dovecot - Apr 2005 - dovecot rpms, .subscriptions file, mbox to maildir

Hi,

I am running dovecot 0.99-14 on a Fedora Core 2 machine. I had a few 
questions:

1) I wanted to upgrade to the dovecot-1.0 release. However, I am not 
sure if that's really required. dovecot-0.99-14 has been running very 
well for me for quite some time. Is there a real advantage to switching 
to the latest release. The reason I'm asking this is because:
    i)  I don't have too many users to server - around 15 only.
    ii) My mail server is a pretty fast machine (~1 GHz, 1 GB RAM)
        machine, so hardware isn't too much of an issue.
    iii) I like to install software from rpm's. It's not that I
can't
         install from source, but installing from rpm's makes it much
         easier for me. Just a personal preference. The version of
         dovecot that I am running was obtained from Dag Wieers web site.
         I haven't seen a newer version there. I've googled for
rpm's for
         newer versions, and they are available, but I don't want to
         install it from some third party source that I don't know/trust.
    iv) I am also planning to support web mail for my users (probably
        through Squirrelmail). Are there any advantages/disadvantages to
        upgrading dovecot for that?
    v) People use Mozilla Mail, Mail.app, Thunderbird, Outlook, and
       Opera. Does the 1.0 version provide better integration with
       different mail clients (even though I understand that sometimes 		
       it's a problem with the client implementation).

So, are there newer version of dovecot (1.0-stable) available in rpm 
formats which are guaranteed to be safe and un-trojaned? And is there 
any really good reason why I should upgrade to 1.0-stable?

2) My second question is about creating the .subscriptions (or 
subscriptions in 1.0) file. When I moved people over from using pine to 
using a mail client like Evolution/Thunderbird, I had to create 
.subscriptions/.mailboxlist file for them so that they could see the 
folders that they had created in pine. However, people still sometimes 
access e-mail using pine. They then create new folders in pine, which 
they are unable to see in their mail client. Is there a way around it? 
This occurs especially when people check their mail at the start of the 
month, and pine asks about saving/deleting old sent-mail folders, Trash 
folders. Is there a way to add these folders automagically to the 
.subscriptions file?

3) Would I be able to support web mail using mailboxes in mbox format, 
as I have them now? Or do I have to go for Maildir format? Since our 
university introduced web mail, they have had two sets of folders - one 
with capitalization (Sent, Deleted Messages, etc.) and one without 
(sent-mail, etc. - these were from our pine days). Is this due to web mail?

Also, if I do need to convert from mbox to Maildir, what is the standard 
tool for doing that? I saw at least three different tools/scripts for 
doing that (mbox2maildir,mb2d,mb2md-2,mb2md.pl, .. ). Which tool (and 
from where) should I use to convert mailboxes without problems?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Saurabh.
-----
sa at atmos.colostate.edu

Saurabh Barve wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I am running dovecot 0.99-14 on a Fedora Core 2 machine. I had a few 
> questions:
> 
> 1) I wanted to upgrade to the dovecot-1.0 release. However, I am not 
> sure if that's really required. dovecot-0.99-14 has been running very 
> well for me for quite some time. Is there a real advantage to switching 
> to the latest release. The reason I'm asking this is because:
>    i)  I don't have too many users to server - around 15 only.
We've got 15,000 or so (mind you, it's a big server!). We're
thinking of
migrating from UW-IMAP to Dovecot 1.0-stable.
>    ii) My mail server is a pretty fast machine (~1 GHz, 1 GB RAM)
>        machine, so hardware isn't too much of an issue.
>    iii) I like to install software from rpm's. It's not that I
can't
>         install from source, but installing from rpm's makes it much
>         easier for me. Just a personal preference. The version of
>         dovecot that I am running was obtained from Dag Wieers web site.
>         I haven't seen a newer version there. I've googled for
rpm's for
>         newer versions, and they are available, but I don't want to
>         install it from some third party source that I don't
know/trust.
Me too, at least in Linux (but we're using Solaris). However, if there 
isn't one, I tend to "roll my own". You get the benifits of
package
management and you can always share them with others!
>    iv) I am also planning to support web mail for my users (probably
>        through Squirrelmail). Are there any advantages/disadvantages to
>        upgrading dovecot for that?
Probably not? Squirrelmail and other PHP-based webmail clients will make 
lots of connections, so you'll be relying on Dovecot's indexes to 
prevent the server getting clobbered.
>    v) People use Mozilla Mail, Mail.app, Thunderbird, Outlook, and
>       Opera. Does the 1.0 version provide better integration with
>       different mail clients (even though I understand that 
>       sometimes it's a problem with the client implementation).
There have been a few fixes in 1.0, but if your users are happy with 
0.99, it might be better to stick with that.
> So, are there newer version of dovecot (1.0-stable) available in rpm 
> formats which are guaranteed to be safe and un-trojaned? And is there 
> any really good reason why I should upgrade to 1.0-stable?
For me, it was support for hidden IMAP namespaces (which can be used to 
hide the migration from UW-IMAP) that decided it. Also it's more likely 
to get patches. But "if it's not broken, don't fix it!"
> 2) My second question is about creating the .subscriptions (or 
> subscriptions in 1.0) file. When I moved people over from using pine to 
> using a mail client like Evolution/Thunderbird, I had to create 
> .subscriptions/.mailboxlist file for them so that they could see the 
> folders that they had created in pine. However, people still sometimes 
> access e-mail using pine. They then create new folders in pine, which 
> they are unable to see in their mail client. Is there a way around it? 
> This occurs especially when people check their mail at the start of the 
> month, and pine asks about saving/deleting old sent-mail folders, Trash 
> folders. Is there a way to add these folders automagically to the 
> .subscriptions file?
Not without modifying the source code to replace ".subscriptions" with
".mailboxlist". You could have problems with UW-IMAP (and presumably 
Pine) including the folder prefix for the folders in the file, which 
Dovecot doesn't.

