Hi All,

I have compared Dovecot performance to Courier and it appears that as a POP3 server Dovecot is slower in 2 times but as an IMAP server it is faster in 1.5 times. The same node (16CPUs), testing time is 30 min, please see results and dovecot configs attached. Benchmark software is MStone used by Sendmail Inc so is is quite reliable.

I do not see anything else to tweak in Dovecot to increase POP3 performance. Can we all have some tips to improve it please ?

This is how my Dovecot set up: (LDAP user) -> Dovecot Director -> (Master user) -> Dovecot

Dovecot Director: dovecot-shared-4:~# /usr/local/dovecot/bin/doveconf -n -c /usr/local/dovecot/etc/dovecot/dovecot-proxy.conf # 2.1.12: /usr/local/dovecot/etc/dovecot/dovecot-proxy.conf # OS: Linux 2.6.32-5-amd64 x86_64 Debian 6.0.6 auth_debug = yes auth_mechanisms = plain login cram-md5 ntlm auth_verbose = yes base_dir = /var/run/dovecot-proxy default_internal_user = webmail director_mail_servers = 192.168.100.102 director_servers = 192.168.100.101 disable_plaintext_auth = no doveadm_password = blah doveadm_proxy_port = 9292 instance_name = dovecot-proxy listen = 192.168.100.101 log_path = /var/log/dovecot-proxy.log login_greeting = Dovecot Proxy ready. mail_location = maildir:~/ passdb { args = /usr/local/dovecot/etc/dovecot/dovecot-ldap.conf.ext driver = ldap } service auth-worker { user = webmail } service auth { client_limit = 2400 } service director { fifo_listener login/proxy-notify { mode = 0666 } inet_listener { port = 9191 } unix_listener director-userdb { mode = 0600 } unix_listener login/director { mode = 0666 } } service doveadm { inet_listener { port = 9292 } } service imap-login { executable = imap-login director inet_listener imap { port = 143 } inet_listener imaps { port = 993 ssl = yes } } service imap { service_count = 0 } service lmtp { inet_listener lmtp { port = 24 } } service pop3-login { executable = pop3-login director inet_listener pop3 { port = 110 } inet_listener pop3s { port = 995 ssl = yes } } service pop3 { service_count = 0 } ssl_cert =

Dovecot (back-end): dovecot-shared-4:~# /usr/local/dovecot/bin/doveconf -n # 2.1.12: /usr/local/dovecot/etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf # OS: Linux 2.6.32-5-amd64 x86_64 Debian 6.0.6 auth_debug = yes auth_master_user_separator = * auth_mechanisms = plain login auth_verbose = yes base_dir = /var/run/dovecot/ default_internal_user = webmail disable_plaintext_auth = no doveadm_password = blah listen = 192.168.100.102 log_path = /var/log/dovecot.log mail_fsync = always mail_location = maildir:~/ mail_nfs_index = yes mail_nfs_storage = yes mail_plugins = " quota fts fts_lucene" mmap_disable = yes namespace { inbox = yes location = prefix = INBOX. separator = . } passdb { args = /usr/local/dovecot/etc/dovecot/passwd.masterusers driver = passwd-file master = yes pass = yes } passdb { driver = static } plugin { fts = lucene fts_lucene = whitespace_chars=@. quota = maildir:User quota } service director { unix_listener director-admin { mode = 00 } } service doveadm { inet_listener { port = 9292 } } service imap-login { inet_listener imap { port = 143 } inet_listener imaps { port = 993 ssl = yes } process_limit = 20 process_min_avail = 8 } service imap-postlogin { executable = script-login /usr/local/dovecot/bin/imap-postlogin.sh user = webmail } service imap { executable = imap imap-postlogin } service lmtp { inet_listener lmtp { port = 24 } } service pop3-login { inet_listener pop3 { port = 110 } inet_listener pop3s { port = 995 ssl = yes } process_limit = 20 process_min_avail = 8 } service pop3-postlogin { executable = script-login /usr/local/dovecot/bin/pop3-postlogin.sh user = webmail } service pop3 { executable = pop3 pop3-postlogin } ssl_cert =

Best Regards, Alexandr Sabitov Netregistry