[Dovecot] Please help me resolve why mail isn't being delivered to virtual users

[Asheesh Laroia]

On Tue, 8 Jan 2008, Andrew Falanga wrote:

> On Jan 7, 2008 9:55 PM, Asheesh Laroia <asheesh at asheesh.org> wrote:
>
>> On Mon, 7 Jan 2008, Andrew Falanga wrote:
>>
>>> I have to admit that I'm not quite sure why no one has responded to me 
>>> about this one.  If I'm not providing enough information or incorrect 
>>> information please tell me.  It's quite important that this e-mail 
>>> system be working.
>>
>> Well, I can try to help.  In general that's what we'll all do, but we 
>> have other things to do in our lives, too. (-:
>>
>> Zeroth question: Why use virtual users rather than regular-old UNIX 
>> users? The regular way requires much less configuration, after all!
>
> Well, that is actually how I got things working.  Now that Christmas is 
> past, the church staff is returning to work "full-throttle" and had to 
> have e-mail services.  (About three weeks ago, the windoze system they 
> were running died.)  As to why to use virtual users, we were wanting to 
> go that route because one thought is to give e-mail accounts to church 
> members who want them.  I was thinking that a better way of doing that 
> would be through virtual users.

"One thought is to to give e-mail accounts to church members who want 
them" - that's easy, just run the system adduser command!

In my opinion, fiddling with virtual users is not usually worth the 
effort.  (Now, if you have HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of users on one machine, 
then let's talk!)

Basically - the above is a reason to use 'adduser', not a reason to use 
virtual users!  If I'm wrong, please clarify my understanding.

> Ok, I will try that ASAP.  I don't think that I'll get to it tonight (in
> fact, I'm sorry for taking so long to respond to this but I couldn't take a
> free minute at work today to respond).  Also, since they're working now, at
> least through POP, the pressure is off.  However, in the near future, I need
> to get IMAP and SSL working.

Dovecot IMAP just works (tm) if you use system users, for IMAP and POP3 
SSL and everything else wonderful.  Why fiddle with virtual users when 
real users are just as good and easier to set up?

> I agree with you.  I only asked here because I was trying to use the 
> dovecot deliver program, as specified in that wiki page, and I thought 
> that since this applies to everyone using dovecot (mail delivery) you 
> all might know how I need to fix this.

Well, I'm not using the Dovecot LDA myself (right now, at least), and 
another reply on this list explained that the same is true for many here.

Best of luck - in general my rule for systems is to keep them as simple as 
possible.  Virtual users can make things easier (like crazy massive user 
integration across disparate systems), but if you have no reason to use 
them just forget about them.

-- Asheesh.

-- 
Dry clean only.