What's "mbx" INBOX?
Starting July 6th, 2006 eligible pobox account's will have their mail INBOX converted from the current "mbox" format to "mbx" format. The new format offers several performance and feature benefits from the existing format.
About "mbox"
- Stores emails sequentially in a single text file
- Not recommended for simultaneous use with multiple clients (i.e. PDA and Desktop MUA)
- Performs poorly with large numbers of messages.
Many client programs offer the ability to import/export folders in "mbox" format.
About "mbx"
- Stores emails sequentially in a single binary file
- Supports simultaneous use with multiple clients
- Performs better than "mbox" with large number of messages.
"Power" users that are accustomed to working directly with "mbox" folders are strongly discouraged from directly modifying an "mbx" folder. "mbx" folders are safe to access via the Penn recommended/supported email clients
Please note that this type of "mbx" format inbox should not be confused with the "mbx" format used internally by Microsoft Outlook. The two formats are quite different and are not compatible. Although MS Outlook internally uses a different type of "mbx" format internally it can still be used as a client to retrieve "mbx" format inboxes from the email server.
During the conversion
Eligible accounts will be converted during early morning hours starting July 6th, 2006. Conversions will be performed on a rolling basis. A conversion will not be performed if any open connections exist (i.e. ssh or imap). During the conversion the account being converted will be locked and all incoming mail will be deferred temporarily. Each conversion will take between 10 seconds to a few minutes. Users will not be able to access their account during the conversion.
Changes following conversion
The conversion from "mbox" to "mbx" format INBOX should be completely transparent. Changes that will occur:
- Messages previously stored in "mbox" format file ".maildrop" will be converted to the "mbx" file "INBOX". No other folders will be converted.
- The "UID" of messages will be altered, this may cause IMAP clients that cache messages to rescan/download the INBOX following the conversion. No message flags (i.e. Replied, Read, Mark as deleted, except for "Recent") will be changed.
- The "Recent" flag will be modified. Clients that distinguish between "New" and "Unread" may notice a change in message flags. "Mutt" is an example of a client that will notice the change, "Thunderbird" is an example of a client that will not notice the change.
- Preferences for host-based email clients mutt/pine will be altered>
- Mutt: modified to use "imap" to access INBOX and message folders
- Pine: modified to use "mbx" INBOX directly
Note to mutt users: mutt can not read "mbx" format folders directly. Attempts to access it directly via "mutt -f [mbx INBOX]"and/or save messages directly into the file ~/INBOX will result in the error "INBOX is not a mailbox."
- Shell users (access via telnet/ssh) will notice that new mail message notification will no longer occur.
Eligible Accounts
The majority of accounts are eligible for conversion. Due to the sophisticated nature of "mbx" folders precautions are being taken that will prevent a subset of users from having their accounts converted to "mbx" format.
Ineligible Accounts
- Accounts that have used "POP" access in the past 30 days
- Accounts that have an existing file or folder named "INBOX"
- Accounts that have made customizations to host-based email client configurations (mutt/pine) beyond the default configuration
- Accounts that have created custom email filters beyond the supported Spam and Allow/Disallow filters.
- Accounts that have been identified as ineligble by our staff for extenuating circumstances
POP users are not being converted due to the change in message IDs used by POP. A potential issue exists for POP users that "leave messages on server" that would cause duplicate messages to be downloaded for POP users following a conversion to "mbx" INBOX.
Accounts that have an existing file/folder named "INBOX" have a name conflict with the name used by a "mbx" INBOX.
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