Re: dovecot fronting for public-inbox-imapd + private mail groups?

[Eric Wong <e@80x24.org>]

Chris Brannon <chris@the-brannons.com> wrote:
> Perhaps this is a better question for the dovecot list, but I'll throw
> it out here in case someone else has dealt with this scenario.
> 
> I self-host email, so I'm already running dovecot.  I also want to
> publish some public-inbox archives over IMAP that are available to the
> world, with anonymous access.  I essentially just have one public IPv4
> address, so I'm limited to one public-facing IMAP server.

I'm in the same situation.  My current workaround is to run my
personal IMAP stuff on a different port and keep 993+143 for
public-inbox-imapd.

> What I'd like to do is proxy all access to groups in the inbox.*
> namespace to public-inbox-imapd, and open those up for anonymous access.
> Everything else would remain private, requiring credentials.

I know nginx can support IMAP proxying, but I'm not sure if it
can decide on backend based on usernames or inboxes.  Would
appreciate an example config if you figure it out.

> Can it be done?  Are there better ways to do it?  In an ideal world,
> everyone would be using IPv6 by now and this wouldn't be an issue.

I'm already planning on adding support for HTTP proxying, so
IMAP proxying wouldn't be too big a step.