I'm been trying to set up SuSE with an IMAP server for a while yet and keep running into some deficiencies. SuSE promotes two IMAP servers: IMAP from Univ. Wash. with mbox files Cyrus-imap with maildir files. According to many out in the email world, mbox seems to be such a thing of the past. I've been looking at cyrus as a viable alternative and I keep getting stuck. cyrus doesn't support procmail very well and without it there are a number of things that cannot be managed at all. For example, you cannot do a "real time" push of identified spam to the razor-agent system. I was reading through the mechanism for razor and find that it is potentially far more powerful than we give it credit for. Unfortunately it works best when spam can be reported as quickly as possible. The best way to report this that I can see is something to the tune of (in procmail) :0: * ^X-Spam-Level: \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\* | razor-report which shells out an external program (razor-agent) to finish the dirty work for you in about 2 seconds after the email hit your box. Unfortunately cyrus doesn't seem to have anything like this at all. I could do a crontab type of job, but that's either very exhaustive or slow. My only alternative that I can see here is to revert back to an mbox format for mail delivery and forget about all this cyrus-imap business because of how they have implimented the applications. So I guess I'm wondering if anyone has tried a mailbox based imap server at any time and if it can be configured to run from the likes of procmail (something that would provide shelling out to other applications). Otherwise I'm kind of forced into concluding that mbox / imap is about the only practical solution I have today. I do not have a large userbase. I do not expect to exceed 100 users at any time. Any thoughts?
Hi Tom, On Sun, 02 Nov 2003 00:23:29 -0500 UTC (11/1/2003, 11:23 PM -0600 UTC my time), Tom Allison wrote: <snip> T> So I guess I'm wondering if anyone has tried a mailbox based imap server T> at any time and if it can be configured to run from the likes of T> procmail (something that would provide shelling out to other applications). T> Otherwise I'm kind of forced into concluding that mbox / imap is about T> the only practical solution I have today. Well, I have a solution, but it involves a different MTA, and some work on your part learning about it... First, yes, Maildir/ format is far superior for a mailbox format, as you need no locking whatsoever, it is safer, and can easily be run on a NFS.. You can't run mbox over NFS.. there are many more reasons. Now about the MTA. If you switched to qmail, /Maildir/ format was designed for this in mind, and Maildir was designed by the same author... qmail also uses what is called .qmail (dotqmail) files which can and do contain instructions for that email address, e.g. where to deliver, and many other checks, or programs to run once the mail hits it. It is trivial to set up an instruction to call procmail. There are many examples of this, and this is done all the time. Next regarding IMAP(S) for Maildir/ One of the newest I recommend is Binc, or bincimap.. It is designed for Maildir/ only, 10,000s of lines of C code less than all the others, very fast, and just came out for production. It is a natural for qmail, as it uses the same checkpassword as qmail does. It is very easy to set up, and run with it using SSL. I use it exclusively for the servers I build. In beta, it was tested by a firm with over a 50,000 user base with no problems.. T> I do not expect to exceed 100 users at any time. No problem at all.. Easily done. -- Gary If you must choose between two evils, pick the one you've never tried before.
Gary wrote: I'm a little hooked on postfix, although I'll admit that qmail certainly does have it's merits. IMHO I think that between the two of us we are playing with the top 2 mail servers in the world! But no one is really absolutely certain which is first because it all depends on what's your "itch".
Next regarding IMAP(S) for Maildir/ One of the newest I recommend is Binc, or bincimap.. It is designed for Maildir/ only, 10,000s of lines of C code less than all the others, very fast, and just came out for production. It is a natural for qmail, as it uses the same checkpassword as qmail does. It is very easy to set up, and run with it using SSL. I use it exclusively for the servers I build. In beta, it was tested by a firm with over a 50,000 user base with no problems..
I have heard of Binc, and dovecot as two potential solutions but haven't been able to find much in terms of endorsements anywhere. I think I'll give Binc a try. BTW - This leads me to another very generic question: mbox format -- email is seperated by a string like /^From / at the top of each email. In this string is the Envelope Header (MAIL FROM) in my messages. Two question: Postfix puts the Envelope Header into /^Return-Path: / -- True/False? Does maildir provide a similar format or at least embed the Envelope Header into the email if postfix doesn't?
