Just wanted to say thanks to all of you who recommended Dovecot for my
IMAP/POP server.
For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about back on the old
days, in the long long ago, 1999 or so, Redht came with a utility called
Linuxconf which is still around today. The had developed a virtual email
system with a web front end and it used Sendmail and a patched version
of WU-IMAP. And it worked really well. Over time Redhat dropped
Linuxconf and the guy who was patching IMAP (vimap) quit doing it. It
still works - buy as you know software rots with age.
In 2001 or so I switched from Sendmail to Exim which did a far better
job of servicing the Linuxconf system. I added Cyrus SASL for
authentication, Spam Assassin and it grew into the wonderful email
system I have today. Except I was stuck with the old IMAP software.
As you all know working on an email system is like operating on a live
patient as the mail never stops coming in. With 200 virtual domains it
can be a real problem to change anything. The WU-IMAP folks weren't
really moving along and they had a religious problem with Maildir. I had
thought about Courier but they too had religious problems against MBOX,
which is what I presently have. (but not married to) And Courier's docs
suck and I'm not very smart.
So - Dovecot - they just added a few new features that makes it fully
Linuxconf compatible and I just switched over yesterday and so far so
good. So - I'm here to say good things about Dovecot and - if anyone is
still using vimap - there's now a replacement!
What I like about Dovecot is the same thing I like about Exim. it's
clean, and it just works. The docs could be better but I figured it out
- so - how hard can it be? I like a good well documented config file and
that to me is one of the most important things about well designed
software. I can do just about anything and there's an easy to understand
command to make it happen.
Because it supports both MBOX and MAILDIR it made it so I can migrate to
Dovecot and then at a later date consider migrating to Maildir. This is
important to me because I have a lot of specialized utilities that count
on MBOX that I would need to rewrite for Maildir. Not that it can't be
done, but with live email I don't want to have to change too many things
at once. And I appreciate that Dovecot, like Exim, realizes that people
have reasons and different situations and they adapt the software to
what the users want without having their ego get in the way. Maildir
probably is better than MBOX but - so what? For now I'm happy and I made
the transition and I can now think about the next step. Now I have
Maildir as an option to consider. And who knows, I might someday
transition into Courier or something else. Or - I might just stick with
Dovecot.
I added my configuration to Dovecot's wiki for those who might be
interested in doing it the way I'm running mine.
My 2 centz ....
--
Marc Perkel - marc@???
Spam Filter: http://www.junkemailfilter.com
My Blog: http://marc.perkel.com
