dovecot - Jul 2012 - Confusion when trying to set up a first postfix+dovecot mailserver

I'm trying to set up a first test for a dovecot + postfix (+ many other 
things) mail server for about 1000 accounts, and I keep stumbling on 
confusing inconsistencies in the HowTo documents I'm trying to follow.

I tried to do a simple setup with virtual users using a howto saying it 
was for just that and that it's for Dovecot 2.x, and it shows a few text 
chunks to put in files, and then says it's better to do the changes in 
the example-config conf file....

And then the whole structure of config files and dirs is totally 
different from what is implied in the howto. And of course it won't run. 
Probably because of the structure of a conf.d dir is multiple files, and 
the instructions are explicitly written for the case of having a single 
conf file.

Can anyone suggest an order in which to read docs that will take me thru 
w/o being totally confusing?
I would very much like to be able to enable bit by bit, rather than have 
to understand all of dovecot before I can even begin to test it.

P.S: I want to setup a server using 
postfix+dovecot+tls+virtualusers+maildir+dspam+mailman, at least that's 
the target I'm aiming for.
Please suggest a good HowTo for this setup that will not be too confusing.
Also, Sorry if I sound like a whining kid: I am new to dovecot and 
postfix, but I was a software support engineer for Sun for ages, and I 
should really be able to manage this if I just had some consistent and 
non-confusing HowTo or Tutorial to follow as a first try.

On 2012-07-21 5:24 AM, Hans J. Albertsson 
<hans.j.albertsson at branneriet.se> wrote:
> Also, Sorry if I sound like a whining kid: I am new to dovecot and
> postfix, but I was a software support engineer for Sun for ages, and I
> should really be able to manage this if I just had some consistent and
> non-confusing HowTo or Tutorial to follow as a first try.
1. Which 'HowTo' were you following?

2. If it wasn't the dovecot 'official' docs on the wiki, try those:

http://wiki2.dovecot.org/

$random_howtos on the internet is not the way to build a secure mail server.

Some of the wiki2 docs still have some v1 cruft in them, but for the 
most part they should be all you need (along with asking questions here 
for clarification), and it is a wiki - anything that you encounter that 
you find confusing or incomplete, by all means come here for 
clarification, and then update the wiki to help others who encounter the 
same issues as you.

You haven't even provided the most basic of details of the problem(s) 
you're having (like, for example, OS/platform, dovecot -n output, logs 
exhibiting the problem(s), etc...

First, take a step back, and start with one thing at a time (testing and 
making sure each step is working as expected before moving to the next 
one)...

1. install postfix, secure it, and get it delivering mail to at least 
one (test if desired) virtual domain/users maildirs using its built-in 
virtual delivery agent,

2. add dovecot into the mix to serve up the users mail,

3. switch to the dovecot delivery agent (I recommend LMTP, but at a 
minimum use the Dovecot LDA),

4. enable dovecot-sasl,

5. integrate dspam,

6. integrate mailman

Obviously, each step requires you to know how you want things to work - 
ie, do you want to provide POP+IMAP, or only IMAPS access, etc...

Last - to answer the one specific complaint that you had - dovecot will 
use all of those separate config files in the conf.d directory, or you 
can put all of your settings into one config file, the choice is yours - 
see the wiki for details:

http://wiki2.dovecot.org/BasicConfiguration

-- 

Best regards,

Charles