(Delegated) Login to "Public Mailboxes" under NetServer 8

Dear Community,

In the Nethserver 8 Mail.app (Dovecot), you can create “public mailboxes” (e.g., “groupmailbox1”) and share them with specific users (e.g., “user2, user2”). These are then displayed as individual mailboxes for authorized users under “/public” - and unfortunately also again under “/shared/vmail” (which is confusing).

Is there a way to log in directly to the “public mailboxes” via IMAP to use them like normal mailboxes, e.g., to integrate them into an email program or as an additional mailbox in SOGo?

Such a possibility is described for Dovecot, where the login name should be, for example,

“groupmailbox1*user1”

together with the password for “user1” - very similar to administrative access to a mailbox, e.g., using

“user1*mailadmin”

(mailadmin’s password).

Unfortunately, this doesn’t work in Nethserver 8, or I I’m missing something. Is this option not planned for the Dovecot network server or is it not yet implemented? Otherwise, I don’t really understand the function of “public mailboxes.” I thought that was exactly what it was about(?).

I’m currently exploring various ways to practically implement shared mailbox access without sharing the password for, for example, a “real” mailbox with all participants. I’m familiar with the functionality of sharing specific mail folders and delegating the use of the email address in a shared mailbox (via SOGo), but in certain situations, “real” access to a mailbox is simply more practical.

Regards, Yummiweb

I think it’s due to compatibility with different mail client software. You could just subscribe to the folders you need to avoid confusion.

No, see also Public Mailboxes — Dovecot documentation

It’s possible to create master users and access other user mailboxes like user*masteruser but it’s not possible to login to public mailboxes directly, at least I couldn’t find a way to do it.
As master users have access to all mailboxes, I won’t recommend providing this function to non-admins.

Hello Markus, thank you for your reply.

I found this “function” described on the following page, where “functional mailboxes” (group mailboxes) were explained in connection with SOGo:

https://it.landeskirche-hannovers.de/infothek/email/konfiguration/sogo/shared-webmail

However, I had overlooked the fact that, among other things(!), Exchange is apparently used there:
https://it.landeskirche-hannovers.de/infothek/email/konfiguration

While a distinction is made there between “Exchange mailbox” and “SOGo mailbox” – which, of course, doesn’t say anything about which mail server backend is used in SOGo.

But: for “SOGo mailboxes,” the CALDAV Synchronizer is explicitly referred to for the Outlook calendar connection – but then why SOGo at all if their Exchange could do it itself? Maybe I should ask them what they use?

I imagine I also saw the “user*shared” login option in the Dovecot documentation, but unfortunately I can’t find it anymore (I found it on a mobile device, which regularly deletes my cache and history).

Regards, Yummiweb

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