On 2012-03-15 3:27 PM, Terry Carmen <terry@cnysupport.com> wrote:
On 2012-03-15 3:06 PM, Steve Campbell <campbell@cnpapers.com> wrote:
Does anyone know of any manuals/books that have been written that might introduce me to most of the stuff in dovecot?
I'll be the first to admit that complex and specialized configurations are sometimes difficult to figure out, however this list has always been a tremendous amount of help.
I agree completely. The ability to come to places like this and get answers directly from the software developer(s) is one of the main reasons I love open source software. And I will also say that Timo (yes, Steve, he is *the* dovecot developer, although he has had some excellent help for a while now) and this list is one of the most civil & respectful of any list I've been on, and the quality of support/answers is second to none. The postfix list is imo just as good as far as the quality of support, but they are very strict on 'form' - ie, no top-posting, you're expected (and often reminded) to read the instructions in the welcome message as to 'How to report a problem' and to actually follow those instructions - and quite often their replies seem harsh and unfriendly. I'd actually like to see dovecot have a similarly detailed welcome message (complete with a link to a detailed wiki page on 'How to Report a Problem' along with some helpful troubleshooting tips), but as much as I dislike top-posters (especially those who blindly quote the entire message they are replying to), I'm glad that this list is a bit less strict on form, and just seems more friendly.
I for one would *love* to see some kind of 'The Book of Dovecot' (like 'The Book of Postfix'), but one reason I can see that would keep someone from wanting to write one is that dovecot (like most popular open source software) is still a very fast moving target as compared to the useful life of a book. Maybe his commercial support company can provide the resources for writing one once the target slows down a bit - or maybe even start off writing [a][some] smaller 'Basic Configuration' guide[s] for the things that aren't such fast moving targets that could eventually become chapters in a more comprehensive book. That would I think be a (admittedly probably fairly small) revenue generator, but hopefully at least enough to pay for itself and maybe provide a small profit.
Another option I can think of would be for Timo to provide a method for people to pay a small fee for his support company to write up a custom 'How-To' for someone based on a list of requirements. I would imagine this as a web page that is put together with the appropriate questions, the answers for which are necessary to accomplish the goal.
Of course, the other option is for other people to step up and 'fix the wiki' or 'write the Book' (or How-Tos), instead of just complaining about the lack (no offense, your 'complaint' wasn't all that bad). Yeah, I know this is the standard answer on free/open source software support lists, but it is the standard answer for a reason.
On 2012-03-15 9:08 PM, Steve Campbell <campbell@cnpapers.com> wrote:
I found that Postfix was the preferred SMTP server and Dovecot was the preferred imap/pop server. I gave Postfix my best shot, but didn't really have it tested well enough to stick with it, so I dropped back to Sendmail, something I'm somewhat familiar with.
I understand the argument for sticking with something you're familiar with, but I don't think you gave postfix a fair shot either - and it *does* have a number of excellent books written for it, so you don't have that excuse for postfix... ;). It is *much* easier to configure and run than sendmail, is much more performant and supposedly much more secure (just going by what I've read), and can do most anything that sendmail does (even supports milters).
Dovecot is an application that probably would work out of the box for me if I didn't have to use data from the previous server. So I had to use more than the standard options to make this work. Finding those options was the main gripe I had with the wiki - there are just so many options to make Dovecot the complete server. That's a good thing. Just remember, us noobies-to-Dovecot have to discover all of those options.
You always have the option to get commercial support for fast resolutions to complex problems like this... ;)
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Best regards,
Charles