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= How to setup Dovecot =

 * Audience: Advanced E-Mail set-up
 * Requires: MacPorts >= 1.6, mail/dovecot, shells/zsh-devel

== Introduction ==

This How-to is part of the [wiki:howto/SetupFetchmail Fetchmail] ->  [wiki:howto/SetupPostfix Postfix] -> [wiki:howto/SetupDovecot Dovecot] advanced e-Mail set-up.

[wikipedia:Dovecot_%28software%29 Dovecot] is a simple [wikipedia:Internet_Message_Access_Protocol IMAP] server which uses the standard [wikipedia:Maildir] file format for storage.

Using an IMAP server will make your mail storage independent from you e-mail client. You cans set up multiple e-mail clients on multiple computers and access all you mail from each client. Unlike [wikipedia:Post_Office_Protocol POP] this is also true for mail sorted into folders.

== Installation ==

Install dovecot and Z-Shelkl with 

{{{
port install zsh-devel
port install dovecot
}}}

== Configuration ==

Note: Do not use any of the attached files without checking / changing them with your favourite text editor.

=== Step 1: ''create user'' ===

Dovecot will drop root privileges when they are not needed any more so you need to create an user and group for dovecot to run with. You can use the [attachment:Make_Dovecot_User.command] to do so.

=== Step 2: ''create directories'' ===

Dovecot need two directories to work with - one to store the run status, one where the mail is stored. See [wiki:howto/SetupPostfix] on how to set up postfix to make incoming mail available to dovecot. You can use the [attachment:Make_Dovecot_Directories.command] to create the directories.

=== Step 3: ''create certificates'' ===

Dovecot supports encrypted connections and while in a local network it might not be necessary you will still need to create certificate files. You can use [attachment:Make_Dovecot_Directories.command] together with [attachment:dovecot-openssl.cnf] to create the certificates. Remember to change [attachment:dovecot-openssl.cnf] - there should be no "my_" left in the file and both files need to be in the same directory.

=== Step 4: ''set-up configuration'' ===

Next you need to set up [attachment:dovecot.conf]. You find the file in {{{/opt/local/etc}}}. As a starting point you can use [attachment:dovecot.conf] together with [attachment:passwd.dovecot] and [attachment:userdb.dovecot]. You will need to add all your mail user to the [attachment:passwd.dovecot] and [attachment:userdb.dovecot].

The separate user and password files are needed since OSX does not use /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow.

=== Step 5: ''starting the server'' ===

Dovecot is started using {{{launchd}}} and a needed control file ({{{/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.macports.dovecot.plist}}}) is provides by MacPorts. The attached [attachment:Restart_Dovecot.command] command will stop and restart Dovecot which forces a re-read of the configuration files - quite helpful while debugging the system.

=== Step 6: ''testing the server'' ===

The first initial test should be done in the Terminal:

{{{
$ telnet my_computer.local imap
Trying fe80::21c:b3ff:feff:824d...
telnet: connect to address fe80::21c:b3ff:feff:824d: Connection refused
Trying 192.168.0.101...
Connected to my_computer.local.
Escape character is '^]'.
* OK [CAPABILITY IMAP4rev1 SASL-IR SORT THREAD=REFERENCES MULTIAPPEND UNSELECT LITERAL+ IDLE CHILDREN NAMESPACE LOGIN-REFERRALS STARTTLS AUTH=PLAIN AUTH=LOGIN AUTH=DIGEST-MD5 AUTH=CRAM-MD5] Dovecot ready.
1 LOGIN my_name my_password
1 OK Logged in.
2 LOGOUT
* BYE Logging out
2 OK Logout completed.
Connection closed by foreign host.
}}}

Once this works the server can be added to a real IMAP client to further test. Suitable Mac OSX EMail programms with IMAP support include [wikipedia:Mail_(application) Mail], [wikipedia:Opera_(web_browser) Opera] and [wikipedia:Kontact KMail]. The later can be installed with

{{{
port install kdepim3
}}}

== Optional Parts ==

Instead of using separate user and password files one can try set-up LDAP as user / password supply.

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