Alternatively, an overnight reconciliation script might do?
> 
> 3) Would I be able to support web mail using mailboxes in mbox format, 
> as I have them now? Or do I have to go for Maildir format? Since our 
> university introduced web mail, they have had two sets of folders - one 
> with capitalization (Sent, Deleted Messages, etc.) and one without 
> (sent-mail, etc. - these were from our pine days). Is this due to web mail?
Mboxes should be fine (at least in 1.0). The important consideration is 
how long it takes to open a folder, as most webmail clients don't use 
persistent connections to the server.

The two sets of folders is just down to using differently-configured 
clients (including webmail). We have the same problem. I sometimes wish 
they'd defined "OUTBOX" as a special folder in the IMAP protocol
as they
did "INBOX"!
> 
> Also, if I do need to convert from mbox to Maildir, what is the standard 
> tool for doing that? I saw at least three different tools/scripts for 
> doing that (mbox2maildir,mb2d,mb2md-2,mb2md.pl, .. ). Which tool (and 
> from where) should I use to convert mailboxes without problems?
I don't know, but would be interested in finding out!
> 
> Any help is greatly appreciated.
> 
> Thanks in advance,
> 
> Saurabh.
> -----
> sa at atmos.colostate.edu
Best Wishes,
Chris


-- 
--+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+-
Christopher Wakelin,                           c.d.wakelin at reading.ac.uk
IT Services Centre, The University of Reading,  Tel: +44 (0)118 378 8439
Whiteknights, Reading, RG6 2AF, UK              Fax: +44 (0)118 975 3094

> I am running dovecot 0.99-14 on a Fedora Core 2 machine. I had a few 
> questions:
>
> 1) I wanted to upgrade to the dovecot-1.0 release. However, I am not 
> sure if that's really required. dovecot-0.99-14 has been running very 
> well for me for quite some time. Is there a real advantage to 
> switching to the latest release. The reason I'm asking this is because:
>    [..snip..]
>    iv) I am also planning to support web mail for my users (probably
>        through Squirrelmail). Are there any advantages/disadvantages to
>        upgrading dovecot for that?

Naah.. Well, "not really" is the right answer.  Dovecot's a
back-end
interface to email, but, because of its performance improvements over 
UW-IMAP, all other applications that access mail via dovecot will 
benefit from the performance gain.

For example, I noticed right off that "overlook" (a fork of the 
Squirrelmail code with a Outlook-ish interface) was much faster when I 
had dovecot in place on our server vs UW-IMAP.
> [..snip..]
> So, are there newer version of dovecot (1.0-stable) available in rpm 
> formats which are guaranteed to be safe and un-trojaned? And is there 
> any really good reason why I should upgrade to 1.0-stable?

Well, when 1.0-stable is made available, it is probably best to upgrade 
to gain all of the improvements and bug fixes between the version you 
are currently running and the 1.0-stable version.  Of course, as with 
any major release, a good practice is to let the "early adopters" try
it
out and, once it has past the 'burn in period', then upgrade... but the 
choice as to when to upgrade is truly in your hands.

