[Dovecot] Dovecot first impressions

[Matthias Andree]

Hi,

I have only recently become aware of Dovecot and gave it a try. The
previous 0.99.9.1 version didn't work well for me (OpenSSL), I dropped
it, but 0.99.10 has come just in time (saw it on freshmeat) and I
thought I'd give it another try if it promised SSL fixes, and it's sorta
working for me (i. e. it works with mutt, Mozilla, sylpheed, but not
cone -- but cone is beta and has SSL issues with certificate
verification, I seem to have hosed the setup).

Anyways, I was delighted to see how quick it is to install an IMAP/POP3
server -- but being a Courier-IMAP user, I have some compatibility
concerns, but these appear to be minor, and the daemontools
<URL:http://cr.yp.to/daemontools.html> friendliness (dovecot -F) is very
much to my taste as well.

One deals with NAMESPACE -- it takes manual intervention in order to
convince Mozilla of the new namespace and stuff. Courier-IMAP used to
provide a NAMESPACE, but Mozilla leaves it unchanged if I point it to
Dovecot. The other is the naming itself, easily visible from the LIST
replies below: Courier prefixes everything with "INBOX" (which I believe
is reflected in the NAMESPACE, but it appears as though most clients
were only tested against UWIMAP).

Apparently, mail user clients (particularly the Mozilla derivatives) do
a better job of presenting Dovecot's layout, so this one has my
preference, although it differs from Courier's and Cyrus 2.1's.

Timo, could you add the NAMESPACE extension to Dovecot? That would be a
great migration aid for people switching over from Courier-IMAP.

Other than that, my first impression is a very good one.

One question (I may have missed it in the docs): how do I properly
create folders with national characters (umlauts) in their names?
Apparently, Courier-IMAP and Dovecot just forward the file name verbatim
when I type maildirmake -f t=E4=DFt Maildir, which doesn't look right. OTOH,
I am well aware that the IMAP servers can't possible guess the character
set, so it must be my "maildirmake" that is flawed rather than the server.

This is Courier-IMAP:
. namespace
* NAMESPACE (("INBOX." ".")) NIL (("shared." "."))
. OK NAMESPACE completed.
. list "" *
* LIST (\HasNoChildren) "." "INBOX.INBOX.Trash"
* LIST (\HasNoChildren) "." "INBOX.dovecot"
* LIST (\HasNoChildren) "." "INBOX.qmail"
* LIST (\HasNoChildren) "." "INBOX.cone"
* LIST (\HasNoChildren) "." "INBOX.vulnwatch"
* LIST (\HasNoChildren) "." "INBOX.Outbox"
* LIST (\HasNoChildren) "." "INBOX.Trash"
* LIST (\HasNoChildren) "." "INBOX.newsletters"
* LIST (\HasNoChildren) "." "INBOX.schmendrick"
* LIST (\HasNoChildren) "." "INBOX.Queue"
* LIST (\HasNoChildren) "." "INBOX.Sent"
* LIST (\HasNoChildren) "." "INBOX.Drafts"
* LIST (\Marked \HasChildren) "." "INBOX"
* LIST (\Noselect \HasChildren) "." "INBOX.INBOX"
. OK LIST completed

This is Dovecot:
. namespace
. BAD Error in IMAP command NAMESPACE: Unknown command.
. list "" *
* LIST (\UnMarked) "." "Drafts"
* LIST (\UnMarked) "." "Sent"
* LIST (\UnMarked) "." "Queue"
* LIST (\UnMarked) "." "schmendrick"
* LIST (\UnMarked) "." "newsletters"
* LIST (\UnMarked) "." "Trash"
* LIST (\UnMarked) "." "Outbox"
* LIST (\UnMarked) "." "vulnwatch"
* LIST (\Marked) "." "cone"
* LIST (\Marked) "." "qmail"
* LIST (\UnMarked) "." "dovecot"
* LIST (\Children \UnMarked) "." "INBOX"
* LIST (\UnMarked) "." "INBOX.Trash"
. OK List completed.


--=20
Matthias Andree