Hi all: I am learning Dovecot step by step. I have enabled the Submission Server, in the hope that I would not need to learn other MTAs like Postfix. The Submission Server is very comfortable: it picks up the existing Dovecot configuration, so that you do not need to configure any user authentication separately. It is working fine on my test setup. My first thought was that, if the recipient is a local mailbox, the Submission Server would not need to relay the message to any external SMTP server, as it could just deliver it locally. After all, it is running on the same Dovecot. But it cannot do that, can it? Is there a work-around? I am still hoping that the mail server still works locally if the Internet connection fails. But I would need to learn some Postfix magic for that, would I? Thanks in advance, rdiez
On 02/11/2020 20:17, R. Diez wrote:> Hi all: > > I am learning Dovecot step by step. I have enabled the Submission > Server, in the hope that I would not need to learn other MTAs like > Postfix.the submission server is a proxy in front of an MTA. You can't avoid having an MTA somewhere in your solution. https://doc.dovecot.org/admin_manual/submission_server/> > The Submission Server is very comfortable: it picks up the existing > Dovecot configuration, so that you do not need to configure any user > authentication separately. It is working fine on my test setup. > > My first thought was that, if the recipient is a local mailbox, the > Submission Server would not need to relay the message to any external > SMTP server, as it could just deliver it locally. After all, it is > running on the same Dovecot.what should it do with the non local messages or local messages directly at aliases? John> > But it cannot do that, can it? Is there a work-around? I am still > hoping that the mail server still works locally if the Internet > connection fails. But I would need to learn some Postfix magic for > that, would I? > > Thanks in advance, > ? rdiez
> what should it do with the non local messages or local messages directly > at aliases?OK, so I gather that the Submission Server cannot do that (yet). My suggestion for a future version would then be: How about running dovecot-lda, if the user happens to be local, or a local alias? Or at least provide some sort of pattern matching: anything matching *@example.com , pass the message to dovecot-lda . It feels strange that a plug-in accessing the local user database for authentication purposes, and running on the same Dovecot server instance, needs to use an MTA to deliver a local message, it is like going out to come back in again. But I do not know much about mail servers yet. Have I missed some important concept here that makes this idea silly indeed? Regards, rdiez
R> I am learning Dovecot step by step. I have enabled the Submission R> Server, in the hope that I would not need to learn other MTAs like R> Postfix. It's not that hard to setup postfix to accept incoming email from the internet and your local users, and to then pass it to dovecot as needed. Dovecot is for IMAP/POP (shudder) access of your stored emails. It's not for sending email, or even receiving it from the outside world. R> The Submission Server is very comfortable: it picks up the existing R> Dovecot configuration, so that you do not need to configure any R> user authentication separately. It is working fine on my test R> setup. It's not hard to setup postfix/dovecot to use the same authentication. My system used plain files. Trivial. R> My first thought was that, if the recipient is a local mailbox, the R> Submission Server would not need to relay the message to any R> external SMTP server, as it could just deliver it locally. After R> all, it is running on the same Dovecot. Really, you're trying to optimize the wrong thing. Just setup a linode (or anything else except digital ocean since charter.net blocks them completely for email delivery) at $5/month and install postfix/dovecot together. Works great. John