[Dovecot] recipient_delimiter

[Phil Howard]

On Wed, May 26, 2010 at 16:59, Jerry <dovecot.user at seibercom.net> wrote:

> On or about line 821 in the Dovecot.conf file:
>
> #auth_username_chars = abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ01234567890.-_@
>
> If you have not all ready done so, add the "+" to the end of the list
> and un-comment the line. I believe you will have to restart 'dovecot'
> for the change to take affect.

Now added.


> By the way, Postfix must be properly configured to pass the email
> address to dovecot. I leave that as an exercise to the user. You might
> want to start here thought:
>
>        http://wiki.dovecot.org/LDA/Postfix

The question I have next is, what is "properly".  Should Postfix pass
"phil+howard at example.com" or "phil at example.com" ... and in which place
(on the command line to deliver? ... the first line passed through the
pipe? ... in the RFC822 To: header?).

How does Dovecot know I have "recipient_delimiter = +" (vs.
"recipient_delimiter = -" or such) in main.cf, or should it matter?
It would seem to me that if Dovecot has to figure out that
"phil+howard at example.com" goes into the mailbox for "phil at example.com"
then it needs to know that + is the character being used for that.
Otherwise it seems that Postfix should tell it that the delivery is to
"phil at example.com".

One frequent confuse I see in referencing documentation for a problem,
is understanding what it is that needs to be achieved, in order for
the proper documented configuration to be determined.