[Dovecot] Lack of external documentation?

[Charles Marcus]

On 2012-03-15 3:27 PM, Terry Carmen <terry at cnysupport.com> wrote:
 > On 2012-03-15 3:06 PM, Steve Campbell <campbell at cnpapers.com> wrote:
 >> Does anyone know of any manuals/books that have been written that
 >> might introduce me to most of the stuff in dovecot?

> I'll be the first to admit that complex and specialized configurations
> are sometimes difficult to figure out, however this list has always been
> a tremendous amount of help.

I agree completely. The ability to come to places like this and get 
answers directly from the software developer(s) is one of the main 
reasons I love open source software. And I will also say that Timo (yes, 
Steve, he is *the* dovecot developer, although he has had some excellent 
help for a while now) and this list is one of the most civil & 
respectful of any list I've been on, and the quality of support/answers 
is second to none. The postfix list is imo just as good as far as the 
quality of support, but they are very strict on 'form' - ie, no 
top-posting, you're expected (and often reminded) to read the 
instructions in the welcome message as to 'How to report a problem' and 
to actually follow those instructions - and quite often their replies 
seem harsh and unfriendly. I'd actually like to see dovecot have a 
similarly detailed welcome message (complete with a link to a detailed 
wiki page on 'How to Report a Problem' along with some helpful 
troubleshooting tips), but as much as I dislike top-posters (especially 
those who blindly quote the entire message they are replying to), I'm 
glad that this list is a bit less strict on form, and just seems more 
friendly.

I for one would *love* to see some kind of 'The Book of Dovecot' (like 
'The Book of Postfix'), but one reason I can see that would keep someone 
from wanting to write one is that dovecot (like most popular open source 
software) is still a very fast moving target as compared to the useful 
life of a book. Maybe his commercial support company can provide the 
resources for writing one once the target slows down a bit - or maybe 
even start off writing [a][some] smaller 'Basic Configuration' guide[s] 
for the things that aren't such fast moving targets that could 
eventually become chapters in a more comprehensive book. That would I 
think be a (admittedly probably fairly small) revenue generator, but 
hopefully at least enough to pay for itself and maybe provide a small 
profit.

Another option I can think of would be for Timo to provide a method for 
people to pay a small fee for his support company to write up a custom 
'How-To' for someone based on a list of requirements. I would imagine 
this as a web page that is put together with the appropriate questions, 
the answers for which are necessary to accomplish the goal.

Of course, the other option is for other people to step up and 'fix the 
wiki' or 'write the Book' (or How-Tos), instead of just complaining 
about the lack (no offense, your 'complaint' wasn't all that bad). Yeah, 
I know this is the standard answer on free/open source software support 
lists, but it is the standard answer for a reason.

On 2012-03-15 9:08 PM, Steve Campbell <campbell at cnpapers.com> wrote:
> I found that Postfix was the preferred SMTP server and Dovecot was
> the preferred imap/pop server. I gave Postfix my best shot, but
> didn't really have it tested well enough to stick with it, so I
> dropped back to Sendmail, something I'm somewhat familiar with.

I understand the argument for sticking with something you're familiar 
with, but I don't think you gave postfix a fair shot either - and it 
*does* have a number of excellent books written for it, so you don't 
have that excuse for postfix... ;). It is *much* easier to configure and 
run than sendmail, is much more performant and supposedly much more 
secure (just going by what I've read), and can do most anything that 
sendmail does (even supports milters).

> Dovecot is an application that probably would work out of the box for
> me if I didn't have to use data from the previous server. So I had to
> use more than the standard options to make this work. Finding those
> options was the main gripe I had with the wiki - there are just so
> many options to make Dovecot the complete server. That's a good
> thing. Just remember, us noobies-to-Dovecot have to discover all of
> those options.

You always have the option to get commercial support for fast 
resolutions to complex problems like this... ;)

-- 

Best regards,

Charles