Hi Tom, On Sun, 02 Nov 2003 06:24:41 -0500 UTC (11/2/2003, 5:24 AM -0600 UTC my time), Tom Allison wrote: T> I'm a little hooked on postfix, although I'll admit that qmail certainly T> does have it's merits. Agreed <g> I switched a few years ago. T> IMHO I think that between the two of us we are playing with the top 2 T> mail servers in the world! Also agreed.. a perfect combo. T> But no one is really absolutely certain which is first because it all T> depends on what's your "itch". Yahoo uses qmail, and Rediffmail has a user base of over 15 million, and it is easily handled by qmail.
Next regarding IMAP(S) for Maildir/ One of the newest I recommend is Binc, or bincimap.. It is designed for Maildir/ only, 10,000s of lines of C code less than all the others, very fast, and just came out for production. It is a natural for qmail, as it uses the same checkpassword as qmail does. It is very easy to set up, and run with it using SSL. I use it exclusively for the servers I build. In beta, it was tested by a firm with over a 50,000 user base with no problems..
T> I have heard of Binc, and dovecot as two potential solutions but haven't T> been able to find much in terms of endorsements anywhere.
I can tell you from being involved in the beta, that it is very strong and stable now that it is in production. You can ask on the binc list, as the author, Andy, answers many of the questions... www.bincimap.org T> I think I'll give Binc a try. You will like it. Very easy to set up. T> BTW - This leads me to another very generic question: T> mbox format -- email is seperated by a string like /^From / at the top T> of each email. Yes, but more importantly, mbox format is just one huge file of emails, constantly growing, and yes, each email is separated by the From: at the top. Your MTA and MDA (Procmail) must lock the mbox file first to add mail. Now, /Maildir/ format stores each email individually instead of adding email to the existing mbox mail spool. This is why it requires no locking, safer, and can be used over NFS. T> In this string is the Envelope Header (MAIL FROM) in my T> messages. If you are using Postfix, you can see the headers of your mail. I believe Postfix uses the Return-Path as the envelope sender.. T> Two question: T> Postfix puts the Envelope Header into /^Return-Path: / -- True/False? Have not used Postfix in a very long time, but I would say yes it does. T> Does maildir provide a similar format or at least embed the Envelope T> Header into the email if postfix doesn't? Maildir is a format for storing email. It is up to your MTA to put in proper headers. I just thought of something. IIRC, Postfix will accept using /Maildir/ format, and you can specify this in the main.cf file. Postfix will also allow you to call Procmail from the main file, which can be done globally, so mail can be moved to any /Maildir/ on your system... This would solve your problem too. You can still use Binc, as it works with /Maildir/ format for secure IMAP, or IMAPS .. <g> -- Gary Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings, they did it by killing all those who opposed them.
On Sun, 2 Nov 2003 08:31:23 -0600
Gary
Yes, but more importantly, mbox format is just one huge file of emails, constantly growing, and yes, each email is separated by the From: at the top. Your MTA and MDA (Procmail) must lock the mbox file first to add mail. Now, /Maildir/ format stores each email individually instead of adding email to the existing mbox mail spool. This is why it requires no locking, safer, and can be used over NFS.
There are pros and cons. Searching throu a dir is an O(n) operation generally. open is comparatively more expensive than read and seek. maildir requires much more open than mbox. Now we can have more fine grained locking. Furthermore on a single user mailbox concurrent read/write operations aren't that frequent. Neverthless you're right. Maildir is less subject to mayhem. Corruption of one file is corruption of one email not a whole set of emails. Anyway I tend to think that protection agains such kind of troubles should be carried out somewhere else (backup, reasonable HW, file system...).
Hi Ivan, On Sun, 2 Nov 2003 15:51:50 +0100 UTC (11/2/2003, 8:51 AM -0600 UTC my time), Ivan Sergio Borgonovo wrote:
Yes, but more importantly, mbox format is just one huge file of emails, constantly growing, and yes, each email is separated by the From: at the top. Your MTA and MDA (Procmail) must lock the mbox file first to add mail. Now, /Maildir/ format stores each email individually instead of adding email to the existing mbox mail spool. This is why it requires no locking, safer, and can be used over NFS.
