Dan Egli wrote: > On 4/6/2021 10:41 PM, Dale wrote: >> I've done some research. It seems Dovecot is what I need. It uses mbox >> and has some features I might need one day already where Courier doesn't >> but there isn't much difference really. If anyone is curious, the >> comparison is here. >> >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_mail_servers >> >> The biggest thing, mbox. If I recall correctly that is what Seamonkey >> uses and I should be able to import those easy enough. It at least >> gives me a head start. Since this is a whole new deal, going to start a >> new thread if nobody pops up and says nooooooo to Dovecot. I found a >> guide here: >> > Seamonkey is a web browser. Therefore, mbox vs maildir is meaningless > to it. All it knows it it talks to the imap server and the imap server > replies and sends a message. > > Having said that, AVOID mbox like the plague! It is only a matter of > time before mbox mail files get corrupted. Maildir is INFINITELY > safer. And in the event of corruption in maildir, you loose ONLY the > corrupted messages. Corrupt your mbox file and you're likely to loose > the whole folder! > > As far as moving from one to another, both mbox and maildir are > standards. So if imap server X and Y both use Maildir, then swapping > between them is easy, and POINTLESS, due to the fact that imap > maintains the files on your server. So, if you move to a different > mail CLIENT (thunderbird for example) then the new client only needs > to take the time to re-download the messages from the server. It's the > same way webmail and a client can work together. Neither is doing the > actual work with the files. Each is only sending commands to a > separate server program to work with the files. > >> http://www.wikigentoo.ksiezyc.pl/Dovecot.htm >> >> So far, it is Gentoo based. I found another one but it is Ubuntu >> based. May work but commands are different. Trying to go by a Gentoo >> based one. If anyone has a better one, please share links. >> >> May start new thread in a day or so if no one shouts nooooo. > Consider this the shout. I can't stop you from using mbox, but I can > shout at the top of my lungs that it's a BAD IDEA. And I can say over > and over that changing your imap SERVER will have ZERO impact on what > Seamonkey does. The only exception would be if you have a mail server > (original or new) that doesn't fully follow the imap protocol. And in > that case, who knows what the change will do. >
I looked, Dovecot can use either mbox or maildir. Can Dovecot convert those to or must I use a different tool? To anyone using Dovecot, just what all had to be installed? This is what emerge gives me right now. root@fireball / # emerge -av dovecot These are the packages that would be merged, in order: Calculating dependencies... done! [ebuild N ] acct-group/dovecot-0-r1::gentoo 0 KiB [ebuild N ] acct-group/dovenull-0-r1::gentoo 0 KiB [ebuild N ] acct-user/dovecot-0-r1::gentoo 0 KiB [ebuild N ] acct-user/dovenull-0-r1::gentoo 0 KiB [ebuild N ] net-mail/dovecot-2.3.13-r100::gentoo USE="bzip2 ipv6 lzma mysql pam sqlite tcpd zlib -argon2 -caps -doc -kerberos -ldap (-libressl) -lua -lucene -lz4 -managesieve -postgres -rpc (-selinux) -sieve -solr -static-libs -suid -textcat -unwind -zstd" LUA_SINGLE_TARGET="lua5-1 -lua5-2 -lua5-3" 7,282 KiB Total: 5 packages (5 new), Size of downloads: 7,282 KiB Would you like to merge these packages? [Yes/No] I suspect I need to install some other packages to make certain things work. Then again, maybe they already installed?? Some may recall that cron jobs sent emails so it has to have packages installed for that. The guide I linked to elsewhere has USE flags not listed above. It may be out of date. It does say not to use it for older 1.* versions of Dovecot tho. Just trying to see what I'm getting into here. I think this is a really good idea but want to see how deep the water is before jumping in. I can't swim, well, I do, like a lead rock. :/ Thanks. Dale :-) :-)