For key applications (PHP, apache, sendmail, dns, etc), I personally 
"roll my own" RPMS.  I personally prefer the file organization of RPMs
over straight source installs (or other management tools for other 
platforms, like pkgadd and such for BSD derivatives), and creating your 
own (for your use) RPM is not all that difficult when you have a base 
SRPM to work with that you know and trust.
> 2) My second question is about creating the .subscriptions (or 
> subscriptions in 1.0) file. When I moved people over from using pine 
> to using a mail client like Evolution/Thunderbird, I had to create 
> .subscriptions/.mailboxlist file for them so that they could see the 
> folders that they had created in pine. However, people still sometimes 
> access e-mail using pine. They then create new folders in pine, which 
> they are unable to see in their mail client. Is there a way around it? 
> This occurs especially when people check their mail at the start of 
> the month, and pine asks about saving/deleting old sent-mail folders, 
> Trash folders. Is there a way to add these folders automagically to 
> the .subscriptions file?

Well, the only way around that would be to have a script which comes 
across at a set time throughout the day to synchronize the two files..
> 3) Would I be able to support web mail using mailboxes in mbox format, 
> as I have them now? Or do I have to go for Maildir format?

mbox vs. maildir format is actually a separate issue.  Most webmail 
applications can handle either format.
> Since our university introduced web mail, they have had two sets of 
> folders - one with capitalization (Sent, Deleted Messages, etc.) and 
> one without (sent-mail, etc. - these were from our pine days). Is this 
> due to web mail?

Those differences are due to the different defaults within the webmail 
application and the other client applications.  You find that webmail 
applications tend to set the defaults to "Drafts" and
"sent-mail", and,
because of those defaults (people tend to leave the defaults as is), you 
end up with those folder names in the subscriptions/mailboxlist file.

> Also, if I do need to convert from mbox to Maildir, what is the 
> standard tool for doing that? I saw at least three different 
> tools/scripts for doing that (mbox2maildir,mb2d,mb2md-2,mb2md.pl, .. 
> ). Which tool (and from where) should I use to convert mailboxes 
> without problems?

I've been looking at the same thing and finally decided that, for our 
use of email & the mbox format, migrating to maildir did not provide any 
benefit.  Be sure to fully analyze your needs to insure that migrating 
is worth your efforts; it isn't necessary for everyone.

-Rich

Saurabh Barve wrote:
> So, are there newer version of dovecot (1.0-stable) available in rpm 
> formats which are guaranteed to be safe and un-trojaned? And is there 
> any really good reason why I should upgrade to 1.0-stable?
I maintain rpms for dovecot-1.0, which I build on Fedora Core 3. I 
provide all the build logs and source rpms, so you can build it yourself 
if you prefer. I have also added a few extra rebuild options which are 
not available in other rpms I have seen for dovecot-1.0.

The url is http://rpm.chaz6.com/?p=fedora/dovecot

At some point I will transfer these onto my work's domain (ne-worcs.ac.uk).

We are running 0.99 still, as there is no compelling reason to upgrade.
> 2) My second question is about creating the .subscriptions (or 
> subscriptions in 1.0) file. When I moved people over from using pine to 
> using a mail client like Evolution/Thunderbird, I had to create 
> .subscriptions/.mailboxlist file for them so that they could see the 
> folders that they had created in pine. However, people still sometimes 
> access e-mail using pine. They then create new folders in pine, which 
> they are unable to see in their mail client. Is there a way around it? 
> This occurs especially when people check their mail at the start of the 
> month, and pine asks about saving/deleting old sent-mail folders, Trash 
> folders. Is there a way to add these folders automagically to the 
> .subscriptions file?
Sorry, we only use IMAP clients, nothing that directly modifies mail 
boxes. It's less hassle that way. Perhaps you could configure pine to 
use IMAP instead.
> 3) Would I be able to support web mail using mailboxes in mbox format, 
> as I have them now? Or do I have to go for Maildir format? Since our 
> university introduced web mail, they have had two sets of folders - one 
> with capitalization (Sent, Deleted Messages, etc.) and one without 
> (sent-mail, etc. - these were from our pine days). Is this due to web mail?
How your mail server stores its mail should have no effect on the 
clients you use. As long as both your client and server support the same 
set of protocols, ie IMAP or POP3, you can use whatever combination you 
like.

The different sets of folders are due to the differing default locations 
for each client. You can probably change one or the other - if not, I'd 
suggest using different software! By default Microsoft Outlook Express 
and Mozilla Thunderbird use different folders for Sent Items. You can 
change one or the other so that you don't end up with two folders.
> Also, if I do need to convert from mbox to Maildir, what is the standard 
> tool for doing that? I saw at least three different tools/scripts for 
> doing that (mbox2maildir,mb2d,mb2md-2,mb2md.pl, .. ). Which tool (and 
> from where) should I use to convert mailboxes without problems?
In the past year I converted ~2000 mailboxes from mbox to maildir, using 
mb2md. It was definitely worth, as the server's load average is now 
usually <0.02, wheras before it was as high as 15. We have a lot of 
staff with huge mailboxes, which caused the problem.

