[plug] imap & pop3 servers

[Tim Bowden]

On Fri, 2008-09-05 at 14:29 +0800, Mark O'Shea wrote:
> On Fri, Sep 05, 2008 at 02:05:32PM +0800, Tim Bowden wrote:
> > > Unless you are going to have john at domain1 and john at domain2 who are  
> > > different people,
> > 
> > That's the bit I'm not sure about yet.  If I can nail that down I guess
> > I may be able to avoid the potential complexity.  Of cause that also
> > means all users will have a valid address at all domains handled by the
> > system.  Time to work out specific requirements.
> Even if you do have the same address at different domains dovecot is a
> mechanism for users to acces their mailbox via pop3 or imap, all it does
> is access a mailbox.  Deciding what goes into that mailbox is up to the
> mta and supporting tools.  Just because you are sending an mail to
> john at domain1 it doesn't mean that this has to end up in the mail box of
> a user with username john.  In fact if you are using virtual users with
> a ldap or SQL database backend that don't directly map on to unix users
> you can call them john at domain1 if you want to save confusion.  You do
> need however to configure your mta to deliver the mail where dovecot
> expects to find it (and the same goes here, there is no reason why email
> for john at domain1 can't end up in jane at domain2's mailbox.  No technical
> reason that is, John may not be keen on this).
> 
> 
> > Yes, that's what I normally do, but If the domains need to be completely
> > separate the whole mail process needs to be done outside of shell
> > accounts.  I'd prefer not to go there if I don't have to, so if I can
> > I'll keep it simple.
> No it doesn't *need* to be done outside shell accounts.  There is no
> reason why john at domain1 can't have his email delivered to the spool of
> unix account john and john at domain2 have his delivered to the spool of
> unix account john2.
> 
> Whatever you decide to do make sure you think about it carefully and
> standardize it if you are going to be setting up more than a few
> accounts.  Also script everything, including the decision on usernames.
> Otherwise you might find yourself spending ages doing something which
> should take a few seconds.
> 
> Regards,

I can see you've done this more than I have ;-)

Thanks Mark, appreciated.  I've never had to work my way through this
one before.

Regards,
Tim
-- 
Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you recognize a mistake
when you make it again.