June 2010 - dovecot - dovecot.org

[Dovecot] importing outlook express messages to dovecot imap server
by Angelo Chen 26 Jun '10

26 Jun '10

Hi, I have a local Dovecot 1.1.4 running. I have a big number of outlook express messages that I like to put into Maildir so that I can use Dovecot's imap to access. I can convert them into mbox format. any available means for me to import outlook express/mbox messages into Maildir/Dovecot? command line will be preferred, Thanks, Angelo

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Re: [Dovecot] dovecot evaluation on a 30 gb mailbox
by Eric Shubert 26 Jun '10

26 Jun '10

Rajesh M wrote: >> Rajesh M wrote: >>>> Rajesh M wrote: >>>>> eric >>>>> >>>>> i studied LDA a bit >>>> > >>>>> if i use lda that means all my 5000+ users' email index files will be >>>>> continuously updated when every email arrives -- means a lot of writes >>>>> to >>>>> disk ... is that correct ? >>>> Yes, but I think you make it sound worse than it is. Updating the index >>>> as each email arrives doesn't involve rebuilding the whole index like >>>> what happens at login. It only updates what's there instead of >>>> rebuilding the whole thing. I can't speak from experience, but I expect >>>> that it's very efficient, and you'll never notice any increased load on >>>> the machine. Perhaps the equivalent of adding journaling to a >>>> filesystem. You can ask the dovecot list to verify this. >>>> >>>> Also, it just occurred to me that if you're using ext3, you should be >>>> sure to optimize the filesystem. Off hand, I'd use the noatime and >>>> nodiratime mount options (man mount) and dir_index filesystem option >>>> (man tune2fs). >>>> >>>>> if yes then i dont want that since only around 200 or so people out of >>>>> the >>>>> above 5000 use webmail. >>>> Just to be clear, it affects all imap usage, not only webmail (although >>>> your uses may not use imap other than webmail). >>>> >>>>> i will study a some more and revert >>>> I hope you can figure a way to try this out. I expect that QMT's move >>>> to >>>> dovecot in the future will include the deliver LDA, and your work here >>>> will be a big help getting us there. >>>> >>>> Let me know if I can be of any further help. >>>> >>>> -- >>>> -Eric 'shubes' >>>> >>> >>> hi eric >>> >>> few questions >>> >>> i wil enable lda exclusively for this one 30 gb email box using .qmail >>> file see the performance improvement .. is that ok ? >> I believe that would be fine. >> >>> can i safely enable atime for this user maildir ? >> Sure. That's simply a performance consideration. I don't believe that >> atime is used for much of anything, so either atime or noatime is safe. >> noatime is just a little faster because the inode (where that piece of >> information is stored) doesn't need to be updated each time a file is >> accessed. >> >>> thanks for your help >> Sure. I'm eager to see your results. >> >> -- >> -Eric 'shubes' >> > > > hi eric > > this is what i plan to do > > as per > http://wiki.dovecot.org/LDA/Qmail > > i need to enter the following line in a .qmail file under the Maildir > directory of the user > |/var/qmail/bin/preline -f /usr/local/libexec/dovecot/deliver -d $EXT@$USER the location is /usr/libexec/dovecot/deliver on my system. > i would add an email forward using qmailadmin web interface (which creates > the .qmail file) and then manually edit the .qmail file and put the above > line in it (so that ownership and permissions are taken care off) That sounds ok. The permissions/ownership I'm seeing on .qmail files is: -rw------- 1 vpopmail vchkpw 101 Mar 26 2008 .qmail > now i would also need to edit the dovecot.conf file > could you guide me on what changes do i need to dovecot.conf file ? Others on this list would be more help than me regarding this. From the looks of it though (after browsing the dovecot.conf file, which is well documented btw) I don't think you'd need to change a thing. We'll certainly find out if that's the case or not. I'd just give it a go. Perhaps on a test account initially. ;) -- -Eric 'shubes'

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[Dovecot] Pigeonhole Managesieve issue with Dovecot 2.0
by Tim Traver 26 Jun '10

26 Jun '10

Hi all, ok, I am running version v2.0.beta6 and the latest pigeonhole build to run managesieve and the sieve delivery filters... I am getting the following response from the managesieve port when connecting : Escape character is '^]'. "IMPLEMENTATION" "Dovecot" "SIEVE" "" "SASL" "PLAIN" "STARTTLS" "VERSION" "1.0" OK "Dovecot ready." But, I think that the SIEVE line is suppose to have all of the supported sieve functions like so : "SIEVE" "comparator-i;ascii-numeric fileinto reject vacation imapflags notify include envelope body relational regex subaddress copy" I modified the dovecot sieve config file to try and add (although they should all be added by default), and it still comes up blank... Am I missing something? what might cause it to not broadcast the sieve implementations that it has? Thanks, Tim.

