Joe Yoder wrote:
> I have a client with a busy life style who does not have access to a
> broadband connection. She has a single phone line which is frequently used
> to handle incoming calls so she does not like to tie up the line to get her
> Email. At this point she much prefers snail mail as it allows her to pick it
> up and deal with it without waiting on a machine.
>
> My plan is to have a nightly process on her computer automatically dial out
> at 1:00AM every day and download any incoming mail and update the Anti-Virus
> etc. I expect to setup a Gmail account for her use and will want the nightly
> process to connect to the Gmail server to bring the mail down to Microsoft
> Outlook. When the process is complete it should disconnect the dialup modem
> from the phone line.
>
> If someone has done this type of thing before and can give me some pointers I
> would appreciate it.
1) Wipe her hard drive and set up Ubuntu Linux on it (free).
2) Install VMWare Workstation (free).
3) Install Windows as a virtual machine (she already has the license).
4) Install an IMAP server on the Linux host.
5) Write a Python script to:
a) call wvdial to start ppp
b) use pop3 to get the gmail downloaded into the local IMAP store.
c) tell postfix (mail transfer service) to flush its queue, waiting
for the queue to be empty before moving on to d)
d) ask wvdial to hang up
6) Set up her Outlook in Windows to connect to the local IMAP store.
7) Set up Outlook to use the postfix server as the smtp server
8) set up #5 as a cron job on the Linux host
Outlook will be happy, because it'll always be able to connect to the
"remote" smtp and imap servers. Otherwise, she'll get annoyed with the
"can't connect" messages. She can review her email and reply any time of
day.
When she sends a reply to a message and she isn't connected, postfix on
the Linux host will defer it, trying again periodically.
It may seem daunting, but setting her up in this fashion covers all the
bases. I don't know what you would do to implement this completely on
Windows, without annoying and frustrating consequences for the user.
Having Windows as a guest in the Linux host also gives more options such
as setting save points, being able to back up the entire Windows system
easily, and being able to interact with the Windows filesystem from
outside Windows itself, when you need to clean up after a trojan or
something.
Having the Linux firewall in place on the host also means you can
disable the Windows firewall which will free up resources.
This would probably be about a 12 hour job that, once set up, you
wouldn't have to worry about thereafter.
Paul
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