Hello Ethan,
Glad you got everything sorted.
I agree with your assesment of open source. unfortunately people are lazy, following the river is easier, even if it leads to a water fall.
Le mar. 6 janv. 2026 à 14:27, Ethan Merrill via dovecot <dovecot@dovecot.org> a écrit :
These ended up all being pretty good tips, so thanks for the advice. I had indeed already set up SASL but the other two ended up being the key to getting all the features I wanted.
It's always rewarding but baffling how good open source software can be and how all these separate programs controlling single functions can dance in harmony. But at the same time, confusing docs and places like StackOverflow can make it hard to find all the answers you need sometimes... at least for beginners and everyone is a beginner at some point with every piece of software.
Gonna get my whole website config setup, then I will probably try to convert a lot of these notes into a guide. Thanks everyone for the help~!
~ Ethan Merrill
On Saturday, January 3rd, 2026 at 4:51 PM, Nick Tait via dovecot < dovecot@dovecot.org> wrote:
On 03/01/2026 19:50, Ethan Merrill via dovecot wrote:
I would be interested if anybody has insight about my configuration or how to optimize it. For my purposes, this definitely seems like good enough though. Hopefully the question helps someone else later, there seems to be a lack of info on this topic (at least collated together in a more helpful way). Will probably aspire to write a guide on my setup once the server is complete and secured.
Hi Ethan.
It sounds like in the process of getting this working you're getting a good understanding of the mechanics of how Dovecot and Postfix work! :-)
Here are some ideas to consider as next steps:
- You've probably done this already, but if not, it would be worth setting up SASL authentication between Postfix and Dovecot, so that Postfix can get Dovecot to authenticate users submitting emails. https://doc.dovecot.org/2.4.2/howto/sasl/postfix.html
- You could set up Dovecot to do LMTP, and use that as your 'virtual' transport in Postfix/SpamAssassin. The advantages of doing this is that you no longer need to configure a custom transport ("dovecot") in Postfix, and you can deliver an email to more than one recipient in a single LMTP conversation (instead of launching a separate 'dovecot-lda' process for each recipient). https://doc.dovecot.org/2.4.2/howto/lmtp/postfix.html
- You could vastly simplify your Postfix configuration, by getting rid of your 'local' transport completely, and have all emails delivered via your 'virtual' transport. The idea here is that Postfix uses Dovecot to authenticate users and deliver emails, so it shouldn't need to concern itself with whether a user is a 'system' user or a 'virtual' user.
Nick. On 03/01/2026 19:50, Ethan Merrill via dovecot wrote:
I would be interested if anybody has insight about my configuration or how to optimize it. For my purposes, this definitely seems like good enough though. Hopefully the question helps someone else later, there seems to be a lack of info on this topic (at least collated together in a more helpful way). Will probably aspire to write a guide on my setup once the server is complete and secured.
Hi Ethan.
It sounds like in the process of getting this working you're getting a good understanding of the mechanics of how Dovecot and Postfix work! :-)
Here are some ideas to consider as next steps:
o You've probably done this already, but if not, it would be worth setting up SASL authentication between Postfix and Dovecot, so that Postfix can get Dovecot to authenticate users submitting emails. [1]https://doc.dovecot.org/2.4.2/howto/sasl/postfix.html o You could set up Dovecot to do LMTP, and use that as your 'virtual' transport in Postfix/SpamAssassin. The advantages of doing this is that you no longer need to configure a custom transport ("dovecot") in Postfix, and you can deliver an email to more than one recipient in a single LMTP conversation (instead of launching a separate 'dovecot-lda' process for each recipient). [2]https://doc.dovecot.org/2.4.2/howto/lmtp/postfix.html o You could vastly simplify your Postfix configuration, by getting rid of your 'local' transport completely, and have all emails delivered via your 'virtual' transport. The idea here is that Postfix uses Dovecot to authenticate users and deliver emails, so it shouldn't need to concern itself with whether a user is a 'system' user or a 'virtual' user.
Nick.
References
Visible links
- https://doc.dovecot.org/2.4.2/howto/sasl/postfix.html
- https://doc.dovecot.org/2.4.2/howto/lmtp/postfix.html
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Hello Ethan, Glad you got everything sorted. I agree with your assesment of open source. unfortunately people are lazy, following the river is easier, even if it leads to a water fall. Le mar. 6 janv. 2026 `a 14:27, Ethan Merrill via dovecot <[1]dovecot@dovecot.org> a ecrit :
These ended up all being pretty good tips, so thanks for the advice. I
had indeed already set up SASL but the other two ended up being the key
to getting all the features I wanted.
