The IMAP protocol provides commands to create, delete, and rename folders. Thus you may use almost any IMAP client to manage public folders in the MessageStore, simply by logging in as a user with top-level management privileges, and creating folders under the top-level "Public Folders" node.
A good use of public folders is to subscribe a public folder to a
mailing list so that individual users will not have to. First, verify
that the public folder exists and grants "post" rights to
anyone. The simplest way is to make sure the DEFAULT_ACL
option includes the p right after the anyone
identifier before you create the folder. Next use your IMAP client to
create the desired folder under the "Public Folders" tree. To verify
that delivery to the new public folder is working, send a test message
to the folder's address. Its address will be
post+folder@hostwhere
post is replaced with the value of the POST_USER
option, folder is the name of the new public folder, and
host is the domain name you configured for the
MessageStore. Note that the default value of the POST_USER option is
post.
Once this test succeeds, set your mail client's identity so that the From: address is the folder's posting address. Then simply follow the instructions for mailing list subscription. This often involves sending a message to the e-mail address listname-request@listdomain with a subject or body of "SUBSCRIBE".
The PMDF MessageStore supports the standard IMAP Access Control List (ACL) and QUOTA extensions documented in RFCs 2086 and 2087. This means that advanced IMAP clients such as Mulberry and Execmail will be able to manage the access control lists on your MessageStore directly.