On Sunday 17 July 2005 03:09, OpenMacNews wrote:
hi all,
"uncle"! i've thrown up my hands with cyrus, and am looking for a 'better alternative' ...
i'm brand new to dovecot (haven't even built it yet ...), and have spent the last while reading through the LIST archives here.
apart from the TECHNICAL aspects, which seem _more_ than adequate/competitive,
i'm most attracted by a comment abt this LIST/community: > awesome technical support with patient developer-dudes on hand
which, in a nutshell, is what i seem to be missing.
so, i'm preparing to "take the plunge" w/ dovecot.
two preliminary questions, if i might:
(1) what sort of *interest* is there here (Timo? others?) in Dovecot on OSX? i'm usually able to get most anything up-n-runnig on my OSX boxes, but i'd like to join a community where every issue-on-Mac is not simply ignored/slammed ... and there might be folks willing to work with me on issues
There is a Darwinport for 0.99.14 so that seems like a good sign. Lots of us, me included, run Dovecot on FreeBSD which is (in this context) about as similar to OS X as you will find.
(2) here-we-go-again with the Maildir/Mbox decision :-)
what's the latest thinking/recommendation here wrt mailbox/mdir? my specifics are -- i intend to backend Dovecot with Exim ... and will run my server 'closed box' ... i.e., no file-system-related User accounts. rather, just 'virtual' spaces.
i'm leaning towards Maildir's one-flat-file-per-message format, with an eventual/possible move to storage in PostgreSQL if/when Dovecot adds the capability ...
I think Maildir is better. I don't think storing mailboxes in an SQL database is a good idea, a network filesystem will perform better with large mailboxes and messages, plus if you can use Maildirs with lots of existing tools to manipulate the mailboxes. If you keep it in an SQL database, you will have to write all your own tools for processing the data. I suppose it depends on what your goals are.
Maildir and mbox have different trade offs so picking the right one is about knowing the problem you need to solve.
thoughts? (yes, i know, y'all must've had the discussion a g'zillion times ... a pointer to a good/relevant thread is great too!)
cheers,
richard
HTH,
Dominic Marks