compatible client you use (including jwma), you will have access to all your messages and folders.
For more information about the IMAP protocol and available products, please visit:
http://www.imap.org


Important Concepts

It is important to understand the most important elements involved when using IMAP. These are:
  1. The Client: is an application able to access the server and should provide the actual user frontend or interface
  2. The Server: is an application that handles the requests from the clients and manipulates the store accordingly
  3. The Store: is the place where your mail and your folders are actually kept on the server
The client in the case of jwma is the Model element of the architecture, which is directly implemented on top of the JavaMail API(tm) and it's standard IMAP provider. Figure 1 depicts the elements as well as the jwma IMAP client part.

Figure 1: IMAP Elements and jwma client part

For more information about these products, you can visit:
http://java.sun.com/products/javamail

The IMAP server can any specification compliant implementation. jwma has been tested against More details about these servers follows below.

The store is an abstraction for a virtual place where all of the user's and shared messages and folders can be accessed. An important element of the store is the folder called INBOX. It represents the place where the mail transport agent (MTA), in this case most likely a Simple Mail Transport Protocol (SMTP) server, will deposit incoming messages. Figure 2 presents a simplified visualization. Note that the INBOX might be a system accessible area, depending a lot on your MTA service. In case of unified messaging systems (MTA cooperates closely with the IMAP server), the INBOX might as well be an integrated part of the user's storage area.

Figure 2: IMAP Store & INBOX

The actual storage backend might be:
  1. The filesystem directly, using formats like
  2. or a database.
Depending on the backend, the server will allow messages and subfolders in a folder ("mixed") or allow only subfolders, or messages. The latter are folders which can only contain messages (i.e. a file, most likely in mbox format; also called Mailbox). jwma is able to handle both cases, however, configuration is required.

Tested Server Notes

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