[Dovecot] Getting back into Dovecot 2.2.5

[Andreas Kasenides]

On 31-08-2013 13:07, Kai Hendry wrote:
> 
> However I found /usr/share/doc/dovecot/example-config/conf.d/ a little
> scary, since I like to have my configs as minimalistic as possible, 
> e.g.

I suggest you forget all the options and concentrate on the ones you 
intend to use.
Dovecot has defaults for most options that make sense.
> 
> I was kinda hoping for a Maildir, but this doesn't work:
> 	mail_location = maildir:~/Maildir:LAYOUT=fs:INBOX=/var/mail/%u

I have
mail_location 
=maildir:/Mail/%d/%n:INDEX=/Mail/dovecot/indexes/%d/%n:CONTROL=/Mail/dovecot/control/%d/%n

and it works nicely. So why don't you try
mail_location=maildir:/var/spool/mail/%u
first and see how it works before moving the INBOX separately from other 
boxes

> 
> I do realise /var/mail/%u is a mbox, but I was wondering if there could
> be some clever conversion.

/var/mail/%u is a directory. It only becomes an mbox if you say so in 
Dovecot.

> 
> I was surprised something like INBOX=/var/mail/%u wasn't the default
> btw.  Also surprised dovecot seems to choke on single line syntax like
> `passdb { driver = pam }` :-)

Actually Dovecot will even auto-discover your mail in 
/var/mail/<username> among other locations (~Maildir, 
/var/mail/username, ~/mail, ~/Mail) if you leave mail_location empty.

Verified for passdb { driver = pam }.
But this works:
userdb {
driver = sql; args = /usr/local/etc/dovecot/dovecot-sql.conf.ext
}

This does not:
userdb { driver = sql; args = 
/usr/local/etc/dovecot/dovecot-sql.conf.ext }

Not sure of the exact syntax though.

> 
> Next thing I'm confused about is the `namespace inbox {` stuff. Is it
> really needed? I was expecting Dovecot to create the folders once I
> defined them, but mutt couldn't see them until I created them myself.
> 

Never touched namespace myself, did not have to. The default works 
nicely.
Sorry never used mutt before.

> The mail server is just for myself and a few colleagues. We will
> probably use mutt as our MUA and Apple Mail on IOS when we are out &
> about. I next plan to integrate dspam, and work out how to sort mails
> into folders like I previously effectively had with Gmail's labels.
> 
> I was confused to which mechanism I should be using to sort mail into
> folders with rules. Sieve? Back to Procmail? Pigeonhole? I'm looking to
> avoid complexity here.

Sieve. Which is actually a two part thing: 1) the sieve filter language 
which
you can enable on the dovecot server and manually edit each folder OR 2) 
the Sieve
server which enables you to edit the filters from the clients (with the 
right plug-in/extension on the client.

> 
> On the topic of search, can I get away with not running a Solr server?
> Since I shudder at the thought of running Tomcat.
> http://wiki2.dovecot.org/Plugins/FTS
> 

Solr is not the only option. The way I understand this is that this will 
heavily depend on your client, if it will make use of the Dovecot 
indexing, thefore speeding up operations. I use Thunderbird most of the 
time and I have no indexing on Dovecot. Searching is quite good.

Hope this helps.
Andreas