procmail and maildir

[Erik Christiansen]

On Wed, Nov 05, 2008 at 01:43:30PM -0600, Linda wrote:
> I know how to pick up mail with fetchmail and stick it in 
> /var/mail/username as mbox format with procmail.
> I think I want to try using maildir instead of mbox format with dovecot. 

ISTR that dovecot supports mbox format as well, so maybe you've found
some benefit in maildir. Quicker, for multiple users?

> Every example I can find has you create maildir set up in the /home/user 
> - Is there a reason you would not have the incoming mail stored on 
> /var/mail or anything I should know about setting this up?

Haven't tried maildir, these last several decades, so can't advise on
that format, except to say I've always kept user's mbox format mail in
/var/mail, and can't see the proliferation of files in maildirs being an
issue. 

> It just seems if I keep the mail boxes for the imap server in /var it
> makes it easy to move it in the future to NFS or an additional hard
> drive if I need more space. It also makes mail backup easier since I
> can just back up /var/mail.

Backing up unread mail may be more important than mail which has been
read and resides in /home/xxy/mail/, but /home usually has to be backed
up anyway. While it's traditional to have unread mail in /var/mail, it's
probably easier to impose quotas on disk hogs if delivered mail is in
home trees, whether read or not.

When providing mail on NFS, it'd be as easy to provide the home
directories as well? (Unless the users are doing a lot of compiles, or
similar, I'll admit.)

Hmmm, more questions than answers, I'm afraid, other than to say I think
your proposed method is valid, and the benefits depend largely on the
use case.

Erik

>               Thanks Linda
> 
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