[Dovecot] master/config/log/login rewrite

[David Lee]

On Sat, 14 Oct 2006, Timo Sirainen wrote:

> On Sat, 2006-10-14 at 03:11 +0300, Timo Sirainen wrote:
> > Most importantly this should fix the login process problems that people
> > have been reporting.
>
> Or not. I'm getting tired of that crap.
>
> A bit over a year ago I rewrote the master process and its communication
> with login process. I also made config and log handling separate
> processes. I decided then not to use it since it was such a large change
> and v1.0 release was near (yea, right ;).

Does that mean it would (in theory, at least) fix the problem of logging
from rsh/ssh connections (e.g. "ssh mailhost /etc/rimapd", where this
invokes "/path/to/dovecot --exec-mail imap") going to a different place
(stderr?) from normal IMAP connections?

Whilst I would appreciate seeing that resolved, nevertheless at this stage
the important thing is probably to concentrate on getting 1.0 stabilised
and fully released in the near future.  So simply noting that this logging
thing is a "known issue, believed to be minor, scheduled to be addressed
later" would probably be sufficient.

> I spent today upgrading that code to contain the newest changes from CVS
> and fixing it in general. All of these login process problems seem to
> have gone away after using that code. Also it seems to be much faster
> than the old code.
>
> Now, I wonder if I still should try to get the login process bugs fixed
> from the old code tree, or just forget about that and use the rewrite..

My vote?  I'm attempting to put dovecot into full user service.  Having
some sort of fix for the problem of the dying login process (discussed in
the last week or so) is important.  But important, too, is running a
stable version (which "rc", by its very name, would not be).

Do both code trees somehow fix the "dying login process" problem?

If so, then perhaps keep 1.0 with the generally proven existing code and
concentrate on releasing it soon, rather than inserting less-proven code,
which would destabilise the stabilised "rc10" base and further delay
official release.

> One problem with the rewrite is that some settings in configuration file
> will change. Although I guess I could add backwards compatibility for
> most of them..

At an rc1 stage that would probably have been viable and good.  But at
this rc9/rc10 stage, so tantalisingly close to 1.0, I'd suggest against
it.  Ship 1.0 as soon as reasonably possible and add this later (1.1 or
whatever).

Hope that helps.  Best wishes.



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