I'm looking for some kind of storage server software for storing emails

basically I want various different clients (evolution etc) even of different versions to be able to connect to this store and save incoming emails to it.

I have several different partitions running a number of Linux flavors but incompatibility between even different versions of the same software mean I want to isolate the actual data from the applications

I want to be able to receive, store and access email from any particular version linux I happen to be using.

Ideally the server software would be installed on my "data" partition and be statically linked or at least able to run on any modern 64 bit flavor

Whats my best bet?

TIA
C

Run an IMAP server? The only thing to work out AFAIK is how to make it use a single spool and all user mail directories (if you want that). Ideally one would want a separate physical server for tasks like mail but you could set it up so dirs between distro's get automagically 'mount --bind' on boot or run a minimal distro in virtualization to handle mail and storage across distro's.

Thanks I'll look into imap

a minimal virtual machine is a good idea too!

I recommend IMAP too. You can send and receive mail with every IMAP mail client everywhere. The only application talking to the IMAP stores is the mail server itself, so there cannot be a compatibility issue. Sent Items can be stored in the IMAP server as well, so regardless from where you send, you have access to you sent items as well.

I use fetchmail and procmail to get the mails from my ISP's POP server and store them in the IMAP directories respectively. Dovecot for IMAP server.

Setting up this trio takes some time, it is all command line AFAIK, but it is worth it.

jlinkels

I have a cunning plan!

I have one of these gathering dust http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSLU2
thats about to become an IMAP server...!

Thanks guys
I particular thanks jlinkels