[Dovecot] dovecot rpms, .subscriptions file, mbox to maildir

[Chris Wakelin]

Saurabh Barve wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I am running dovecot 0.99-14 on a Fedora Core 2 machine. I had a few 
> questions:
> 
> 1) I wanted to upgrade to the dovecot-1.0 release. However, I am not 
> sure if that's really required. dovecot-0.99-14 has been running very 
> well for me for quite some time. Is there a real advantage to switching 
> to the latest release. The reason I'm asking this is because:
>    i)  I don't have too many users to server - around 15 only.

We've got 15,000 or so (mind you, it's a big server!). We're thinking of 
migrating from UW-IMAP to Dovecot 1.0-stable.

>    ii) My mail server is a pretty fast machine (~1 GHz, 1 GB RAM)
>        machine, so hardware isn't too much of an issue.
>    iii) I like to install software from rpm's. It's not that I can't
>         install from source, but installing from rpm's makes it much
>         easier for me. Just a personal preference. The version of
>         dovecot that I am running was obtained from Dag Wieers web site.
>         I haven't seen a newer version there. I've googled for rpm's for
>         newer versions, and they are available, but I don't want to
>         install it from some third party source that I don't know/trust.

Me too, at least in Linux (but we're using Solaris). However, if there 
isn't one, I tend to "roll my own". You get the benifits of package 
management and you can always share them with others!

>    iv) I am also planning to support web mail for my users (probably
>        through Squirrelmail). Are there any advantages/disadvantages to
>        upgrading dovecot for that?

Probably not? Squirrelmail and other PHP-based webmail clients will make 
lots of connections, so you'll be relying on Dovecot's indexes to 
prevent the server getting clobbered.

>    v) People use Mozilla Mail, Mail.app, Thunderbird, Outlook, and
>       Opera. Does the 1.0 version provide better integration with
>       different mail clients (even though I understand that 
>       sometimes it's a problem with the client implementation).

There have been a few fixes in 1.0, but if your users are happy with 
0.99, it might be better to stick with that.

> So, are there newer version of dovecot (1.0-stable) available in rpm 
> formats which are guaranteed to be safe and un-trojaned? And is there 
> any really good reason why I should upgrade to 1.0-stable?

For me, it was support for hidden IMAP namespaces (which can be used to 
hide the migration from UW-IMAP) that decided it. Also it's more likely 
to get patches. But "if it's not broken, don't fix it!"

> 2) My second question is about creating the .subscriptions (or 
> subscriptions in 1.0) file. When I moved people over from using pine to 
> using a mail client like Evolution/Thunderbird, I had to create 
> .subscriptions/.mailboxlist file for them so that they could see the 
> folders that they had created in pine. However, people still sometimes 
> access e-mail using pine. They then create new folders in pine, which 
> they are unable to see in their mail client. Is there a way around it? 
> This occurs especially when people check their mail at the start of the 
> month, and pine asks about saving/deleting old sent-mail folders, Trash 
> folders. Is there a way to add these folders automagically to the 
> .subscriptions file?

Not without modifying the source code to replace ".subscriptions" with 
".mailboxlist". You could have problems with UW-IMAP (and presumably 
Pine) including the folder prefix for the folders in the file, which 
Dovecot doesn't.

Alternatively, an overnight reconciliation script might do?

> 
> 3) Would I be able to support web mail using mailboxes in mbox format, 
> as I have them now? Or do I have to go for Maildir format? Since our 
> university introduced web mail, they have had two sets of folders - one 
> with capitalization (Sent, Deleted Messages, etc.) and one without 
> (sent-mail, etc. - these were from our pine days). Is this due to web mail?

Mboxes should be fine (at least in 1.0). The important consideration is 
how long it takes to open a folder, as most webmail clients don't use 
persistent connections to the server.

The two sets of folders is just down to using differently-configured 
clients (including webmail). We have the same problem. I sometimes wish 
they'd defined "OUTBOX" as a special folder in the IMAP protocol as they 
did "INBOX"!

> 
> Also, if I do need to convert from mbox to Maildir, what is the standard 
> tool for doing that? I saw at least three different tools/scripts for 
> doing that (mbox2maildir,mb2d,mb2md-2,mb2md.pl, .. ). Which tool (and 
> from where) should I use to convert mailboxes without problems?

I don't know, but would be interested in finding out!

> 
> Any help is greatly appreciated.
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> 
> Saurabh.
> -----
> sa at atmos.colostate.edu

Best Wishes,
Chris


-- 
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Christopher Wakelin,                           c.d.wakelin at reading.ac.uk
IT Services Centre, The University of Reading,  Tel: +44 (0)118 378 8439
Whiteknights, Reading, RG6 2AF, UK              Fax: +44 (0)118 975 3094