[Dovecot] Bit of a Newbie Question

[Wouter Van Hemel]

On Wed, 9 Mar 2005, Jud wrote:

> Wouter Van Hemel wrote:
>> 
>> What do you mean with "Mail delivery via IMAP"? 
>
> As noted above, "That is, test e-mails I send from this [Fastmail] account to 
> my local IMAP server never reach their destination."  In slightly more 
> detail, mail sent using Fastmail's SMTP-SSL server, 
> mail.messagingengine.com:465, does not arrive in my local IMAP Inbox.
>

I understand that, but you should first check your MTA configuration, and 
see if postfix logs anything about receiving any connection at all.

When you know postfix saw the message and accepted it, then you can 
start investigating dovecot.

> It is up to your MTA and
>> LDA (postfix, I presume) to deliver these mails into a folder where the 
>> imap server can find them. This has little to do with dovecot.
>> 
>> Check your postfix configuration... or, your provider may be blocking 
>> access to port 25. Many providers do.
>
> As also noted above, local delivery via Postfix appears to work fine. For 
> example, ddclient is configured to send failure or success messages to user 
> "jud," and indeed these messages appear in the local IMAP Inbox for "jud."
>

But local isn't remote. There is relatively little that can go wrong with 
postfix locally delivering a message to a folder, and dovecot then picking 
it up from there on. Accepting email on a residential line with a dynamic 
ip over a SSL secured SMTP protocol in a spam-secured-by-default MTA is a 
whole other can of worms.

You have not yet told us if you actually can receive email from outside; 
both with respect to your MTA configuration and an open (i.e. not 
firewalled) internet ip.

> Apologies for having caused confusion by referring to "mail delivery" and 
> Postfix.  I am not having any problem *sending* mail at all.  The problem is 
> that messages sent from a remote machine (using port 465 from a mail server 
> not owned by my ISP) are not received in my local IMAP Inbox, while messages 
> sent from the local machine are.
>

There is no difference for dovecot. For now, I'd say rather that the 
problem is either that your MTA doesn't accept email, or that your isp 
firewalls port 25 (which is rather likely on a dynamic ip home 
connection).

> I agree that Dovecot is not doing anything wrong.  I am hoping someone may be 
> able to help me learn what *I* am doing wrong.
>

Read the MTA logs. See if there is any connection at all. If there is, 
check what happens with the messages (refused?). If there is not, you 
either are not accepting connections on your outside interface, or your 
provider has blocked access to port 25.

Did you receive any bounces?