IMAP Command Line Interface

Author: Jie Mei
Date: April 7, 2014
Version: 0.1

Introduction

This program provides a UNIX like IMAP command line interface. After login to the IMAP4 host, user could use IMAP4 mail server as the UNIX file system.

This program is written in Python and follows the Google Python Style Guild.

NOTE: This program only work with IMAP4/IMAP4rev1 server with SSL.

Usage

This program does not need to compile. Access to /imapCMD folder and run the following command in the command line:

./imapCMD.py [host] [username] [password]

NOTE: Run with command python imapCMD.py will print debugging information.

[host], [username], [password] are the optional placeholder for host address, username and password. The program needs all these information to initilize services. If any of three does not provided in the command line, the program will ask user to input when start running.

Once the program reveived initilizing informations and get start, user could use UNIX command to operate. The following commands are available with some restrictions:

• ls
  list the subdirectories in the current working directory.
• pwd
  display the current working directory.
• logout
  logout the IMAP server and program terminates.
• exit
  alternative way terminate the program, same as logout.
• lm
  list the number of mails in the current working directory.
• cat num
  display the emil in the current working directory with mail id num.
• cd path
  access the directory path. Step back to the parent directory if path is ...
• mkdir dir1...
  make sub-directories in the current working directory.
• rmdir dir1...
  remove sub-directories in the current working directory.

NOTE: Directory is the abstract representation of mailbox in IMAP server.

Code Structure

This program consists of four Python source files: server.py, client.py, util.py, imapCMD.py. Each class have their own responsibility:

• imapCMD.py
  Provide user interface and define UNIX like command. It deal with user input, format and print out required data. It builds the user command with high- level function from client.py.
• client.py
  Provide high-level functions. It defines the function direct operate mailbox and email, such as getMailBox() and getEmail().
• server.py
  Provide low-level functions. It defines function communicate with IMAP4 server. It deal with service connection, query and responsew following RFC2060 and RFC3101. It provides convient API to send request and returns formated response.
• util.py
  Provide utility functions. It helps to improve the readability and reusability of the code. Some functions are printd() for printing debuging informations and printe() for printing exception informations.

They related in the following graph:

                +---------------------------+
                |        imapCMD.py         |
                +---------------------------+
                 ||            ||
                 ||            VV
                 ||  +----------------------+
                 ||  |      client.py       |
                 ||  +----------------------+
                 ||     ||              ||
                 ||     ||              VV
                 ||     ||    +-------------+
                 ||     ||    |  server.py  |
                 ||     ||    +-------------+
                 ||     ||           ||
                 VV     VV           VV
                +---------------------------+
                |         util.py           |
                +---------------------------+

Each function is fully documented in the comments preceding the code. Please read the source files for more information.