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[Dovecot] auth_cache_size
by Daniel L. Miller 25 Jun '10

25 Jun '10

I was going to ask how much space I should allocate for auth_cache_size - but decided to read the wiki first. Now I'll be more specific - Wiki says about 50 bytes per passdb, and up to 200 bytes for userdb - so my arithmetic says each combined entry needs 250 bytes budgeted. Assuming that's correct, I need some clarification. Let's start small. Assume ten users, all connected - and everybody also likes looking at everybody else's mailbox. So there are ten clients, each with at least ten connections (I say at least because each folder viewed within an account is its own connection, right?). How is the auth_cache used? If I have ten user/pass combinations - is that all that is stored? Or are there connection-specific entries as well? In other words, for the above example, do I have 10 x 250 bytes yields auth_cache_size=3, or do I need 10 x 10 x 250 yields auth_cache_size=30 - or am I totally off? -- Daniel

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Re: [Dovecot] dovecot evaluation on a 30 gb mailbox
by Rajesh M 25 Jun '10

25 Jun '10

> Rajesh M wrote: >>> Rajesh M wrote: >>>> eric >>>> >>>> i studied LDA a bit >>> > >>>> if i use lda that means all my 5000+ users' email index files will be >>>> continuously updated when every email arrives -- means a lot of writes >>>> to >>>> disk ... is that correct ? >>> Yes, but I think you make it sound worse than it is. Updating the index >>> as each email arrives doesn't involve rebuilding the whole index like >>> what happens at login. It only updates what's there instead of >>> rebuilding the whole thing. I can't speak from experience, but I expect >>> that it's very efficient, and you'll never notice any increased load on >>> the machine. Perhaps the equivalent of adding journaling to a >>> filesystem. You can ask the dovecot list to verify this. >>> >>> Also, it just occurred to me that if you're using ext3, you should be >>> sure to optimize the filesystem. Off hand, I'd use the noatime and >>> nodiratime mount options (man mount) and dir_index filesystem option >>> (man tune2fs). >>> >>>> if yes then i dont want that since only around 200 or so people out of >>>> the >>>> above 5000 use webmail. >>> Just to be clear, it affects all imap usage, not only webmail (although >>> your uses may not use imap other than webmail). >>> >>>> i will study a some more and revert >>> I hope you can figure a way to try this out. I expect that QMT's move >>> to >>> dovecot in the future will include the deliver LDA, and your work here >>> will be a big help getting us there. >>> >>> Let me know if I can be of any further help. >>> >>> -- >>> -Eric 'shubes' >>> >> >> >> hi eric >> >> few questions >> >> i wil enable lda exclusively for this one 30 gb email box using .qmail >> file see the performance improvement .. is that ok ? > > I believe that would be fine. > >> can i safely enable atime for this user maildir ? > > Sure. That's simply a performance consideration. I don't believe that > atime is used for much of anything, so either atime or noatime is safe. > noatime is just a little faster because the inode (where that piece of > information is stored) doesn't need to be updated each time a file is > accessed. > >> thanks for your help > > Sure. I'm eager to see your results. > > -- > -Eric 'shubes' > hi eric this is what i plan to do as per http://wiki.dovecot.org/LDA/Qmail i need to enter the following line in a .qmail file under the Maildir directory of the user |/var/qmail/bin/preline -f /usr/local/libexec/dovecot/deliver -d $EXT@$USER i would add an email forward using qmailadmin web interface (which creates the .qmail file) and then manually edit the .qmail file and put the above line in it (so that ownership and permissions are taken care off) now i would also need to edit the dovecot.conf file could you guide me on what changes do i need to dovecot.conf file ? rajesh

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[Dovecot] Work with auth socket
by Неворотин Вадим 24 Jun '10

24 Jun '10

I need to use Dovecot auth socket from my perl script to validate user's passwords (for jabber server). Is there any information about how to communicate with dovecot auth socket?

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[Dovecot] LMTP SIZE Option
by Paul Freeman 24 Jun '10

24 Jun '10

Hi Timo, Are there any plans to support the SIZE option in the lmtp server? Paul

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[Dovecot] Fw: Re: step-to-step Installation Guide
by Spyros Tsiolis 24 Jun '10

24 Jun '10

XMail is not bad either. Strictly command-line oriented but very powerfull (if you want my opinion anyway). http://www.xmailserver.org I've been using it for almost a decade now (!) s. --- On Wed, 23/6/10, Charles Marcus <CMarcus(a)Media-Brokers.com> wrote: > From: Charles Marcus <CMarcus(a)Media-Brokers.com> > Subject: Re: [Dovecot] step-to-step Installation Guide > To: dovecot(a)dovecot.org > Date: Wednesday, 23 June, 2010, 18:34 > On 2010-06-23 11:03 AM, Eric Shubert > wrote: > > Are you running other services on your server, or will > it be dedicated > > to email? If the later, you might want to look into > > http://qmailtoaster.com/. > > Bad advice imo. QMail is dead, it just doesn't know it yet. > :) > > Seriously thought, the only person who should be using > qmail is someone > who has been using it forever and knows it inside and out - > and I would > *still* argue that they should just admit the truth and > move on. > > Do yourself a favor and don't go down that road. The best > two open > source MTA's are postfix and Exim, so you should be using > one of them > unless there is a compelling reason to use something else. > I personally > prefer postfix, but only because that's all I've ever used. > I've heard > nothing but good things about Exim, so you wouldn't be > going wrong > either way. > > -- > > Best regards, > > Charles >

