[dovecot] Re: questions

[Timo Sirainen]

On Thu, 2002-12-05 at 17:56, Farkas Levente wrote:
> hi,
> I'm look around to find a usable imap server and find dovecot.
> I read all the docs, but I've got a few questions:
> - currently we use courier (since we find and install it quickly). 
>   can we switch from it to dovecot smoothly?
>   or we have to convert the maildirs somehow?

Dovecot works fine with Courier. We were using both simultaneously for
months. Message UIDs aren't shared though.

> - I've got a few plan in my mind it it possible to do it with dovecot
>   now or in the near future (if yes what is the estimated time)?:
>   - authenticate from LDAP, the best would be trough PAM?

I don't have much LDAP plans right now .. PAM would likely already have
existing LDAP plugins, but you'd also have to keep the users in
/etc/passwd then (without passwords).

>   - use the same user with different domain. eg: lfarkas at bnap.hu,
>     lfarkas at bppiac.hu with the same imap server? handle more domains.

Authentication issue mostly, with plain authentication Dovecot would
just treat the whole user at domain as a username. Some other mechanisms do
support realms, and Dovecot's Digest-MD5 and passwd-file support realms
already.

>   - use imaps and use Digest-MD5 and/or CRAM-MD5?

imaps and Digest-MD5 are already there. Digest-MD5 can't work (and can't
be made to work) with PAM authentication though.

>   - put a database backend under imap and store the mails in a database.

I've been thinking about SQL database support from the beginning.
However it'd probably be slower and require a bit more memory than with
the current indexes.

>   - use WITHOUT local users? it's very important! most case a user never
>     ever log into the local system and I would not like to put them into
>     /etc/password.

Currently Dovecot supports passwd-like file where you could store the
users. For example /etc/imap.passwd.

Oh, and there's also vpopmail support which should handle virtual
domains and LDAP and everything. Maybe you should try that. Although it
again only support plaintext authentication.