Phil Howard put forth on 4/22/2010 11:18 AM:
On Thu, Apr 22, 2010 at 12:12 PM, Jerry dovecot.user@seibercom.net wrote:
On Thu, 22 Apr 2010 17:03:00 +0200 Rainer rainer.frey@inxmail.de articulated:
Well, it leaves out the *one tricky part* of using a flat file database for virtual users with dovecot and postfix: there is no common format that both understand directly.
I have not been following this thread as closely as I probably should have; however, I was wondering what the OP's problem was with using MySQL? It would greatly simplify the job of constructing and maintaining databases. It is even possible to create tables that both Postfix and Dovecot can use jointly if desired. I use MySQL for several projects, and would never go back to using 'flat files" unless there was no other way to achieve my goal.
The administration is going to be handed off to less technical people, and my goal is to mimize the number of elements in this. It's not about MySQL itself ... it's about not running yet another server/daemon.
With this many lookup table types supported by Postfix, is it true that it has no "simple" table type in common with Dovecot?
btree A sorted, balanced tree structure. This is
available on systems with support for Berke-
ley DB databases.
cdb A read-optimized structure with no support
for incremental updates. This is available
on systems with support for CDB databases.
cidr A table that associates values with Class-
less Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) patterns.
This is described in cidr_table(5).
dbm An indexed file type based on hashing. This
is available on systems with support for DBM
databases.
environ
The UNIX process environment array. The
lookup key is the variable name. Originally
implemented for testing, someone may find
this useful someday.
hash An indexed file type based on hashing. This
is available on systems with support for
Berkeley DB databases.
internal
A non-shared, in-memory hash table. Its con-
tent are lost when a process terminates.
ldap (read-only)
Perform lookups using the LDAP protocol.
This is described in ldap_table(5).
mysql (read-only)
Perform lookups using the MYSQL protocol.
This is described in mysql_table(5).
pcre (read-only)
A lookup table based on Perl Compatible Reg-
ular Expressions. The file format is
described in pcre_table(5).
pgsql (read-only)
Perform lookups using the PostgreSQL proto-
col. This is described in pgsql_table(5).
proxy (read-only)
A lookup table that is implemented via the
Postfix proxymap(8) service. The table name
syntax is type:name.
regexp (read-only)
A lookup table based on regular expressions.
The file format is described in regexp_ta-
ble(5).
sdbm An indexed file type based on hashing. This
is available on systems with support for
SDBM databases.
static (read-only)
A table that always returns its name as
lookup result. For example, static:foobar
always returns the string foobar as lookup
result.
tcp (read-only)
Perform lookups using a simple request-reply
protocol that is described in tcp_table(5).
This feature is not included with the stable
Postfix release.
unix (read-only)
A limited way to query the UNIX authentica-
tion database. The following tables are
implemented:
unix:passwd.byname
The table is the UNIX password data-
base. The key is a login name. The
result is a password file entry in
passwd(5) format.
unix:group.byname
The table is the UNIX group database.
The key is a group name. The result
is a group file entry in group(5)
format.-- Stan