dovecot - Mar 2012 - Creating an IMAP repo for ~100 users need some advice

Hi,

I am currently in the process of setting up an IMAP repository for round 
100 users....

Currently the user authentication method is being handled via a Windows 
Domain Controller.

The host OS for Dovecot will either be FreeBSD or CentOS.


Would Dovecot be able to authenticate to either the DC directly or would 
we need to go through LDAP??


Additionally what would be the best method to store the **mail** 
information? - as in MySQL database or Maildir format; coinciding with 
this what is the best backup method in order to be able to do 'dump' 
backups or restore single emails??


Can anyone give me a hand with this?


Regards,


Kaya

Kaya Saman <kayasaman at gmail.com> wrote:
> I am currently in the process of setting up an IMAP repository for
> round 100 users....
> Currently the user authentication method is being handled via a
> Windows Domain Controller.
> The host OS for Dovecot will either be FreeBSD or CentOS.
> Would Dovecot be able to authenticate to either the DC directly or
> would we need to go through LDAP??
Why not join the server to the domain and simply use PAM? 

Using ActiveDirectory through LDAP is a bit of a pain so I would avoid
this if I where you.
> Additionally what would be the best method to store the **mail**
> information? - as in MySQL database or Maildir format; coinciding with
> this what is the best backup method in order to be able to do
'dump'
> backups or restore single emails??
Storing mails inside SQL? Not supported by dovecot and not very wise,
IMHO. DBmail does this, but to be honest, I never heard any good
feedback from admins using that product. From what I have been told, you
need quite the beefy server to get a decent performance out of DBmail,
compared to the needs of a "traditional" setup like with dovecot or
courier-mail, but I digress.

To have a consistent backup, your mail storage should be able to
snapshot the volume the mail is stored on, so use LVM or an external
storage unit capable of snapshots.

Then backup the content of the snapshot using any program you like.
I use Bacula for long-term offsite storage and a local rsnapshot to keep
7 days worth of mail for a quick restore.

Whether you are able to restore single mails or the complete storage is
no property or feature of the mailbox format itself.

Some formats are simpler to handle, like Maildir++, where you just drop
the file containing a mail into a directory.

Some, like mbox or mdbox are a little bit more complex, but with the
correct doveadm command you are nevertheless able to restore single
mails.


Gr??e,
Sven.

-- 
Sigmentation fault. Core dumped.

>Hi,
>
>I am currently in the process of setting up an IMAP repository for round 100
users....
>
>Currently the user authentication method is being handled via a Windows
Domain Controller.
>
>The host OS for Dovecot will either be FreeBSD or CentOS.
>
>
>Would Dovecot be able to authenticate to either the DC directly or would we
need to go through LDAP??
>
>
>Additionally
 what would be the best method to store the **mail** information? - as 
in MySQL database or Maildir format; coinciding with this what is the 
best backup method in order to be able to do 'dump' backups or restore 
single emails??
>
>
>Can anyone give me a hand with this?
>
>
>Regards,
>
>
>Kaya



Hi Kaya,

I can't force you to follow a specific path.
All I can do, is tell you my experience on this.

Using Dovecot for IMAP, XMail for POP3/SMTP, Horde for
Webmail, OpenLDAP for LDAP (no windows software
there) and CentOS v5.5 32-bit onwards.
User base is about 30 users.
System uptime without a glitch reached at some point
(had to reboot the server for maintenance reasons) about
200 days. I am sure it would go beyond 365 days.

Hope this helps,

spyros



----
"I merely function as a channel that filters 
music through the chaos of noise"
- Vangelis