dovecot - Apr 2006 - unofficial Survey about your Dovecot server :) to compare with my own server setup...

Hi Borthers/Sisters

Thanks for all the developer(s) and for all the hard work spent on build 
this great piece of software! I loved Dovecot since it is really easy to 
set up and really fast but I am really new to it (only 2 weeks and 
half). Right now, our server configuration is:

Server: Apple Xserve G5 dual
RAM: 4GB
Number of Users: ~ 150 IMAP only users
Authentication: LDAP
Mailboxes sizes: ~200GB
Dovecot version: 1.0 Beta 5  (I am looking forward to beta 7 that was 
released today)
Email client software: mostly Thunderbird 1.5


Right now, we are experiencing occasional problem with imap users unable 
to connect to the server. With beta 3, we had to restart the 
dovecot/imap processes almost every 3 hours. with Dovecot beta5 we still 
have to restart the processes but it seems to occur every 3 days (Friday 
and Yesterday) and only in a peak time (around 3pm). I am waiting to 
occur it again and I will be able to grab more information about the 
number of processes, users, virtual memory, etc, etc. So, at this point, 
I don't have much information to debug the problem. Let's wait.

I guess we have here a nice machine (xserve) and not a huge number of 
users (~150). So, I would expect that our server would handle the load. 
But having to restart Dovecot once a while, as I described, is not an 
option (users are getting frustrated). :(   Maybe with Beta 7 with the 
feature "Added shutdown_clients setting to control if existing imap/pop3 
processes should be killed when master is" can stop our nightmares :)

By the way, our dovecot.conf is basically the default sent with the 
software. We haven't changed much there!

Meanwhile, I'd like to know, if possible, whar are you using to run 
Dovecot like hardware, OS version, number of users and problems that you 
are experiencing. I'd like to compare with my setup and if it is the 
case, migrate to pure Linux or FreeBSD if it is more stable than OS/X!

Best Regards,

Flavio Domingos
- San Francisco/CA -

Flavio Domingos wrote:
> Hi Borthers/Sisters
> 
> Server: Apple Xserve G5 dual
> RAM: 4GB
> Number of Users: ~ 150 IMAP only users
> Authentication: LDAP
> Mailboxes sizes: ~200GB
> Dovecot version: 1.0 Beta 5  (I am looking forward to beta 7 that was 
> released today)
> Email client software: mostly Thunderbird 1.5
> 
> Meanwhile, I'd like to know, if possible, whar are you using to run 
> Dovecot like hardware, OS version, number of users and problems that you 
> are experiencing. I'd like to compare with my setup and if it is the 
> case, migrate to pure Linux or FreeBSD if it is more stable than OS/X!
I like the idea of a roundup survey of what situations people are using Dovecot 
in.  It can be cited for new people to improve their confidence, and also let 
Timo know how great a job he's doing :)

We're quite a small install, and quite an old version, but it chugs along
nicely.

Server: Sun Netra X1 ( UltraSPARC IIi 550MHz )
RAM: 1GB
Users: ~ 25 IMAP, 3 or 4 POP3
Auth: passwd/shadow
Maildir size: ~16GB
Dovecot version: 0.99.14 (will move to 1.0 when I get time :)
Client Software: Thunderbird

I put in about 0 work in keeping it running... it just hums along without issue.

--
Curtis Maloney
cmaloney at cardgate.net

Server: IBM eServer xSeries 226 (dual P4)
RAM: 2GB
Number of Users: >9000, most of them use POP3
Authentication: MySQL
Mailboxes sizes: ~40GB (partialy compressed)
Dovecot version: patched 1.0-test80 (upgrade to beta 7 in progress)
Email client software: various
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Server: dual p4 Xeon 3GHz (x3)
RAM: 3Gb (each)
Number of Users: ~350,000 (total)
Authentication: Berkeley db3 via PAM
Mailboxes sizes: 600Gb (total)
Dovecot version: 1.0beta3/beta4
Email client software: various


what's the largest production installation of Dovecot? :)

grant.

On Thu, April 13, 2006 01:56, Curtis Maloney wrote:
> I like the idea of a roundup survey of what situations people are using
Dovecot
Server: HP ProLiant ML 110 (P4 3 GHz), standard scsi disks
OS: fedora core 4
RAM: 512 Mb
Users: ~ 10
Auth: passwd/shadow
Maildir size: ranging from few Kbs to about 2 Gbs
Dovecot version: 1.0 beta 2
Client Software: squirrelmail 1.4.6

The server provides many different services (file server, CVS, internet proxy,
database server, spam/virus filtering, daily backups, etc) with Dovecot being
just one of them. Migrated from Eudora/UW-IMAP in just few days without any
major problem and now it is unning flawlessy since few months. One of the most
appreciated pros is the use of maildirs, which are backup friendly. A new mail
basically results in a single new small file, instead of a change in a big
mailbox file, which helps a lot with differential/incremental backups.

Bye,

-- 
	Denis Sbragion
	InfoTecna
	Tel: +39 0362 805396, Fax: +39 0362 805404
	URL: http://www.infotecna.it

We use dovecot for 2 specific goals. First as a webmail backend, we
have 10 servers for that. We have a second group of servers for normal
imap access.