I> There are pros and cons. I> Searching throu a dir is an O(n) operation generally. I> open is comparatively more expensive than read and seek. I> maildir requires much more open than mbox. Agreed. I> Now we can have more fine grained locking. Furthermore on a single I> user mailbox concurrent read/write operations aren't that frequent. interesting. Thanks for this. I> Neverthless you're right. Maildir is less subject to mayhem. I> Corruption of one file is corruption of one email not a whole set of I> emails. Anyway I tend to think that protection agains such kind of I> troubles should be carried out somewhere else (backup, reasonable HW, I> file system...). I wholeheartedly agree with your protection mechanisms above. There is no substitute for this, IMO, also. -- Gary Dain bramaged.
The Sunday 2003-11-02 at 06:24 -0500, Tom Allison wrote:
Postfix puts the Envelope Header into /^Return-Path: / -- True/False?
Yes. This is documented in /usr/share/doc/packages/postfix/html/virtual.8.html, and .../local.8.html. Also pipe.8.html has some more interesting info. |> UNIX MAILBOX FORMAT ... |> The virtual delivery agent prepends a "From sender time_stamp" envelope |> header to each message, prepends a Delivered-To: message header with |> the envelope recipient address, prepends an X-Original-To: header with |> the recipient address as given to Postfix, prepends a Return-Path: |> message header with the envelope sender address, prepends a > character |> to lines beginning with "From ", and appends an empty line. Actually, it does almost the same in maildir format.
Does maildir provide a similar format or at least embed the Envelope Header into the email if postfix doesn't?
Postfix does: |> The virtual delivery agent daemon prepends a Delivered-To: message |> header with the final envelope recipient address, prepends an |> X-Original-To: header with the recipient address as given to Postfix, |> and prepends a Return-Path: message header with the envelope sender |> address. -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson
The Sunday 2003-11-02 at 06:24 -0500, Tom Allison wrote:
Two question:
Postfix puts the Envelope Header into /^Return-Path: / -- True/False?
Does maildir provide a similar format or at least embed the Envelope Header into the email if postfix doesn't?
I saw something else in /usr/share/doc/packages/postfix/RELEASE_NOTES-1.1: |> - The pipe mailer "flags" syntax has changed. You now explicitly MUST |> specify the R flag in order to generate a Return-Path: message header |> (as needed by, for example, cyrus). -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson
On Sunday 02 November 2003 13:43, Gary wrote:
Next regarding IMAP(S) for Maildir/ One of the newest I recommend is Binc, or bincimap.. It is designed for Maildir/ only, 10,000s of lines of C code less than all the others, very fast, and just came out for production. It is a natural for qmail, as it uses the same checkpassword as qmail does. It is very easy to set up, and run with it using SSL. I use it exclusively for the servers I build. In beta, it was tested by a firm with over a 50,000 user base with no problems..
Can you share 'folders' between users with Binc? Thanks, Jethro
On Mon, Nov 03, 2003 at 11:44:49AM +0800 or thereabouts, Jethro Cramp wrote:
On Sunday 02 November 2003 13:43, Gary wrote:
Next regarding IMAP(S) for Maildir/ One of the newest I recommend is Binc, or bincimap.. It is designed for Maildir/ only, 10,000s of lines of C code less than all the others, very fast, and just came out for production. It is a natural for qmail, as it uses the same checkpassword as qmail does. It is very easy to set up, and run with it using SSL. I use it exclusively for the servers I build. In beta, it was tested by a firm with over a 50,000 user base with no problems..
Can you share 'folders' between users with Binc?
No not yet, but I am sure it will be added as time goes on. -- Gary
On Sun, Nov 02, 2003 at 12:23:29AM -0500, Tom Allison wrote:
I'm been trying to set up SuSE with an IMAP server for a while yet and keep running into some deficiencies.
SuSE promotes two IMAP servers: IMAP from Univ. Wash. with mbox files Cyrus-imap with maildir files.
