[Dovecot] Some POP3 questions

[Brandon Lamb]

On Wed, May 6, 2009 at 7:23 AM, Brandon Lamb <brandonlamb at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, May 6, 2009 at 5:25 AM, Kenneth Kalmer <kenneth.kalmer at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 11:39 PM, Timo Sirainen <tss at iki.fi> wrote:
>>
>>> On Tue, 2009-05-05 at 23:32 +0200, Kenneth Kalmer wrote:
>>> > >> * NFS server which is the same server that houses single Courier-IMAP
>>> > >> installation (Gentoo, 3GB memory)
>>> > >> * 2x Postfix instances delivering to NFS
>>> > >>
>>> > >
>>> > > NFS may be problematic. Dovecot expects a perfectly working NFS setup,
>>> > > which seems to be a bit rare to find. http://wiki.dovecot.org/NFS
>>> > >
>>> >
>>> > Just for the record, dovecot will be access the mail directly on the
>>> disks,
>>> > it will be the LDA's on the postfix instances coming in over NFS. I'm
>>> > reading the NFS again to make sure I understand the risks
>>>
>>> If the LDA is Dovecot deliver, it's the same problem since it also
>>> updates index/control files that cause the problems. But if you're using
>>> something else that does nothing but write the maildir files, then it's
>>> fine.
>>>
>>
>> I'm looking to use the Dovecot LDA so the caches are updated and the
>> filenames are correct, to get good POP3 performance.
>>
>> I'm looking forward to giving Dovecot a go, but I'll rig up a staging
>> environment first.
>>
>> Thanks for the encouraging responses everyone.
>>
>> Best
>>
>> --
>> Kenneth Kalmer
>> kenneth.kalmer at gmail.com
>> http://opensourcery.co.za
>> @kennethkalmer
>
> I moved from a 4 gig nfs server with eight mailheads running exim as
> lda, courier imap/pop3 (over nfs) to an 8 gig nfs server and moved to
> dovecot imap/pop3 running directly on the nfs server and dropped to
> four mailheads running exim with dovecot lda.
>
> At first I tried to keep my imap/pop3 services running on the 4
> mailheads but over nfs had major weird 500 load spikes randomly,
> moving these to the nfs server solved all of that. The 4 mailheads
> still deliver to maildir over nfs using dovecot as lda. I have been
> pleasantly pleased. Our webmail app in our old setup used to take
> 10-30 seconds to load and now it is instantaneous. Some of it might be
> from upgrading hardware, but I definitely had a HUGE noticeable
> difference and you couldnt convince me to go back.
>
> We did have about a week of sucktastic traffic and my support
> department hating me because all our pop3 leave-messages-on-server
> users had to redownload all their mail, but it was worth the headache.
> Dovecot is just too sweet, with its performance and plugins to ever
> have to even think about a choice between it or software X.
>
> Just my $0.02

Oh yea, and I just recently discovered the virtual mailbox plugin and
fell even more in love. I am developing a Gmail clone inhouse for our
new webmail (we're an ISP). It is cool plugins like this that make me
glad I switched to Dovecot. Being able to consolidate various Deleted,
Trash, Deleted Items, Deleted Mails folders all into a single
virtual/Trash folder is GREAT.