Servers: 20 dual 3.x ghz FreeBSD 4.10 
RAM: 4GB each
Number of Users: 40.000+ daily users, 150.000 regular users, 500.000+
	           uses it once in a while
Authentication: pam/radius
Mailboxes sizes: customers get a 500MB mail quota, we use multi
                   terrabyte netapp fileservers.
Dovecot version: 1.0 beta4 I think, we cant keep up :)
Email client software: anything you can imagine, and then some things you
                       cant imagine. 


We arent having a lot of problems. If we did, we'd be flooded with
helpdesk calls. Our main problem right now is that we use 2 namespaces
(one is historical) and one of those 2 uses mbox. Combined with
filesystem quotas that are necessary for us this produces some problems
when the quota is reached. Basically dovecot stops working at that
point. 

We're in the process of dropping support for that mbox namespace but
with so many customers thats not easy. So until that time we have to
help customers fix their quota on that FS if they fill it up. 

There also seems to be the occasional index corruption causing faulty
information to come from dovecot. For that reason we dont use indexes
on our webmail cluster unfortunately (well, we use memory indexes). The
IMAP service isnt fully in production yet so we can play around more
there, and occasionally customers still experience what are results of
index failures.  Maybe beta7 will fix it :)

Cor

-- 
http://underwa.ter.net

On Wed, 12 Apr 2006, Flavio Domingos wrote:
> Hi Borthers/Sisters
>
> Thanks for all the developer(s) and for all the hard work spent on build
this
> great piece of software! I loved Dovecot since it is really easy to set up 
> and really fast but I am really new to it (only 2 weeks and half). Right
now,
> our server configuration is:
>
> Server: Apple Xserve G5 dual
> RAM: 4GB
> Number of Users: ~ 150 IMAP only users
> Authentication: LDAP
> Mailboxes sizes: ~200GB
> Dovecot version: 1.0 Beta 5  (I am looking forward to beta 7 that was 
> released today)
> Email client software: mostly Thunderbird 1.5
<snip>

Server: Dell PowerEdge Dual Xeon 3.2GHz EMT64 running Fedora Core 5
RAM: 4GB
Disk: SATA RAID 5 ~400GB
Number of Users: ~1000 POP users (occasional imap/squirrelmail).
Authentication: PAM
Mailbox sizes: < 100MB each
Dovecot version: 1.0.beta3
Email clients software: mostly Outlook Express, and various others.

This machine also runs 
sendmail/MailScanner/spamassassin/clamav/bitdefender, 
webmail/squirrelmail, radius, etc.

Server: Sun Fire 480, 4xUltraSparcIII 900Mhz
Storage: Sun 1xT3 + 1xT4 arrays (Fibre Channel + RAID5)
OS: Solaris 8
RAM: 8GB
Number of Users: ~20,000 mostly IMAP
Authentication: Active Directory via PAM and pam_ldap
Dovecot version: 1.0 Beta 3
Email client software: various, mostly Outlook/Outlook Express and 
Prayer Webmail
Mailboxes sizes: ~375GB inboxes 800GB folders

Migrated from UW-IMAP in September with spectacular improvement in 
performance!

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

On Wed, 2006-04-12 at 15:30 -0700, Flavio Domingos
wrote:
> Hi Borthers/Sisters
> 
> Thanks for all the developer(s) and for all the hard work spent on build 
> this great piece of software! I loved Dovecot since it is really easy to 
> set up and really fast but I am really new to it (only 2 weeks and 
> half). Right now, our server configuration is:
> 
> Server: Apple Xserve G5 dual
> RAM: 4GB
> Number of Users: ~ 150 IMAP only users
> Authentication: LDAP
> Mailboxes sizes: ~200GB
> Dovecot version: 1.0 Beta 5  (I am looking forward to beta 7 that was 
> released today)
> Email client software: mostly Thunderbird 1.5
Hmm, from the number of users using dovecot (probably mostly without
knowing it) Timo should be a rich man now :-)

However, I would also like to add our stats:

Server: AMD 1700+
OS: debian SID
Storage: linux kernel RAID1 with 2 IDE-ATA133 drives
RAM: 2GB
Users: >3K IMAP & some POP3
Authentication: LDAP:
Mailbox sizes: <500GB
Dovecot: 1.0b5
client software: anything that calls itself client software :-)

regards

Udo Rader

-- 
bestsolution.at EDV Systemhaus GmbH
http://www.bestsolution.at
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Server: VMware ESX vm on a Dell Poweredge 2850, Dual Xeon 3.6GHz
Storage: EMC fibre channel SAN
RAM: 2GB
OS: Debian Sarge Linux
Number of Users: 30 000+, ~15 000 daily users
Authentication: MySQL
Mail spool usage: 40G+
Dovecot version: 1.0 alpha something .. going to beta7 soon.
Email client software: Horde IMP, wide range of IMAP/POP3 clients

Great piece of software!!!!

