Firstly, this isn't meant to be critical, and I realize the subject line probably suggest criticism, so... I was sort of forced into using dovecot as my imap/pop server due to upgrading 3 versions of OS on my mail servers. So far, that's not bad. What surprises me is that one of the first things I usually do whenever I start using different software is to purchase a book that seems to suit me. Searching all of the common places like amazon, ebay, etc for manuals turned up little to nothing on dovecot. I'm wondering why and is this so new that people just haven't written books about it yet? The one thing I'm a little critical of, though, is that trying to make heads or tails of dovecot by following the online documentation is a little problematic. I'm constantly jumping to another page and then back to the original page, and for the most part, I just don't know enough about it all yet to know what I'm looking for. Does anyone know of any manuals/books that have been written that might introduce me to most of the stuff in dovecot? So far, the list has been great, but once the "dsync" threads started popping up, I find there's even more I don't know about. Thanks for all the help I've received so far and I think I'm really going to like dovecot. Once I get the hang of it, I'll probably reduce the amount of noise on the list by half. steve campbell
On 03/15/2012 03:06 PM, Steve Campbell wrote:> Firstly, this isn't meant to be critical, and I realize the subject > line probably suggest criticism, so... > > I was sort of forced into using dovecot as my imap/pop server due to > upgrading 3 versions of OS on my mail servers. So far, that's not bad. > What surprises me is that one of the first things I usually do > whenever I start using different software is to purchase a book that > seems to suit me. Searching all of the common places like amazon, > ebay, etc for manuals turned up little to nothing on dovecot. > > I'm wondering why and is this so new that people just haven't written > books about it yet? > > The one thing I'm a little critical of, though, is that trying to make > heads or tails of dovecot by following the online documentation is a > little problematic. I'm constantly jumping to another page and then > back to the original page, and for the most part, I just don't know > enough about it all yet to know what I'm looking for.The best docs are on the wiki and this mailing list. If you find the information in the wiki to be lacking, the best thing you can do is find the solution yourself and/or on this mailing list, and then make a wiki entry so the next person will know how to solve the same problem you had. Dovecot is a complex piece of software, and understanding some functionality requires reading the wiki, asking on the mailing list and/or examining the source code. You can also obtain paid support from these companies: http://dovecot.org/support.html I'll be the first to admit that complex and specialized configurations are sometimes difficult to figure out, however this list has always been a tremendous amount of help. Terry
On 15.3.2012, at 21.06, Steve Campbell wrote:> The one thing I'm a little critical of, though, is that trying to make heads or tails of dovecot by following the online documentation is a little problematic. I'm constantly jumping to another page and then back to the original page, and for the most part, I just don't know enough about it all yet to know what I'm looking for.Perhaps it would be helpful to have some more talkative howtos for some of the typical configurations, that don't only list the options that are given but actually talks about why things are done the way they are? I've tried to avoid duplication of text in wiki, because if something changes it's difficult to update it everywhere, but in howtos I guess it wouldn't be too bad. Or maybe the wiki could be restructured in some way to make it easier to follow. I think I'm the worst possible person to figure out anything like that, because I don't know what the difficult parts are. I'd think the Dovecot wiki is good if you know what you want to do and just want to know some specifics, but I guess it can be difficult to figure things out otherwise.> Does anyone know of any manuals/books that have been written that might introduce me to most of the stuff in dovecot?A few people have talked about writing a Dovecot book and I've promised to help them, but no one's actually written one as far as I know.> So far, the list has been great, but once the "dsync" threads started popping up, I find there's even more I don't know about.Features that aren't yet even fully implemented don't really have documentation for them.