Imap + Xmail, Linux only

I've found a neat IMAP/POP3 server for linux Dovecot. By default it can use CRLF style emails. It can store user info in flat file or a sql style database.

I found this when I was looking for a replacement to courier-imap. Which I do like using alot. But I'm starting to find it harder and harder to mod the new version to work with XMails CRLF style emails.

I've also found I don't have any of those wierd issue with outlook users anymore.

The big problem is that you'll have to configure xmail to run as the user dovecot instead of root (at least for now).

I'll try putting together a write up on how to easly set all this up.


PS. as a side not to couier-imap users. If you want to upgrade to the last version but don't want to mod courier's source. Heres a EZ trick I started to use right before I move to using Dovecot. (Basicly your converting the email to LF and "disabling" Xmails pop3 support and letting Courier handle all your imap/pop service needs)

1. Setup Xmail to use POP3 1110
2. Turn on Courier-imaps POP3
3. Using domain level mailproc.tab and Perl setup a script to convert all CRLF to just LR and then put it into a users Maildir/new directory.

If anyone wants a more deltailed way of doing this OR just wants the perl script just let me know.

"I'll try putting together a write up on how to easly set all this up."

Please do!

(I've tried to install it twice unsuccessfully.)

Thank you.

Didi

OK I finally found time to write this. (this is for dovecot 99.X)

(in dovecot 1.0 it'll able to auth against Xmail via a auth script. aka You'll only need to have 1 user account databases, XMAIL's YAY !!!)

Steps:

1. Install Dovecot. (rpm or Source)
From Source : http://wiki.dovecot.org/CompilingSource
From RPM : http://wiki.dovecot.org/PrebuiltBinaries

2. Edit config (my's listed below)

3. Give Dovecot permission to the domains dir under MailRoot
I used acls to do this so that Xmail can still run as root and Dovecot could still run as a non-root user. (if you rather not do this your other option is tp run xmail as the same user a dovecot See non-Acls below)

4. Set Xmail to listen on another port then 110 for pop3.
Add "-Pp 20110 " to xmail startup options.

5. Setup User Accounts.
As of 99.X of dovecot it doesn't support using a external script to check user acount info (user/password). So it needs a place to have it's own useraccount storage place.

For more ways dovecot can store user info see : http://wiki.dovecot.org/Authentication

I use " passwd-file /var/MailRoot/dovecotusers.tab" and create it from a modified xmail2smapost script called xmail2dovecot. (See xmail2dovecot below)

6. Restart Xmail
7. Startup Dovecot


Non-Acls:
To allow Xmail to so it's thing + Allow dovecot Access to XMails MailRoot. You'll need to run Xmail as the user Dovecot runs at. I found after some trial and error that is pretty easy.

What you'll need.
1. Iptables
2. su

Setup
1. Disable Xmail from starting at boot.
2. Stop Xmail
3. edit the user dovecot and chnage there shell to /bin/bash
4. Create a IPtables rule to route port 25 to 20025
Example:

5. Change permissions in MailRoot from root.root to dovecot.dovecot

6. Startup Xmail as so :

XMail2Dovecot Script
This a script that was Org. used with smartpost. And was called xmail2smartpost.php But I changed it to output All the user account info into a simple passwd/Shadow. (user@domain:MD5-password)

Download From : http://xmail.nomadcf.com/info.php?program=xmail2dovecot

After Downloading it , extract it to the MailRoot/bin/ and then edit it.
And lastly Run it as like so :

Thank you for the contrib.