According to many out in the email world, mbox seems to be such a thing of the past. I've been looking at cyrus as a viable alternative and I keep getting stuck.
cyrus doesn't support procmail very well and without it there are a number of things that cannot be managed at all.
But basically Cyrus isn't *supposed* to do stuff like that. Cyrus is supposed to be sort of the 'endpoint'. What I (and probably many others) do, is to have the MTA hand mail over to Procmail for processing, and have *procmail* call Cyrus' "deliver". This works very well, although it *can* be a little confusing to set up initially (it was to me anyway ;)... Among the benefits are that you can do what you want with procmail, but also that you don't involve Cyrus until it's actually *needed*. Originally I followed this series: "How to set up IMAP on the cheap" http://www.linuxworld.com/story/32735.htm HTH, Jon Clausen -- Whatever rocks your boat!
Jon Clausen wrote:
On Sun, Nov 02, 2003 at 12:23:29AM -0500, Tom Allison wrote:
I'm been trying to set up SuSE with an IMAP server for a while yet and keep running into some deficiencies.
SuSE promotes two IMAP servers: IMAP from Univ. Wash. with mbox files Cyrus-imap with maildir files.
According to many out in the email world, mbox seems to be such a thing of the past. I've been looking at cyrus as a viable alternative and I keep getting stuck.
cyrus doesn't support procmail very well and without it there are a number of things that cannot be managed at all.
But basically Cyrus isn't *supposed* to do stuff like that. Cyrus is supposed to be sort of the 'endpoint'.
What I (and probably many others) do, is to have the MTA hand mail over to Procmail for processing, and have *procmail* call Cyrus' "deliver".
This works very well, although it *can* be a little confusing to set up initially (it was to me anyway ;)...
Among the benefits are that you can do what you want with procmail, but also that you don't involve Cyrus until it's actually *needed*.
Originally I followed this series: "How to set up IMAP on the cheap" http://www.linuxworld.com/story/32735.htm
I have found it very confusing. My "need" is to have a mail server up and running that I can understand and maintain and soon. I've been "in transition" for about a month now. It should only be a day. However I hope some day to understand all this well enough that I can turn cyrus back on and use it for something more.
On Saturday 01 November 2003 23:23, Tom Allison wrote:
I'm been trying to set up SuSE with an IMAP server for a while yet and keep running into some deficiencies.
SuSE promotes two IMAP servers: IMAP from Univ. Wash. with mbox files Cyrus-imap with maildir files.
According to many out in the email world, mbox seems to be such a thing of the past. I've been looking at cyrus as a viable alternative and I keep getting stuck.
cyrus doesn't support procmail very well and without it there are a number of things that cannot be managed at all.
For example, you cannot do a "real time" push of identified spam to the razor-agent system. I was reading through the mechanism for razor and find that it is potentially far more powerful than we give it credit for. Unfortunately it works best when spam can be reported as quickly as possible. The best way to report this that I can see is something to the tune of (in procmail)
:0:
* ^X-Spam-Level: \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*
| razor-report
which shells out an external program (razor-agent) to finish the dirty work for you in about 2 seconds after the email hit your box.
Unfortunately cyrus doesn't seem to have anything like this at all. I could do a crontab type of job, but that's either very exhaustive or slow.
My only alternative that I can see here is to revert back to an mbox format for mail delivery and forget about all this cyrus-imap business because of how they have implimented the applications.
So I guess I'm wondering if anyone has tried a mailbox based imap server at any time and if it can be configured to run from the likes of procmail (something that would provide shelling out to other applications). Otherwise I'm kind of forced into concluding that mbox / imap is about the only practical solution I have today.
I do not have a large userbase. I do not expect to exceed 100 users at any time.
Any thoughts?
