[Dovecot] Virtual users - what is better Maildir or mbox?

[Kaya Saman]

On 06/25/2012 08:37 AM, Trever L. Adams wrote:
> On 06/25/2012 01:20 AM, Kaya Saman wrote:
>> Now what I would like to know is, which is better for "virtual
>> hosting" Maildir or mbox?
>>
>>
>> Basically my requirement is that I would like to separate users via
>> either individual folders and then put each user's mbox or Maildir in
>> the created directory, or simply name each mbox or Maildir according
>> to the user name.
>>
>>
>> First up is this possible?
>>
>>
>> Secondly, how would I go about doing it?
>>
> Sorry, I missed this at first. It is quite simple. I don't store it in 
> passwd or any other place, since you are doing vmail, you might find 
> this easiest:
>
> in /etc/dovecot/conf.d/10-mail.conf (where mail_location is):
>
> mail_home = /home/vmail/%Ld/%Ln
> mail_location = maildir:~/Maildir
>
> in /etc/dovecot/conf.d/10-mail.conf (after paragraph “# System user 
> and group used to access mails...”):
>
> mail_uid=vmail
> mail_gid=vmail
> Obviously, vmail may not be your user for vmail. Also, some of my 
> notes may no longer be accurate for location, just find where it 
> exists and edit.
>
> I hope this helps. Of course, this is a Maildir setup. mbox is 
> probably very similar, but I have had too many mbox style mail queues 
> go south losing all of the mail (or more than one would like), so I do 
> Maildir, even though it isn't necessarily the best use of disk space.
>
> Trever
> -- 
> "I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them." -- Isaac Asimov
Hi, I'm just responding as the OP to say that the above was what I was 
looking for!

Thanks Trever :-)

Everything is setup and working fine now.

Though responding quite late and of course having read through the 
latest messages within the thread I don't feel that my users will notice 
any difference between mbox or mdbox and Maildir format, speedwise.

The reasoning behind this is that my end users unfortunately are all 
using M$ Outlook which is absolute garbage! FULL STOP!

Comparing the IMAP capability speeds between Thunderbird and Outlook 
linking to my server yielded that I was able to get around 150Mbps 
transfer rate using T-Bird while Outlook only managed a few 100's of 
kbps. I think it's because 2010 relies heavily on PST's (whatever they 
are....) and the fact it is ultimately M$ also so it's basically built 
by nincompoops to be sold at hideous prices and even higher tech-support 
prices.

In all fairness to Outlook I did manage to get a pathetic ~2Mvbps tops 
of transfer...... :-S


Luckily I'm the only one using T-Bird or Alpine so am fine :-)

Can't send any mail though as need to go through Exchange - there's no 
winning in the corporate world :-(


Regards,


Kaya