Syncing Kmail with laptop

[Kelly L. Fulks]

Mitch Thompson wrote:
> Dotan Cohen wrote:
>> I may be getting mymelf a laptop, and I'd like to be able to check my
>> mail from either the laptop or the desktop and resync them when I get
>> home. I download my mail from several POP3 servers and I'd rather not
>> leave the mail on the server after I've downloaded it to one of the
>> machines. Is there an elegant solution for syncing the mail between
>> two systems, or must I rsync the /.kde/share/apps/kmail directory?
>>
>> Note that I plan on using the entire Kontact suite soon, and I'd liek
>> to have it syncronized between the machines as well. Thanks in
>> advance.
>>
>> Dotan Cohen
>>
>> http://what-is-what.com/what_is/linux_distribution.html
>>
>>   
> My answer to that was to set up an IMAPS server on my home computer, 
> (the 'S' in IMAPS is for Secure) and opening that port (993) on my 
> firewall.  Then I use fetchmail to gather all the mail from my various 
> POP-mail accounts and store it locally.  This also allows me to run 
> spamassassin and clamav on my email. 
> 
> Then, when I am off on a trip or vacation, if I can get to  an Internet 
> connection, I can get to my email via IMAPS.
> 

This works well for the email reading portion.  You can also open port
443 and use webdav (configure apache with webdav and make sure you
require passwords for that directory structure) for the calendar and
address book storage.  However this does imply that you are always using
your laptop or desktop (or some KMail that you can configure and
secure).  You also have to take care of your SMTP needs for this to be
very useful (and you need to do this in a way that doesn't leave an open
SMTP server obviously).  You can use SMTP authentication for this
purpose and use TLS to encrypt your SMTP traffic as well as put it on a
different port that isn't so likely to be blocked.

Another option is setup a VPN solution and then use desktop sharing over
the VPN link.  Another option is to setup an ssh session and tunnel X
back over it and use the KMail application from the desktop computer
using the laptop as the display.

That is one of the really nice things about Linux/Unix and the X Window
System.  There are so many different options to do what you need to do.
 By the way, you might consider dyndns.org to map your dynamic ip
address to a static name.  There are also web solutions for some of
these problems if you want to be able to work from any computer (nothing
to install on the client side).

-- 
Kelly L. Fulks
Home Account
near Huntsville, AL