Hope this is useful!

--
Chris Hills
IT Services
North East Worcestershire College

Hi,

On Thu, Apr 14, 2005 at 01:44:53PM -0600, Saurabh Barve
wrote:
> I am running dovecot 0.99-14 on a Fedora Core 2 machine. I had a few 
> questions:
> 
> 1) I wanted to upgrade to the dovecot-1.0 release. [...]
>    iii) I like to install software from rpm's. [...]
> So, are there newer version of dovecot (1.0-stable) available in rpm 
> formats which are guaranteed to be safe and un-trojaned? [...]
we are ruinning dovecot stable 1.0 from Feb 21st on a O(1000) accounts
mail server. Not a big one, but we have done quite a few tests with it
(including using a 13000 mails account in one mbox via IMP, quite a
good pairing, searching the mbox above cost only 2-3 secs!).

You can get rpms for Fedora Cores, RHLs and RHELs from

    http://atrpms.net/name/dovecot/

It's also apt-get'able and yumified, but it is in the testing repos,
not the stable ones.

I'd be interested in feedback from developers, e.g. when it is
considered good to update the packages. Thanks!
> 3) Would I be able to support web mail using mailboxes in mbox format, 
> as I have them now? Or do I have to go for Maildir format?
It's your choice, check the namespaces. We have system mailboxes in
Mailfir and user mailboxes in mbox (~/Mail).
> Also, if I do need to convert from mbox to Maildir, what is the standard 
> tool for doing that? I saw at least three different tools/scripts for 
> doing that (mbox2maildir,mb2d,mb2md-2,mb2md.pl, .. ). Which tool (and 
> from where) should I use to convert mailboxes without problems?
We used md2md and liked it quite a lot:

    http://atrpms.net/dist/common/mb2md/

HTH
-- 
Axel.Thimm at ATrpms.net
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Axel Thimm wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On Thu, Apr 14, 2005 at 01:44:53PM -0600, Saurabh Barve wrote:
> 
>>I am running dovecot 0.99-14 on a Fedora Core 2 machine. I had a few 
>>questions:
>>
>>1) I wanted to upgrade to the dovecot-1.0 release. [...]
>>   iii) I like to install software from rpm's. [...]
> 
> 
>>So, are there newer version of dovecot (1.0-stable) available in rpm 
>>formats which are guaranteed to be safe and un-trojaned? [...]
> 
> 
> we are ruinning dovecot stable 1.0 from Feb 21st on a O(1000) accounts
> mail server. Not a big one, but we have done quite a few tests with it
> (including using a 13000 mails account in one mbox via IMP, quite a
> good pairing, searching the mbox above cost only 2-3 secs!).
> 
> You can get rpms for Fedora Cores, RHLs and RHELs from
> 
>     http://atrpms.net/name/dovecot/
> 
> It's also apt-get'able and yumified, but it is in the testing
repos,
> not the stable ones.
> 
> I'd be interested in feedback from developers, e.g. when it is
> considered good to update the packages. Thanks!
> 
> 
>>3) Would I be able to support web mail using mailboxes in mbox format, 
>>as I have them now? Or do I have to go for Maildir format?
> 
> 
> It's your choice, check the namespaces. We have system mailboxes in
> Mailfir and user mailboxes in mbox (~/Mail).
> 
> 
>>Also, if I do need to convert from mbox to Maildir, what is the standard
>>tool for doing that? I saw at least three different tools/scripts for 
>>doing that (mbox2maildir,mb2d,mb2md-2,mb2md.pl, .. ). Which tool (and 
>>from where) should I use to convert mailboxes without problems?
> 
> 
> We used md2md and liked it quite a lot:
> 
>     http://atrpms.net/dist/common/mb2md/
> 
> HTH

Thanks all for the responses. I'll try out a newer rpm for dovecot from 
the suggested sites, and if it doesn't work out I'll revert back to the 
working instance on 0.99-14. Now if only somebody could shed some light 
on my other little problem: ;)

I was supporting Secure-IMAP using dovecot for some time. However, the 
self-signed certificate expires in one month. I understand that there 
are security-issues in letting the certificate last indefinitely. Is 
there a way around this? Or do I just keep regenerating the certificate 
every month?


Thanks all,
Saurabh.
sa at atmos.colostate.edu