Tom, I have used setups with both UW-Imap and Cyrus-Imap and found that there are several advantages to Cyrus-Imap. However, I run into a similar problem as you in just running SpamAssassin. Then I found the following website that described how to do it in detail: http://216.239.37.104/search?q=cache:Z-9ds9Sl3OAJ:moin.godoy.homeip.net:81/moin/moin.cgi/Postfix_2bSpamAssassin_2bCyrus_2dIMAPd+postfix%2Bcyrus%2Bspamassassin&hl=en&ie=UTF-8 I had to give you the google cache for it as I can't seem to get access to the real site anymore. There is a shell script there that can be used as a content_filter with PostFix and allows SpamAssassin to work properly. You could easily modify the script to add a razor-report to it and then you would have what you want. I also am implementing sieve scripting with Cyrus to deliver email to certain folders so that it is presorted and I don't have to worry about that myself. I can't answer too many questions on this a I am just implementing it right now, but I am far enough along in testing to know that it works. I hope that this helps you out. BTW, I have used this setup (without SpamAssassin) with about 4000 users, so your 100 should be no problem at all, unless they all subscribe to suse-linux-e :-) -- Kelly L. Fulks Home Account near Huntsville, AL
Tom, this is not a remedy for your help, but it can be helpful if which MTA
you want set up. Yahoo web site using Qmail both for IMAP and POP service.
But this is maybe not a good info for Linux users, Yahoo using FreeBDS for
its web services if I am not wrong...
hay
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kelly Fulks"
On Saturday 01 November 2003 23:23, Tom Allison wrote:
I'm been trying to set up SuSE with an IMAP server for a while yet and keep running into some deficiencies.
SuSE promotes two IMAP servers: IMAP from Univ. Wash. with mbox files Cyrus-imap with maildir files.
According to many out in the email world, mbox seems to be such a thing of the past. I've been looking at cyrus as a viable alternative and I keep getting stuck.
cyrus doesn't support procmail very well and without it there are a number of things that cannot be managed at all.
For example, you cannot do a "real time" push of identified spam to the razor-agent system. I was reading through the mechanism for razor and find that it is potentially far more powerful than we give it credit for. Unfortunately it works best when spam can be reported as quickly as possible. The best way to report this that I can see is something to the tune of (in procmail)
:0:
* ^X-Spam-Level: \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*
| razor-report
which shells out an external program (razor-agent) to finish the dirty work for you in about 2 seconds after the email hit your box.
Unfortunately cyrus doesn't seem to have anything like this at all. I could do a crontab type of job, but that's either very exhaustive or slow.
My only alternative that I can see here is to revert back to an mbox format for mail delivery and forget about all this cyrus-imap business because of how they have implimented the applications.
So I guess I'm wondering if anyone has tried a mailbox based imap server at any time and if it can be configured to run from the likes of procmail (something that would provide shelling out to other applications). Otherwise I'm kind of forced into concluding that mbox / imap is about the only practical solution I have today.
I do not have a large userbase. I do not expect to exceed 100 users at any time.
Any thoughts?
Tom,
I have used setups with both UW-Imap and Cyrus-Imap and found that there are several advantages to Cyrus-Imap. However, I run into a similar problem as you in just running SpamAssassin. Then I found the following website that described how to do it in detail:
http://216.239.37.104/search?q=cache:Z-9ds9Sl3OAJ:moin.godoy.homeip.net:81/m oin/moin.cgi/Postfix_2bSpamAssassin_2bCyrus_2dIMAPd+postfix%2Bcyrus%2Bspamas sassin&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
I had to give you the google cache for it as I can't seem to get access to
real site anymore. There is a shell script there that can be used as a content_filter with PostFix and allows SpamAssassin to work properly. You could easily modify the script to add a razor-report to it and then you would have what you want. I also am implementing sieve scripting with Cyrus to deliver email to certain folders so that it is presorted and I don't have to worry about that myself.
I can't answer too many questions on this a I am just implementing it right now, but I am far enough along in testing to know that it works. I hope
the that
this helps you out. BTW, I have used this setup (without SpamAssassin) with about 4000 users, so your 100 should be no problem at all, unless they all subscribe to suse-linux-e :-)
-- Kelly L. Fulks Home Account near Huntsville, AL
-- Check the headers for your unsubscription address For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the archives at http://lists.suse.com Please read the FAQs: suse-linux-e-faq@suse.com
participants (10)
-
Carlos E. R. -
Gary -
gary -
Gary -
hay hay -
Ivan Sergio Borgonovo -
Jethro Cramp -
Jon Clausen -
Kelly Fulks -
Tom Allison