[Dovecot] New Fedora/Sendmail Install Assistance

[Chris Wakelin]

You only need a folder directory for each user if you're using IMAP (and
want IMAP folders) but Dovecot needs to be told where to store indexes
for each user. I'm not sure whether it works with Dovecot 0.99 (which is
pretty old now) but with later versions (e.g. 1.0-alpha4) you can store
indexes in memory, but you'll lose some of the benefits of Dovecot,
especially if your users leave mail on the server.

>From the Wiki (http://wiki.dovecot.org/):

Only /var/mail mboxes
---------------------

If you really want to use Dovecot as a plain POP3 server without index
files, you can work around the problem of not having the per-user directory:

* Set users' home directory to /tmp in userdb

* Modify default_mail_env setting so that the mail root directory is
also /tmp and append :INDEX=MEMORY to it. For example: default_mail_env
= mbox:/tmp:INBOX=/var/mail/%u:INDEX=MEMORY

* Make sure that the users don't have IMAP access, or they can start
writing to /tmp and accidentally share mail with others users

Instead of /tmp directory you can use some other non-writable directory
which could be safer.

------

Or, I guess, "mbox:/tmp:INBOX=/var/mail/%u:INDEX=/var/indexes/%u" to
have per-user indexes. I think "/dev/null" might work instead of "/tmp";
you could give it a try!

Chris

Cliff Hayes wrote:
> Jakob,
> 
> I don't want to use IMAP.  So, from what you are saying, Dovecot is not for
> me then.  Thanks for the info.
> 
> Cliff
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: dovecot-bounces at dovecot.org [mailto:dovecot-bounces at dovecot.org]On
> Behalf Of Jakob Hirsch
> Sent: Wednesday, November 02, 2005 9:11 AM
> To: Cliff Hayes
> Cc: dovecot at dovecot.org
> Subject: RE: [Dovecot] New Fedora/Sendmail Install Assistance
> 
> 
> Please keep list traffic on the list!
> 
> Cliff Hayes wrote:
> 
> 
>>We are using Dovecot 0.99.14
> 
> 
> Ok. Haven't used this for quite a while, so I don't know if I can really
> help you.
> 
> 
>>auth_userdb = passwd
>>auth_passdb = shadow
> 
> 
> Dovecot uses the homedir that's in your passwd then.
> 
> But I wonder how you want to use IMAP. AFAIK, it needs a separate
> directory for every user anyway. At least the indexes etc. have to be
> stored somewhere.
> 
> You should really read doc/mail-storages.txt: "mbox storage requires an
> IMAP root directory where to store IMAP folders and some other
> information..."
> 
> I you can't provide a directory for every user, dovecot is probably not
> the software for you.
> 


-- 
--+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+-
Christopher Wakelin,                           c.d.wakelin at reading.ac.uk
IT Services Centre, The University of Reading,  Tel: +44 (0)118 378 8439
Whiteknights, Reading, RG6 2AF, UK              Fax: +44 (0)118 975 3094