dovecot - Jul 2007 - ssh tunneling and maildir

Hello everyone, please keep my CC'd, I'm not on the list.
	I've been using dovecot happily via an ssh tunnel.  My mutt is
configured to use IMAP, and the tunnel is as follows in my muttrc:

    set tunnel="ssh -q mymailhost 'MBOX_LOCKS=fcntl
MAIL=/home/jlbec/mail /usr/libexec/dovecot/imap'"

	It should be pretty obvious that this logs into mymailhost as me
(via SSH keyauth) and runs /usr/libexec/dovecot/imap directly as a
foreground process.  Setting MAIL, it points dovecot imap to my mbox
folders.  dovecot imap speaks imap over stdin/out, this goes over the
ssh to mutt.
	It works great.  Really great.  I don't need root access at all,
the server isn't running dovecot globally, and I get IMAP through
firewalls if I can ssh through a firewall/vpn.  I'm using mbox and
fcntl, so my MTA has no trouble working in concert.
	However, this doesn't appear to be documented anywhere.  A
friend showed it to me, and I don't even remember who that was.
	I'm now considering changing to maildir folders.  I figure
dovecot imap might figure out a folder is maildir when stat says
S_IFDIR, but without documentation, I can't figure out how to tell
dovecot imap to use maildir when I create a folder.  I'm also unsure how
this will interact with my MTA.
	For the latter, I'm thinking I just need to configure my MTA to
use dovecot's deliver program.  For the former, is there some magic
environment variable I need to add to my tunnel command line?

Thanks
Joel

-- 

"The first requisite of a good citizen in this republic of ours
 is that he shall be able and willing to pull his weight."
	- Theodore Roosevelt

			http://www.jlbec.org/
			jlbec at evilplan.org

On Tue, 2007-07-10 at 23:31 -0700, Joel Becker wrote:
> 	However, this doesn't appear to be documented anywhere.  A
> friend showed it to me, and I don't even remember who that was.
:)

You should really just configure dovecot as though you wanted to run the
daemon and then run
  /usr/sbin/dovecot --exec-mail imap

That'll give you all the environment you need.

johannes
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 190 bytes
Desc: This is a digitally signed message part
URL:
<http://dovecot.org/pipermail/dovecot/attachments/20070711/9e94c920/attachment-0002.bin>

On Wed, Jul 11, 2007 at 11:58:10AM +0200, Johannes Berg
wrote:
> On Tue, 2007-07-10 at 23:31 -0700, Joel Becker wrote:
> 
> > 	However, this doesn't appear to be documented anywhere.  A
> > friend showed it to me, and I don't even remember who that was.
> 
> :)
> 
> You should really just configure dovecot as though you wanted to run the
> daemon and then run
>   /usr/sbin/dovecot --exec-mail imap
	Ok.  How do I configure it if I cannot modify /etc?
/usr/sbin/dovecot -c /home/jlbec/.dovecotrc.  I also assume I need -F to
run it as a foreground process?  Will I need any auth?  I don't right
now?

Thanks
Joel

Joel
> 
> That'll give you all the environment you need.
> 
> johannes


-- 

Life's Little Instruction Book #237

	"Seek out the good in people."

			http://www.jlbec.org/
			jlbec at evilplan.org

Hi, my mail server is running fine. But not sure if I am doing right with 
"mail_location" in dovecot.conf

I am using dovecot-1.0.0-8_56 on RHEL AS 4 Update 5.
Our users have a "mail" directory under their home directory(~/mail).
I
thought the "mail_location" line should be:

mail_location = 
mbox:%h/mail:INBOX=/var/mail/%u:INDEX=/var/mail_indexes/%d/%n

but if I do this, all the mailboxes in the "mail" directory won't
show,
and a new "mail" folder will be created under "~/mail/", so
it is
"~/mail/mail" now.

if I change it to this:

mail_location = mbox:%h:INBOX=/var/mail/%u:INDEX=/var/mail_indexes/%d/%n

Everything is fine, is this the supposed behavior?

Thanks
CY


==========================================Yu Chen
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Chemistry Building, Rm 182
University of Maryland at Baltimore County
1000 Hilltop Circle
Baltimore, MD 21250

phone: 	(410)455-6347 (primary)
 	(410)455-2718 (secondary)
fax: 	(410)455-1174
email: 	chen at hhmi.umbc.edu
===========================================