Hi,
I have only recently become aware of Dovecot and gave it a try. The previous 0.99.9.1 version didn't work well for me (OpenSSL), I dropped it, but 0.99.10 has come just in time (saw it on freshmeat) and I thought I'd give it another try if it promised SSL fixes, and it's sorta working for me (i. e. it works with mutt, Mozilla, sylpheed, but not cone -- but cone is beta and has SSL issues with certificate verification, I seem to have hosed the setup).
Anyways, I was delighted to see how quick it is to install an IMAP/POP3 server -- but being a Courier-IMAP user, I have some compatibility concerns, but these appear to be minor, and the daemontools URL:http://cr.yp.to/daemontools.html friendliness (dovecot -F) is very much to my taste as well.
One deals with NAMESPACE -- it takes manual intervention in order to convince Mozilla of the new namespace and stuff. Courier-IMAP used to provide a NAMESPACE, but Mozilla leaves it unchanged if I point it to Dovecot. The other is the naming itself, easily visible from the LIST replies below: Courier prefixes everything with "INBOX" (which I believe is reflected in the NAMESPACE, but it appears as though most clients were only tested against UWIMAP).
Apparently, mail user clients (particularly the Mozilla derivatives) do a better job of presenting Dovecot's layout, so this one has my preference, although it differs from Courier's and Cyrus 2.1's.
Timo, could you add the NAMESPACE extension to Dovecot? That would be a great migration aid for people switching over from Courier-IMAP.
Other than that, my first impression is a very good one.
One question (I may have missed it in the docs): how do I properly create folders with national characters (umlauts) in their names? Apparently, Courier-IMAP and Dovecot just forward the file name verbatim when I type maildirmake -f t=E4=DFt Maildir, which doesn't look right. OTOH, I am well aware that the IMAP servers can't possible guess the character set, so it must be my "maildirmake" that is flawed rather than the server.
This is Courier-IMAP: . namespace
- NAMESPACE (("INBOX." ".")) NIL (("shared." ".")) . OK NAMESPACE completed. . list "" *
- LIST (\HasNoChildren) "." "INBOX.INBOX.Trash"
- LIST (\HasNoChildren) "." "INBOX.dovecot"
- LIST (\HasNoChildren) "." "INBOX.qmail"
- LIST (\HasNoChildren) "." "INBOX.cone"
- LIST (\HasNoChildren) "." "INBOX.vulnwatch"
- LIST (\HasNoChildren) "." "INBOX.Outbox"
- LIST (\HasNoChildren) "." "INBOX.Trash"
- LIST (\HasNoChildren) "." "INBOX.newsletters"
- LIST (\HasNoChildren) "." "INBOX.schmendrick"
- LIST (\HasNoChildren) "." "INBOX.Queue"
- LIST (\HasNoChildren) "." "INBOX.Sent"
- LIST (\HasNoChildren) "." "INBOX.Drafts"
- LIST (\Marked \HasChildren) "." "INBOX"
- LIST (\Noselect \HasChildren) "." "INBOX.INBOX" . OK LIST completed
This is Dovecot: . namespace . BAD Error in IMAP command NAMESPACE: Unknown command. . list "" *
- LIST (\UnMarked) "." "Drafts"
- LIST (\UnMarked) "." "Sent"
- LIST (\UnMarked) "." "Queue"
- LIST (\UnMarked) "." "schmendrick"
- LIST (\UnMarked) "." "newsletters"
- LIST (\UnMarked) "." "Trash"
- LIST (\UnMarked) "." "Outbox"
- LIST (\UnMarked) "." "vulnwatch"
- LIST (\Marked) "." "cone"
- LIST (\Marked) "." "qmail"
- LIST (\UnMarked) "." "dovecot"
- LIST (\Children \UnMarked) "." "INBOX"
- LIST (\UnMarked) "." "INBOX.Trash" . OK List completed.
--=20 Matthias Andree