Hi.
We have a mail server, let us call it clipper, and Roundcube running on a distinct server, let us call it localhost. We already have users, with their identities and their address books in the database.
I want to add imapproxy in the chain, to reduce the load on clipper. It will run on localhost.
Unfortunately, if I just write:
$config['default_host'] = 'localhost';
… then for the database the mail_host column will be localhost instead of clipper, and everybody will be considered a new user when connecting the next time.
I could do “UPDATE users SET mail_host = 'localhost' WHERE mail_host = 'clipper'” but I do not want to: for reasons of elegance and the ability to move back or to host multiple servers on the same instance, I want the database to contain the real host name.
What are the options?
I found a hack: I added “127.0.0.2 clipper” in /etc/hosts and configured imapproxy with a different FQDN for clipper. That way, Roundcube thinks it is talking to clipper when it is really talking to the proxy. And since the proxy is running on localhost I can dispense with TLS and all the security theatre of certificates.
Before thinking of this hack, I tried another one that I got halfway working: configure the firewall with a NAT chain “ip daddr $clipper tcp dport 143 counter redirect to :143”. The solution with /etc/hosts is simpler and more robust.
But these are hacks. Is there a clean supported solution?
Thanks in advance.