MSP Manager - How It Polls Email

Last Modified

Wed Mar 21 12:20 GMT 2018

Description

  • This article details how MSP Manager uses IMAP to poll for email

Environment

  • N-able MSP Manager

Solution

  • MSP Manager has a worker role called the IMAPWorker that runs inside of Azure
  • For each ticket mailbox, the IMAP Worker spins up a new thread which connects to the mailbox using IMAP protocol
  • Each connection is always on using IMAP IDLE protocol
  • The connect is on, but idle. When a new email comes into the inbox, it wakes up for processing instantaneously
  • Sometimes the customer's mail server terminates the connection after a period of inactivity, in which case the thread is disposed
  • Every 60 seconds, the IMAP Worker looks for mailboxes that need to be re-connected, new mailboxes that need to get connected, or deleted mailboxes that need to be disconnected