Test IMAP servers

About

I created three test virtual machines. They are running with 128 mb ram each on Debian 3.1 (it's a Xen 2.6.12.6-xenU kernel running on x86_64 hardware (one virtual CPU per machine is specified, on a 3000Mhz with 1024 KB cache size). I don't think more than 128 MB ram is going to be important as the IMAP server is the only software running in the Guest OS. If the software developers of the IMAP software think different about this, read below.

Please use, but don't abuse

When using it's important for you to know that these test services should not, repeat not, be used for performance testing the IMAP servers themselves. I am just mentioning the numbers (like the amount of ram and the CPU speed and cache) so that you can get a basic idea of on what hardware the services are running.

Each virtual machine can run one IMAP server at the same time. It's indeed up to you to start and stop IMAP servers at will. Please don't try to bring the machine on its knees by rapidly hammering on the start and stop buttons of the web interface nor using some sort of script. You will only make a fool out of yourself and you are disturbing the software developers who are creating LGPL software FOR YOU.

The test servers

  • http://imap1.tinymail.org :
    • The tnytest user's mailboxes are reset upon each IMAP-server restart
    • Cyrus unstable (available)
    • Dovecot CVS snapshot (soon)
    • Used by the unit tests
  • http://imap2.tinymail.org :
    • The tnytest user's mailboxes get reset in an hourly crontab
    • Dovecot CVS snapshot (available)
    • Cyrus unstable (available)
    • Used for manual testing

The IMAP accounts

Each setup should be the same. This means that the same hostname can be used using always the same username and password: tnytest and tnytest.

The port for IMAP is always set on 143 and 993 for wrapped SSL mode. For TLS it's also port 143 of course. Wether or not port 993 will be available depends on the availability of a "wrapped SSL mode" feature in the software version of the IMAP server that you picked.

Availability of POP3

Some setups make POP3 available too. This isn't guaranteed however. POP3 will run on port 110 and if SSL is enabled, on 995 too. Authentication for POP3 will be the same as the IMAP account (look above).

The mailboxes

There are no hard guarantees about the mailboxes yet. Except for imap1's tnytest user's mailboxes. They will be reset each time the IMAP server software is restarted and should therefore (after restart) come up in the exact same state as before. I haven't yet checked which softwares cache things outside of the mailbox files, so it's not yet guaranteed.

A detailed layout of the mailboxes on the imap1 test server, after resetting the mailboxes happened, is being planned. This would indeed be very useful for making unit tests, which is the purpose of the imap1 test server indeed.

The server softwares themselves

You should see the version in the list. Usually it's a very "latest" version. This indeed means bugs (and also security bugs). Please report defect installs to this E-mail address. Don't try to prove me how great you are by trying to root the machine and fix it yourself (check above about not abusing the test service).

I'm planning to allow IMAP server software developers to do upgrades themselves. This to allow them to make sure that we, tinymail developers, test with their latest stuff. Contact me using the same E-mail address to get in touch about that.