Work Smart, Not Hard
My experience, which I gained during implementation of different systems shows, that implementation should be done in stages. Then, at each stage you can see if it works, if there are some fields to improve and then go to the next stage of implementation. Mail system implementation is not exception. We can divide this into following stages:
Basic configuration of sending and receiving mail for system users
This description is based on my experience, which I gained during mail system implementation on University of Silesia (Katowice/Poland). In the first stage there was about 3 000 of users, now the system is handling about 40 k of mail users. Whole system (exluding Sophos AV) is based on Open Source software. Their main components are:
You can download Pigeonhole for Dovecot from http://pigeonhole.dovecot.org/download.html
% wget http://www.rename-it.nl/dovecot/2.1/dovecot-2.1-pigeonhole-0.3.1.tar.gz % tar -xf dovecot-2.1-pigeonhole-0.3.1.tar.gz
This is my script to configure and compile Pigeonhole 0.3.1 for Dovecot 2.1:
Overview
Pigeonhole is the name of the project that adds support for the Sieve language (RFC 5228) and the ManageSieve protocol (RFC 5804) to the Dovecot Secure IMAP Server. In the literal sense, a pigeonhole is a a hole or recess inside a dovecot for pigeons to nest in. It is, however, also the name for one of a series of small, open compartments in a cabinet used for filing or sorting mail. As a verb, it describes the act of putting an item into one of those pigeonholes. The name `Pigeonhole’ therefore well describes an important part of the functionality that this project adds to Dovecot: sorting and filing e-mail messages.
On Linux systems you can install Dovecot from packages. Appropriate packages supports also LDAP authentication, MySQL and so on. Unfortunatelly you probably would not find a newest versions, when you install in this manner. Eg. for today in Ubuntu packages you will find version 2.0.19-0ubuntu1, while on Dovecot page version 2.1.7 is available. For this reason it is worth to compile and install software by yourself, even it is available in package.
Dovecot is an open source IMAP and POP3 email server for Linux/UNIX-like systems, written with security primarily in mind. Dovecot is an excellent choice for both small and large installations. It’s fast, simple to set up, requires no special administration and it uses very little memory.