Karl Schmidt wrote:
After much googling, it appears that one can use either exim or dovecot as the LDA - the trade offs are not clear.
It seems that the amount of mass mails all needing to get indexed at the same time would make dovecot as the LDA create a higher server peak, -- I think the inbox is only indexed in the case of exim as the LDA when users check their mail - thus spreading the load. On the other hand, I don't see where the advantage of using dovecot as the LDA is documented. It could be important for indexing, caching.
My understanding of the advantages are as follows:
- Index updates
No other LDA knows how to update Dovecot's indices. Many people found that without their indices being updated on deliver, there was an "unacceptable" delay when opening their inbox.
- Same config
The dovecot LDA uses the same configuration as the imap/pop servers, so they're all looking in the same places for the same mailbox types. If you changes the config, they're all in sync.
- Options
Dovecot's LDA supports all the mailbox formats, user databases, and config sources of Dovecot. This seems obvious when you say it, but it is quite a suite of features. Just ask the next sendmail admin you see how easy it is for them to deliver to LDAP based virtual mailboxes in Maildir format...
- Consistency
If Timo ever took on the onerous task of writing a MTA, I'd certainly give it a look in. Then my mail server could be Dovecot all the way. (Until then, I'll stick with Postfix - thanks Wietse:)
As it is, having one consistent code base and config scheme covering all your local mail handling can keep your system admin workload down.
I'm sure other people will contribute more or clearer reasons, but this is what comes to mind this Wednesday morning before my first coffee...
-- Curtis Maloney cmaloney@cardgate.net