Oh god, what a nightmare.
Courier's IMAP server was working, but that failed this afternoon. So as well as switching to Postfix MTA, I've also switched to Dovecot.
What have I learned?
Life sure is quiet without email ;-)
Serious things I learnt: IMAP is a standard but everyone implements it differently - on the server and on the client. Documentation for seemingly common requirements (non-system user databases) sucks. Most important of all, mailservers that output meaningful errors and debug statements are a rarity. For example:
Oct 24 19:18:54 grover courier[27651]: Terminating child processes after a SIGCHILD
Oct 24 19:18:55 grover courier[27651]: Terminated child processes after a SIGCHILD
Oct 26 19:11:58 grover dovecot: Dovecot starting up
Oct 26 19:11:59 grover dovecot: Auth process died too early - shutting down
Oct 26 19:11:59 grover dovecot: child 4693 (auth) killed with signal 11
This was the thing that held things up for the longest - not being able to find out what was actually failing. Urgh.
Anyway, IMAP is back now (and as per usual with any change of IMAP server, Mail.app is resynchronising all my email to a completely different local set of folders ... *sigh*). A couple of short tests seem to indicate Postfix is behaving as expected, so once my local mailbox settles down I'll be able to open the floodgates.
We wouldn't be even close to up and running again without the help of Gianugo, Thom and Paul. Thanks, guys - I owe you many pints!
Posted by savs at October 26, 2004 10:21 PM