dovecot - Dec 2005 - Hi everyone .. need some pro-dovecot arguments :-)

Hi,

i never used dovecot so far, but i heard a couple good things about it 
.. for one the debian maintainer of the exim package recommended it :-)

so i want to change our mailserver (currently using ipop3 and uw-imap) 
to dovecot ... now my boss seems to favour cyrus.

i could use some good arguments for dovecot, also your experiences with 
it and with other mailservers so i can make a reasonable desicion and 
preset some good arguments :-)

Florian

Michael Segel wrote:
> On Tuesday 13 December 2005 4:13 am, you wrote:
> Positive notes?
> 
> Simplest one to set up. 
> 
> Had the .9 release up and running same day.
> When I had to rebuild my main server, I switched to downloading the latest 
> release.
> 
> The configuration was still pretty straight forward, while I'll admit
the
> documentation could be better. It assumes that you know more than you do. 
> However, having said that, Dovecot's documentation is better than the
rest.
> 
> The only quirk to Dovecot is that I'm using SSL and since I don't
have
> authenticated certificates, Microsoft's Outlook keeps asking me if I
want to
> continue to use them. Other mail clients don't bother me after the
first
> time.
> 
> I'd recommend Dovecot over the others.
> 
> But then again, I run a small organization so your mileage may be
different.
> 
i run a small mailserver here .. about 25 mail accounts only
one reason to use dovecot is to switch to maildir since mbox via imap is 
a pain in the ass when you got a couple hundred mails in one mbox file

currently its running via smarthost but i want to open pop3/ssl, 
imap/ssl and some secure smtp to the outside soon

:-)

One good reason to prefer Dovecot over Cyrus is that it supports both
Maildir and Mailbox, meaning you don't have to change your mailbox
format from that of UW-IMAP (unless you're using MBX), and can gradually
switch over to Maildir. It's made a huge difference to our IMAP server
performance, whilst keeping backwards compatablility with UW.

Cyrus has been around longer, and has many more users, so it's a more
mature product, but it is a bit of a fiddle to set up, and uses a
proprietary mailbox format (something like Maildir) and isn't coded as
neatly as Dovecot :)

Best Wishes,
Chris

Florian Schnabel wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> i never used dovecot so far, but i heard a couple good things about it
> .. for one the debian maintainer of the exim package recommended it :-)
> 
> so i want to change our mailserver (currently using ipop3 and uw-imap)
> to dovecot ... now my boss seems to favour cyrus.
> 
> i could use some good arguments for dovecot, also your experiences with
> it and with other mailservers so i can make a reasonable desicion and
> preset some good arguments :-)
> 
> Florian

-- 
--+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+-
Christopher Wakelin,                           c.d.wakelin@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

Florian Schnabel wrote:
> 
> i could use some good arguments for dovecot, also your experiences with 
> it and with other mailservers so i can make a reasonable desicion and 
> preset some good arguments :-)
> 
Dovecot made it incredibly easy for me to start offering imap to a few 
users without changing anything for the pop3 users (about 100 users) and 
without converting from mbox. The push to offer imap was the need to 
install Squirrelmail to offer webmail for select users.

I removed qpopper, installed dovecot, and everything just worked. I was 
done in about 2 hours, thanks to the sensible defaults in dovecot.conf, 
and the FreeBSD ports system.

Ron Wilhoite

Florian Schnabel wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> so i want to change our mailserver (currently using ipop3 and uw-imap) 
> to dovecot ... now my boss seems to favour cyrus.
Anecdotal evidence on this list suggests Dovecot will significantly reduce your 
server load compared with uw-imap.  I couldn't say, Dovecot is the only IMAP
server I've put into production.

And the main reason for that was it was so _simple_ to get it up and running... 
and running... and running...

Which I consider two great plusses - it's simple to set up, and it just
keeps
running.

Oh, and I got POP3 in the mix, free!

--
Curtis Maloney
cmaloney@cardgate.net