Feedback on first, i.e. novice-level, experiences with dovecot

[James]

On 20/11/2016 13:51, Michael Felt wrote:

> I built dovecot using --prefix=/opt (I abhor /usr/local these days -
> that is so 1984ish). The applications got installed in /opt/bin

Well done but I urge you to go a step further.  You should put your 
builds in a sub level of /opt/ to distinguish and avoid clashes with 
other people's builds in /opt.  eg, if you choose "felt" as your [not 
guaranteed unique but you are not a commercial vendor] identifier then 
your will install into /opt/felt.

--prefix=/opt/felt



> # 2.3.devel (92c8109): /opt/etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf
> doveconf: Fatal: open(/opt/etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf) failed: No such
> file or directory
>
> where are example configs?
>
> root at x066:/data/prj/aixtools/dovecot/core# find /opt -name example-config
> root at x066:/data/prj/aixtools/dovecot/core#
>
> Not in /opt
>
> How about a default config?
>
> root at x066:/data/prj/aixtools/dovecot/core# find / -name dovecot
> /etc/init.d/dovecot
> /etc/pam.d/dovecot
> /etc/default/dovecot
> /etc/dovecot
> /var/lib/dovecot
> ^C
>
> Seems to be /etc/dovecot


I apply [the equivalent of]:

VID=...  <- eg "felt"

./configure \
  --prefix=/opt/${VID} \
  --mandir=/opt/${VID}/share/man \
  --docdir=/opt/${VID}/share/doc/dovecot \
  --sysconfdir=/etc/opt/${VID} \
  --localstatedir=/var/opt/${VID} \
  ... other options


Using /etc/opt/${VID} and /var/opt/${VID} and not /opt/${VID}/etc/ keeps 
things consistent with the case where /opt is read only.  Mine isn't but 
I don't have to think.

Your dovecot.conf will be:
/etc/opt/${VID}/dovecot/dovecot.conf



James.