Server: Sun Ultra-Enterprise E4500 8-Slot
RAM: 6GB
Number of Users: ~ 2000 IMAP only users
Authentication: LDAP
Mailboxes sizes: ~500GB
Dovecot version: 1.0 alpha4  (thinking about upgrade  to beta7, but still now
alpha4 runs rock stable :) )
Email client software: OpenXchange Groupware, Evolution, mutt, kmail,
Thunderbird

Representing the low-end.. ;)

Server:          Self-assembled.
Board/CPU:       Via EPIA-5000 / 500Mhz
RAM:             512MB
Users:           1
OS:              NetBSD 3.0
Auth:            passwd
Mbx-size:        500MB
Dovecot:         1.0Beta5
Client-SW:       Thunderbird 1.5 / mutt


When I'm moving mails, dovecot takes up to 10% of the CPU-time.


Flavio Domingos wrote:
> Hi Borthers/Sisters
> 
> Thanks for all the developer(s) and for all the hard work spent on build 
> this great piece of software! I loved Dovecot since it is really easy to 
> set up and really fast but I am really new to it (only 2 weeks and 
> half). Right now, our server configuration is:
> 
> Server: Apple Xserve G5 dual
> RAM: 4GB
> Number of Users: ~ 150 IMAP only users
> Authentication: LDAP
> Mailboxes sizes: ~200GB
> Dovecot version: 1.0 Beta 5  (I am looking forward to beta 7 that was 
> released today)
> Email client software: mostly Thunderbird 1.5
> 
> 
> Right now, we are experiencing occasional problem with imap users unable 
> to connect to the server. With beta 3, we had to restart the 
> dovecot/imap processes almost every 3 hours. with Dovecot beta5 we still 
> have to restart the processes but it seems to occur every 3 days (Friday 
> and Yesterday) and only in a peak time (around 3pm). I am waiting to 
> occur it again and I will be able to grab more information about the 
> number of processes, users, virtual memory, etc, etc. So, at this point, 
> I don't have much information to debug the problem. Let's wait.
> 
> I guess we have here a nice machine (xserve) and not a huge number of 
> users (~150). So, I would expect that our server would handle the load. 
> But having to restart Dovecot once a while, as I described, is not an 
> option (users are getting frustrated). :(   Maybe with Beta 7 with the 
> feature "Added shutdown_clients setting to control if existing
imap/pop3
> processes should be killed when master is" can stop our nightmares :)
> 
> By the way, our dovecot.conf is basically the default sent with the 
> software. We haven't changed much there!
> 
> Meanwhile, I'd like to know, if possible, whar are you using to run 
> Dovecot like hardware, OS version, number of users and problems that you 
> are experiencing. I'd like to compare with my setup and if it is the 
> case, migrate to pure Linux or FreeBSD if it is more stable than OS/X!
> 
> Best Regards,
> 
> Flavio Domingos
> - San Francisco/CA -

Server:          VA-Linux 2U rackmount
Board/CPU:       dual PIII 800Mhz
Disks:           Megaraid R5, 10000rpm disks
RAM:             1GB
Users:           150 Imap only
OS:              Debian testing
Auth:            postgresql
Mbx-size:        100MB-2GB (52GB live)
Dovecot:         1.0.beta2
Client-SW:       OSX Mail (95%), Squirrelmail, Outlook

We use exim to authenticate against the same database. Because we have
fairly draconian attachment size limits, the 52GB of mail we are serving
contains a _lot_ of mail. 

Dovecot is working extremely well for us at this site, and several 
other smaller sites all using a combination of OSX Mail and Outlook.

Regards,
Rory

-- 
Rory Campbell-Lange 
<rory at campbell-lange.net>
<www.campbell-lange.net>

I've posted this to the Wiki as requested.

Servers: 2 SuperMicro single-Xeon (dual-capable) 2.8, 1gb RAM,  
mirrored SATA boot
Storage: 1 SuperMicro dual-Zeon 2.8, 2gb RAM, 600GB RAID5 SATA shared  
via NFS over GigE
OS: RHEL 4
Users: 10,000 mostly POP users, SquirrelMail IMAP
Auth: MySQL
Maildir size: daily averages about 50gb
Dovecot version: 1.0 beta 5
Client Software: squirrelmail, outlook, outlook express, thunderbird,  
eudora, Apple Mail, Claris Emailer, and other odd clients too  
numerous to mention

This system is intentionally over-engineered, to replace the single  
server Courier-IMAP system that it replaced.  Load on each Dovecot/ 
SquirrelMail server is very low and allows for a lot of growth.

Our incoming MTA is Exim, on another pair of SuperMicro machines  
writing to the same NFS over GigE.

--
Roger J. Weeks
Systems & Network Administrator
Mendocino Community Network

Here's mine:

Server:			Some old P3 800 MHz
RAM:			256 MB
Number of Users:	Just myself for now
Authentication:		MySQL
Dovecot version:	1.0 Beta 3
SMTP:			Postfix 2.2.5
Email client software:	Thunderbird 1.5, Mutt 1.5
OS:			Gentoo Hardened Linux x86 (stable)

No problems so far :)