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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 with 

{{{
port install dovecot
}}}

== Configuration ==

Note: Du not use any of the attached files without checking / changing them with you 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_Directories.command] to do so.

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

Dovecot need to directories to work with - one to store 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 do so.

=== 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'' ===

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

== Optional Parts ==

Instead of using separate user and password files you can try set-up LDAP.

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