dovecot - Jan 2006 - Making dovecot and postfix play together

I am encountering 'transport problems' in postfix, and I can't tie
them
down.  I'm beginning to wonder whether I have conflicting settings in 
the various parts of the mail server.  I have been advised separately 
by a number of people, so it is entirely possible.  I am, therefore, 
attempting to check every detail of my setup.

I was advised to put 
'MAIL=/home/$USER/MailDir:INBOX=/var/spool/mail/$USER' 
into /etc/profile 'because that's the way that dovecot likes it'. 
Is
this correct?  I'm using 0.99.14 on Fedora Core 4.

Dovecot does appear to be working correctly.  I can drag messages to the 
mailboxes.  The problem appears to be in postfix.  Fetchmail can 
download the messages, but they are sticking in postfix's queue.  I'm 
still working on that, but would like confirmation that I was right to 
follow the advice given above.

Anne

Anne Wilson <cannewilson@tiscali.co.uk>:
> I am encountering 'transport problems' in postfix, and I can't
tie them
> down.  I'm beginning to wonder whether I have conflicting settings in
> the various parts of the mail server.  I have been advised separately
> by a number of people, so it is entirely possible.  I am, therefore,
> attempting to check every detail of my setup.
>
> I was advised to put
> 'MAIL=/home/$USER/MailDir:INBOX=/var/spool/mail/$USER'
> into /etc/profile 'because that's the way that dovecot likes
it'.  Is
> this correct?  I'm using 0.99.14 on Fedora Core 4.
>
> Dovecot does appear to be working correctly.  I can drag messages to the
> mailboxes.  The problem appears to be in postfix.  Fetchmail can
> download the messages, but they are sticking in postfix's queue. 
I'm
> still working on that, but would like confirmation that I was right to
> follow the advice given above.
>
> Anne
>
Hi Anne,

I too am on FC4 (rel 2) and Dovecot 0.99.  I have the environment 
variable of MAIL set to MAIL=/var/spool/mail/$USER as is the default in 
/etc/profile (in other words, I didn't change it from the initial OS 
load).  In /etc/dovecot.conf, I have "default_mail_env = 
maildir:~/mail" where mail is actually a mail directory (the name is a 
artifact of a previous IMAP implementation).  That's it.  Postfix 2.1.5 
works with that configuration for me.

Hope this helps,
Channing

-- 
A: Yes.
> Q: Are you sure?
>> A: Because it reverses the logical flow of conversation.
>>> Q: Why is top posting annoying in email?

On Wed, 25 Jan 2006, Anne Wilson wrote:
> I was advised to put
> 'MAIL=/home/$USER/MailDir:INBOX=/var/spool/mail/$USER'
> into /etc/profile 'because that's the way that dovecot likes
it'.  Is
> this correct?  I'm using 0.99.14 on Fedora Core 4.
Well, putting Dovecot beside there will be no other program that handles 
this type of MAIL= setting, hence, if you have at least one program 
reading that environment variable (may be postfix :), you have 
misconfigured it.

I would keep my hands off MAIL=, but configure Dovecot by its .conf file 
(default_mail_env). This, however, means that you must maintain redundant 
data.

Bye,

-- 
Steffen Kaiser