[Dovecot] newbie questions

[Chris Wakelin]

Stewart Dean wrote:
> Thanks in advance for your patience and assistance.  Since a system 
> administrator's work is most successful when nobody knows you've done 
> anything....(ugly that...you get neither raises nor equipment funding as 
> a result), I prefer to learn from other's experiences rather than fail 
> in the same pits.
> 
> We are considering a switch from UW to Dovecot, since our users persist 
> in using the INBOX as a file cabinet (maybe 25% use homedir folders) and 
> we currently have, I think, .mbox INBOXes which are thus getting 
> massively unmanageable and fragile.
> 
> Machine config: Running IBM AIX 5.2/5.3 on an F80 with 4GB memory (may 
> be upgraded to 16GB), with IBM's sendmail binary at V8.11.6p2, hand 
> compiled procmail at 3.22, 64-bit binary from C for AIX V6.0
> 
> Some questions I couldn't find answered in the docs:
> 
> 1) Crispin of UW has a formats.txt file in which he lists and evaluates 
> the various formats.  He calls the INBOX format type we use .unix (one 
> big honking flat file).
> Q1: Is this what is described in the Dovecot docs mail-storages.txt file 
> as .mbox?

Yes. It's often called "Berkeley" format and shouldn't be confused with 
Marc Crispin's proprietary "mbx" format. The start of each message 
begins with a "From " line.

> 
> 2) Authentication: The DC docs don't mention using NIS/yp for 
> authentication, that I can find.
> Q2: Does DC support NIS/yp authentication?
> I guess I could periodically do a ypcat passwd to a file and point DC at 
> it...

Yes, it works fine with just "passdb = passwd" and "userdb = passwd", at 
   least in Solaris (/etc/nss_switch.conf has "passwd: files nis" and 
"group: files nis"). Or you can use PAM.

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