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Updated information at: Classic Linux.

Also please see: https://discourse.rahul.net/.

This page describes the mail program Alpine as deployed on newer Classic Linux servers such as oxygen.rahul.net beginning in 2009.

Alpine is an upward enhancement of the Pine mail program. General Alpine documentation can be found at:

• http://www.washington.edu/alpine/

Below are some hints specific to its configuration in our Classic Linux environment.

If you have never customized Pine or Alpine, then their respective expected behavior is described in the following sections.

If you have customized Pine or Alpine, then your customizations may supersede some of the information below. To make the instructions below work for you, you may move the .pinerc file in your home directory to some other name. This will restore default behavior for both Pine and Alpine.

The global configuration for Alpine resides in the following files:

• /usr/local/lib/pine.conf
• /usr/local/lib/pine.conf.fixed

You can examine these files if you wish to understand why Alpine behaves in a certain way.

Everything in /usr/local/lib/pine.conf can be overridden by your own customized .pinerc file. In that case, please see the definitions in /usr/local/lib/pine.conf of:

• folder-collections
• incoming-folders

For best results, your own customized definitions of these variables should include all of the mailboxes and folders in the system-supplied definitions of these variables. You can, of course, add additional mailboxes and folders as needed by you.

However, /usr/local/lib/pine.conf.fixed contains a minimal set of critically important entries without which Alpine will not function properly. These entries cannot be overridden by you.

Please see the page Mailbox Changes for definitions of the terms old inbox and new inbox.

To see your old inbox, you may do any one of the following:

• Use Pine on the old servers and type I to see the old inbox.
• Use Alpine on aqua.rahul.net and type I to see the old inbox.
• Use Alpine on the new servers, then go to FOLDER LIST, then go to Incoming Folders, then go to Old inbox.

To see your new inbox, you may:

• Use Alpine on the new servers and type I to see the new inbox.

Pine (on the old servers) will connect to a local IMAP server to read your old inbox.

Alpine will connect to a local IMAP server to read your new inbox.

Thus Pine and Alpine will look at different inboxes. Until we switch over all mail to the new servers, only Pine will show your incoming mail by default. To make Alpine show you your incoming mail (in your old inbox), please follow the instructions in the Rules of Thumb section above.

Pine in its FOLDERS LIST will query the local IMAP server and look within the directory Mail in your home directory, and will show you each old-style ('mbox' style) mail folder within it. The 'Sent' mail folder, which holds a copy of sent mail by default, lies here.

Alpine in its FOLDERS LIST will query the local IMAP server and list folder collections named as follows:

• Incoming folders:
  • The one called “INBOX” is your new inbox.
  • The one called “Old inbox” is your old inbox. Requires your login name and password.
• Maildir: Your Maildir directory, and all Maildir-format mail folders within it.
• Mail: Your Mail directory, and every possible old-style ('mbox' style) mail folders within it.
• Home: You entire home directory tree, and every possible old-style ('mbox' style) mail folder within it.

Alpine will use the same 'Sent' mail folder when sending mail. To view this folder, look within the 'Mail' folder collection listed above.