Using ISPConfig with Cyrus (or: Cyrus support in ISPConfig)

Discussion in 'Developers' Forum' started by choongii, Nov 13, 2012.

  1. choongii

    choongii New Member

    Hello,

    When using ISPConfig with Cyrus, auto responders and custom rules are not available. However, the options are still visible, which is confusing. I'd like to contribute a patch to resolve this issue, but I am unsure what would be the best solution. I am hoping to receive some feedback on this issue in this thread, so the patch can really contribute something worthwhile which is aligned with the software philosophy of the ISPConfig project.

    At the moment I guess there are two possible roads to take:

    1) Add checkboxes to enable/disable filters and auto responders per mailserver;

    2) Add complete support for cyrus, making it possible to select the Cyrus mailserver as imapd. The aforementioned options can be hidden when Cyrus is selected.

    As I'm unsure which path would be the best, and I'm not yet able to oversee the implications of such a change within the project, I'm hoping to receive some feedback from the developers/community so I can define the solution clearly and eventually contribute it.

    Thanks for your time,
    Choong
     
    Last edited: Nov 13, 2012
  2. till

    till Super Moderator Staff Member ISPConfig Developer

    Adding support for a third imap daemon will require more time for testing and maintenance in future, so before we decide if we want to support cyrus imap in ispconfig we should discuss what the benefits over the existing imap implementations are. Why do you want to implement Cyrus support and whyich benefits does cyrus has that are not available in dovecot imap and courier?
     
  3. choongii

    choongii New Member

    Hello Till, thanks for your very quick response!

    In my case, we prefer Cyrus because it scales better than either dovecot or courier do, and adheres more strictly to RFC's. But in the end, the reasons for choosing cyrus over dovecot/courier may vary per situation.

    I understand the implications such a change would have on future testing/maintenance work, so I guess the big question is: is it worth the (large) effort? We can measure this by the number of people sending in feature requests for cyrus support. I did a search for "cyrus" in the feature request bugtracker, and I get only one result which has two votes, so it doesn't appear to be worth the effort :)

    Regardless, we are still able to use cyrus with ISPConfig, but the issue we are having, is that we don't use mail filtering or autoresponders. However, these options cannot be turned off and are always visible to resellers/clients, which results in unnecessary load on our support desk because people get confused.

    In light of the above, how would you feel about a patch which makes it possible to turn filtering and autoresponders on/off by using a checkbox per mailserver? We could set them to 'enabled' by default so the current behaviour is not broken. Then we could hide or show the options for filtering and autoresponders depending on these checkboxes.

    Thanks again for your time,
    Choong
     
  4. till

    till Super Moderator Staff Member ISPConfig Developer

    This seems to be a good option in my opinion, the checkbox to enable autoresponder and filtering can be added to e.g. System > server config > mail if it shall be configurable per mail server or in System > Interface config > Mail if it shall be configurable for all servers that belong to this ispconfig installation. I guess the second option might be better. The first option might confuse users as we can not hide the filtering and autoresponder tabs until they saved the new mailbox as we dont know the target mailserver before the address is saved. If more users get interested in cyrus support in future, then we can still develop cyrus support then.
     
  5. choongii

    choongii New Member

    Hi Till,

    Thanks again for your reply. The per-installation option does seem the most logical one indeed.

    Making it configurable per mailserver could work, if we can somehow (javascript?) dynamically hide tabs depending on the selected domain. We could show or hide the tabs by default, depending on the user's default mailserver. It is more complex than the first option.

    Could you let me know, which option would be best for the ISPConfig project? I will then start the development work.

    Thanks,
    Choong
     
  6. till

    till Super Moderator Staff Member ISPConfig Developer

    I'am sorry for the late reply, totally missed this post.

    I would prefer if this option could be set for the whole installation under System > Interface config as this will be the cleaner approach and not per server.
     
  7. choongii

    choongii New Member

    Hi Till,

    Thanks and no worries, I was very late with my response myself :) Thanks for the brainstorming, I will be working on this feature and will have it done around Christmas.

    Kind regards,
    Choong
     
  8. choongii

    choongii New Member

    Hi Till,

    I've finished up the patch. It adds 3 checkboxes to the interface configuration, to enable the tabs Autoresponder, Mail Filter and Custom Filters respectively. I have two questions at this point:

    1. I've tried setting the checkbox to checked by default, but it doesn't appear to work.

    2. I'd like to commit the code. What's the best way to do that?

    I've attached the patch to this post, it is written against version 3.0.4.5.

    Thanks in advance for your time again.

    Choong
     

    Attached Files:

  9. choongii

    choongii New Member

    Hi till,

    I was just wondering, if you have had time to look into this yet :)

    Thanks in advance,
    Choong
     
  10. till

    till Super Moderator Staff Member ISPConfig Developer

    I'am sorry, I missed the post.

    The code looks fine, just the following if section seems to be wrong:

    if ($global_config['mail']['mailbox_show_custom_rules_tab'] === 'y') {
    if($_SESSION["s"]["user"]["typ"] == 'admin') {

    I guess it should be:

    if($_SESSION["s"]["user"]["typ"] == 'admin' || $global_config['mail']['mailbox_show_custom_rules_tab'] === 'y') {

    The defaults for these fields get applied during installation and are stored in the file install/tpl/system.ini

    Do you have a svn account for the ispconfig svn server? If not, please send a email to dev [at] ispconfig [dot] org with your forum username and if available your sourceforge.net username and request a svn login.
     
  11. markc

    markc Member

    Just a FWIW but one compelling reason to include Cyrus, either partially or fully, is that the Kolab server uses it by default and I am very keen to offer Kolab services along side of ISPConfig. Perhaps even eventually provide some ISPConifg customizations that manage Kolab availability to clients. Kolab also uses Roundcube.

    OT but I also want to do the same with ownClound and Concrete5.
     
  12. choongii

    choongii New Member

    Hi, sorry to revive such an old thread. I was wondering if/where this patch made it into the releases. I was actually doing this for a customer and they say the additions have disappeared since they upgraded to 3.0.5.3.

    Thanks in advance for your time.
     
  13. till

    till Super Moderator Staff Member ISPConfig Developer

    I'am not sure if it was included.

    If you want to include the patch in the next major release, then please register for an account at our git server http://git.ispconfig.org , fork the ispconfig master branch, add the changes and then submit a merge request on the git server so the patch can be reviewed and gets integrated into the master branch.
     
  14. choongii

    choongii New Member

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