Hi,

I've just transitioned from using courier to dovecot. Thanks for making this possible.

During the 'quite simple' transition process, I didn't do much prep as I'm in more of a more of a fix-compile-fix-compile mode rather than a 'read all the docs first' so you may just want to give up now :)

If you are still with me, I just wanted to say, it wasn't completely obvious that I needed a password and a user database [PAM not virtual]. Maybe that's just me but anyway, I spent longer than I should have trying to get PAM to work before eventually realising 'internal error check server logs' meant 'where's your user database'. I guess I assumed PAM could cover it all.

If you are in to that kind of thing (usability), it might be sensible to have some kind of "basic errors" check during the config file parse phase which picks up stuff like this and points out a more specific error. I did check the logs vigorously and I even turn on every kind of debug_ (to the extent I started getting plain text passwords in the log!) but the 'internal server error check logs' was actually the only log entry for this issue.

In case the point is still unclear, I would have spent less time running in the wrong direction if the error message had been "At least one user database must be configured" or some such. I completely understand if your philosophy is "read the manual or suffer the consequences" and it wasn't a complete fail but a simple up front config check could have helped.

Thanks for your time today,

Kind Regards,

Liam