Timo Sirainen writes:
actually giving useful error messages. Often the admin is only looking at the log file where "info" messages go (eg mail.log) because Dovecot logs its startup message and login messages there, but not where the errors go (eg mail.err). This has happened even with people who in general are experienced sysadmins.
I had problems with Dovecot because of it's logs when I first started. think that syslog should be default and to point it to "mail.info" level. If the user tries to setup the log variables errors should be sent to syslog "mail.crit".
I don't recall exact details, but I recall that when I first tried to use the log files I made a mistake and dovecot did not help me find the error.
Logging to eg. /var/log/dovecot.log by default would be helpful here, but it's probably better to log via syslog by default.
I agree on syslog as default.
Cyrus logs to "local6" by default.
I think "mail.info" may be a better choice, although this may be somewhat OS dependant. Many people may not even know where their syslog configuration file is or even how to configure it. Because of this whatever is the most commonly used syslog call may be the best choice. In FreeBSD there is a default "mail.info". Anyone familiar with Linux Distros and/or other BSDs know how common is an entry for ""mail.info"" in syslog.conf.