It's always rewarding but baffling how good open source software can be
and how all these separate programs controlling single functions can
dance in harmony. But at the same time, confusing docs and places like
StackOverflow can make it hard to find all the answers you need
sometimes... at least for beginners and everyone is a beginner at some
point with every piece of software.
Gonna get my whole website config setup, then I will probably try to
convert a lot of these notes into a guide. Thanks everyone for the
help~!
~ Ethan Merrill
On Saturday, January 3rd, 2026 at 4:51 PM, Nick Tait via dovecot
<[2]dovecot@dovecot.org> wrote:
> On 03/01/2026 19:50, Ethan Merrill via dovecot wrote:
>
> > I would be interested if anybody has insight about my configuration
or how to optimize it. For my purposes, this definitely seems like good
enough though. Hopefully the question helps someone else later, there
seems to be a lack of info on this topic (at least collated together in
a more helpful way). Will probably aspire to write a guide on my setup
once the server is complete and secured.
>
>
> Hi Ethan.
>
> It sounds like in the process of getting this working you're getting a
> good understanding of the mechanics of how Dovecot and Postfix work!
:-)
>
> Here are some ideas to consider as next steps:
>
> * You've probably done this already, but if not, it would be worth
> setting up SASL authentication between Postfix and Dovecot, so that
> Postfix can get Dovecot to authenticate users submitting emails.
> [3]https://doc.dovecot.org/2.4.2/howto/sasl/postfix.html
> * You could set up Dovecot to do LMTP, and use that as your 'virtual'
> transport in Postfix/SpamAssassin. The advantages of doing this is
> that you no longer need to configure a custom transport ("dovecot")
> in Postfix, and you can deliver an email to more than one recipient
> in a single LMTP conversation (instead of launching a separate
> 'dovecot-lda' process for each recipient).
> [4]https://doc.dovecot.org/2.4.2/howto/lmtp/postfix.html
> * You could vastly simplify your Postfix configuration, by getting rid
> of your 'local' transport completely, and have all emails delivered
> via your 'virtual' transport. The idea here is that Postfix uses
> Dovecot to authenticate users and deliver emails, so it shouldn't
> need to concern itself with whether a user is a 'system' user or a
> 'virtual' user.
>
> Nick.
> On 03/01/2026 19:50, Ethan Merrill via dovecot wrote:
>
> I would be interested if anybody has insight about my configuration or
how to optimize it. For my purposes, this definitely seems like good
enough though. Hopefully the question helps someone else later, there
seems to be a lack of info on this topic (at least collated together in
a more helpful way). Will probably aspire to write a guide on my setup
once the server is complete and secured.
>
> Hi Ethan.
>
> It sounds like in the process of getting this working you're getting a
> good understanding of the mechanics of how Dovecot and Postfix work!
:-)
>
> Here are some ideas to consider as next steps:
>
> o You've probably done this already, but if not, it would be worth
> setting up SASL authentication between Postfix and Dovecot, so that
> Postfix can get Dovecot to authenticate users submitting emails.
> [1][5]https://doc.dovecot.org/2.4.2/howto/sasl/postfix.html
> o You could set up Dovecot to do LMTP, and use that as your 'virtual'
> transport in Postfix/SpamAssassin. The advantages of doing this is
> that you no longer need to configure a custom transport ("dovecot") in
> Postfix, and you can deliver an email to more than one recipient in a
> single LMTP conversation (instead of launching a separate
> 'dovecot-lda' process for each recipient).
> [2][6]https://doc.dovecot.org/2.4.2/howto/lmtp/postfix.html
> o You could vastly simplify your Postfix configuration, by getting rid
> of your 'local' transport completely, and have all emails delivered
> via your 'virtual' transport. The idea here is that Postfix uses
> Dovecot to authenticate users and deliver emails, so it shouldn't need
> to concern itself with whether a user is a 'system' user or a
> 'virtual' user.
>
> Nick.
>
> References
>
> Visible links
> 1. [7]https://doc.dovecot.org/2.4.2/howto/sasl/postfix.html
> 2. [8]https://doc.dovecot.org/2.4.2/howto/lmtp/postfix.html
> _______________________________________________
> dovecot mailing list -- [9]dovecot@dovecot.org
> To unsubscribe send an email to [10]dovecot-leave@dovecot.org
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