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Re: [Dovecot] dovecot evaluation on a 30 gb mailbox
by Rajesh M 24 Jun '10

24 Jun '10

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > On Wed, 23 Jun 2010, Rajesh M wrote: > >>> Roundcube 0.3.1 seems to have a hard coded limit of 200 mails per page. > >> it again took around 4-5 mins > > I do not know nothing about Roundcube, therefore I wonder where the 5min > delay come from: > > a) Do you keep index files on Dovecot side? > > b) Do you deliver / manipulate the mailbox via Dovecot only? E.g. do you > use Dovecot deliver? > > c) If you rawlog or sniff the connection and issue the same commands as > roundcube to Dovecot via, say, telnet next morning, is the delay the same? > http://wiki.dovecot.org/Debugging/Rawlog > http://wiki.dovecot.org/TestInstallation?highlight=%28telnet%29 > > a) and b) should avoid rereading of the mailbox. > c) is to ensure that Roundcube does not add the delay itself. > >> the extra 1000 emails were to be added to the cache .. does dovecot go >> thru all the 170000 emails again to form the meta data ? or is there >> some >> cache expiry period ? > > Usually no. > > Regards, > > - -- > Steffen Kaiser > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) > > iQEVAwUBTCG2V7+Vh58GPL/cAQJyHAf+MayOiuayYay2mCM5i0DJH296pbuDMAXc > kbXKMRXFOP/KGeAYmHirL/9/63h0IjeRtSuBe0HJxmbg87aZVWOejVaXSPOPTAUR > n8d++siuBnQ8xiDFw0LKgep2HetYFdxepDRjdPTOM/Drpv+THFRGOVnem6JYb7yw > 0XqkQG7M4pKBaxZA+0HFH4c4ADz3XykkOluTHhmU0zDXcdkK0TybfEiwGRY3R7i8 > IozQ62pKv/v2t2z2clYOXsqLe6pM14B8/2SXUX4Anrkz8AoKyocT1Ks9hOCkizEn > bG99r7U+WObrMmbTpy6jsq//amh496ot37S4DO7DBKa3cKYqOJwwXg== > =gqnn > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- > hi did the tests once again on this large email box i set maildir_very_dirty_syncs = yes this was done in the morning and dovecot was restarted i logged after about 4 hours after the previous login again it took around 5 mins to login i was monitoring my server load which around 1.5 - 2 on my dual core dual xeon machine this increased to around 8-9 during the login process the no of emails in the box had increase by around 7500 emails setting maildir_very_dirty_syncs = yes does not seem to help i have pasted below my dovecot.conf file ################ base_dir = /var/run/dovecot/ protocols = imap imaps log_path = /backup1/qmaillog/dovecot.log #ssl_disable = no ssl_cert_file = /var/qmail/control/servercert.pem ssl_key_file = /var/qmail/control/servercert.pem ssl_cipher_list = djdjjd verbose_ssl = yes protocol imap { listen = *:143 ssl_listen = *:993 } ## Login processes #login_dir = /usr/local/var/run/dovecot/login login_user = dovecot login_process_per_connection = no login_processes_count = 3 login_process_size = 128 login_max_processes_count = 512 login_greeting = Ready #login_log_format_elements = user=<%u> method=%m rip=%r lip=%l %c ## Mailbox locations and namespaces mail_location = maildir:~/Maildir namespace private { separator = . prefix = INBOX. inbox = yes } # Mail processes verbose_proctitle = yes first_valid_uid = 89 last_valid_uid = 89 # Maximum number of running mail processes. When this limit is reached, max_mail_processes = 200 # Set max. process size in megabytes. Most of the memory goes to mmap()ing # files, so it shouldn't harm much even if this limit is set pretty high. mail_process_size = 256 ## Maildir-specific settings maildir_very_dirty_syncs = yes ## Authentication processes disable_plaintext_auth = yes auth default { mechanisms = plain login digest-md5 cram-md5 passdb vpopmail { args = webmail=127.0.0.1 } userdb vpopmail { } user = vpopmail count = 1 ssl_require_client_cert = no } ################ thanks rajesh

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[Dovecot] Regenerate Index and Control Files
by John S 24 Jun '10

24 Jun '10

In a bad attempt of correcting a non-related error, I deleted, and recreated, the control and index directories; now, the only e-mail showing up, in all user mailboxes, is mail that has been delivered afterward. How do I make dovecot regenerate the control and index files so that the old e-mail shows up? John

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