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

[Andrew Falanga]

On Jan 10, 2008 9:03 AM, Scott Silva <ssilva at sgvwater.com> wrote:

> on 1/9/2008 3:02 PM Andrew Falanga spake the following:
> > On Jan 9, 2008 3:24 PM, Pascal Volk <
> user+dovecot at localhost.localdomain.org>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> Am 09.01.2008 22:51 schrieb Asheesh Laroia:
> >>> As they say, I have been schooled. (-:
> >>>
> >>> My apologies - I wasn't aware of these "virtual user with a UID"
> setups.
> >>> I was only aware of the "virtual users all share a UID" setup like the
> >>> thread starter described.
> >> What should I say? The Dovecot wiki <http://wiki.dovecot.org/> is very
> >> informative. :-)
> >
> >
> > Very informative yes, but at the same time it seems to make the same
> mistake
> > all people make when writing documentation.  There are many assumptions
> made
> > that a lot of fundamental knowledge of how mail works is known to the
> > reader.  For example, the term "mbox" is simply used.  It's not really
> > described anywhere (admittedly, that I could find) what mbox is.  It
> took
> > much looking, and in fact one respondent to my question, a week ago,
> about
> > what mbox and MAILDIR were, didn't respond with a dovecot wiki page but
> > instead a wikipedia page.  This really shouldn't be.  This is only meant
> as
> > constructive criticism, I'm not trying to be condemning here.
> >
> > Andy
> >
> Anybody setting up something like a mailserver should HAVE the basic
> knowledge
> of these things. If you don't know the basics of how e-mail works, you
> should
> have someone else set up your system. It is too easy to mis-configure a
> mail
> server and have an open relay or a botted system.
>
>
There were times I came pretty close to asking for that type of help.
Coming into this, I knew of sendmails (or postfix's) role in the mail
process, and I knew that POP and IMAP daemons were used by mail clients to
actually retrieve mail from the server from a mail client.  What I wasn't
clear on was how the mail actually ended up into a persons "INBOX."  This
process was unknown to me.  It was educational to me that it was sendmail
that handles this.  (I must admit, it should have been obvious to me.)

If the dovecot wiki isn't going to explain these things entirely, because
it's not dovecot's responsibility to do so, that's fine.  Shouldn't the wiki
explain, however, that, "Knowledge of what mbox, INBOX, MAILDIR, etc., is
assumed.  If you don't understand these terms, see (some links)?"

In an ideal world, perhaps, no one would setup a mail server unless they
knew how to.  The trouble is, this position doesn't take into account that
we *DON'T* live in an ideal world.  In our world, to know how to do
something means you've got to set it up.  But to set it up, you've got to be
familiar with it, but to be familiar with it, you've got to set it up.

Andy

-- 
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