Re: competition

[Bron Gondwana]

On Wed, Sep 22, 2010 at 07:50:25AM +0200, Simon Matter wrote:
> >
> >> Debian is still stuck on 2.2 and there seems to be no progress in that
> >> area.
> >>
> >> The main problem they apparently have, is the migration path for the
> >> various
> >> DB files from 2.2 to 2.3.
> >> (The 2.3 version itself works fine as .deb packages)
> >
> > What "migration path"?  Cyrus 2.3 supports all of the same database
> > backends that Cyrus 2.2 did.
> 
> I don't know the Debian packages well but from a quick look I did long
> time ago it seems like those packages leave quite some work to do by the
> user of the packages. That also means there are more ways for a user to
> break things which may stop them making the 2.3 packages go in easily.
> 
> >
> > To the best of my knowledge, you can drop in Cyrus 2.3 binaries, and
> > with the same config files as 2.2 used, everything will just work.
> > You can't easily go back, because I believe that 2.3 will update
> > cyrus.index files to a format which 2.2 doesn't recognize, but that
> > shouldn't prevent anyone from upgrading.
> 
> IIRC it's a little bit more complicated. Beside BDB, there are also some
> steps to do at upgrade, like compiling sieve scripts, possibly converting
> its encoding. With BDB backends you have to make sure everything fits
> correctly. Binaries need to be linked against the correct version of BDB
> and also the on disk BDB files need to be of the same version. Now, think
> you want to do a distribution upgrade which comes with the latest greatest
> BDB release and new Cyrus binaries which are using them, but your spool is
> still on the old release... We all know how this ends.
> The only solution - you can call it dirty workaround - I found for our
> RedHat EL RPMs was to convert all BDB databases to skiplist on Cyrus
> shutdown and convert them back on startup. That way the spool is always in
> a state which can be migrated once Cyrus is shutdown.
> Of course getting rid of any BDB in the default configuration of the RPM
> binaries has helped much to prevent BDB mess.

Now - BDB database SHOULD be upgradable.  I want to find a BDB expert
to help me with that - (a) detecting that an upgrade is necessary, and
(b) doing the upgrade.

I've already changed ctl_cyrusdb -r (run on startup) to automatically
convert between skiplist, bdb and bdb-hash formats based on reading
the magic at the start of the file on disk.

So the only thing really left to do is making sure we can upgrade
BDB databases automatically.  Sure downgrades will suck, but that's
not quite so scary.


 given the issues with BDB.  Is it worth embedding a copy of
BDB into the Cyrus distribution rather than using the OS one?  I
know it's generally considered bad taste, but it sure makes
keeping in sync easier!

Bron ( the downside being security issue tracking, of course )

Cyrus Home Page: http://www.cyrusimap.org/
List Archives/Info: http://lists.andrew.cmu.edu/pipermail/info-cyrus/

Re: competition

[Simon Matter]

> On 9/20/2010 8:59 AM, Marc Patermann wrote:
>> And still, if someone asks a mailing list (not here certainly) how to
>> start with IMAPd, many people shout, to go with dovecot and not using
>> Cyrus.
>
> Hi -
>
> A little late to this thread, but here are a couple of modest
> observations:
>
> 1.
> I have cyrus and dovecot installations (with postfix smtp).  dovecot
> doesn't support an lmtp transport, which I finally decided was a deal
> killer.  In our (~1000 user) dovecot system, we're using procmail to
> ferry messages from the smtp server to dovecot deliver.  One very
> disturbing recent finding is that with some regularity messages are not
> being delivered with no notification to the sender -- they just get
> dropped. We think it's an ldap authentication problem, but it doesn't
> really matter what the cause is:  mail should either be delivered or
> someone should find out that it wasn't withough having to snoop around
> in log files.   Procmail is *supposed* to send this stuff back up the
> pipe when something goes wrong, but it's not happening.  Using lmtp is
> clean and simple and affords the administrator a huge amount of
> flexibility when using postfix:
>
>   mailbox_transport = lmtp:unix:/var/run/cyrus/socket/lmtp
>
> This doesn't work with dovecot; you have to use the mailbox_command.

I think dovecot now has LMTP support in the latest (dev?) version.

> That said, after spending the summer on the cyrus-devel list, I have a
> lot of confidence in the work that particularly Bron Gondwana has been
> doing and think that with -- with an infusion of some clear
> documentation, a project I'm more than happy to contribute to -- cyrus
> can probably become the default open source imap server.

Documentation is one thing, and dependencies like BDB another. But there
is something else I guess, for servers which are not dedicated mail
server, it would be really nice if one could install Cyrus and it just
works for every user having an account on the system. That can be done
with the autocreate patches but they are also not included in Cyrus. In
fact, Cyrus could have two main modes, one for dedicated, sealed mail
servers and one for "allround" servers with user accounts.

Simon


Cyrus Home Page: http://www.cyrusimap.org/
List Archives/Info: http://lists.andrew.cmu.edu/pipermail/info-cyrus/

Re: competition

[Simon Matter]

>
>> Debian is still stuck on 2.2 and there seems to be no progress in that
>> area.
>>
>> The main problem they apparently have, is the migration path for the
>> various
>> DB files from 2.2 to 2.3.
>> (The 2.3 version itself works fine as .deb packages)
>
> What "migration path"?  Cyrus 2.3 supports all of the same database
> backends that Cyrus 2.2 did.

I don't know the Debian packages well but from a quick look I did long
time ago it seems like those packages leave quite some work to do by the
user of the packages. That also means there are more ways for a user to
break things which may stop them making the 2.3 packages go in easily.

>
> To the best of my knowledge, you can drop in Cyrus 2.3 binaries, and
> with the same config files as 2.2 used, everything will just work.
> You can't easily go back, because I believe that 2.3 will update
> cyrus.index files to a format which 2.2 doesn't recognize, but that
> shouldn't prevent anyone from upgrading.

IIRC it's a little bit more complicated. Beside BDB, there are also some
steps to do at upgrade, like compiling sieve scripts, possibly converting
its encoding. With BDB backends you have to make sure everything fits
correctly. Binaries need to be linked against the correct version of BDB
and also the on disk BDB files need to be of the same version. Now, think
you want to do a distribution upgrade which comes with the latest greatest
BDB release and new Cyrus binaries which are using them, but your spool is
still on the old release... We all know how this ends.
The only solution - you can call it dirty workaround - I found for our
RedHat EL RPMs was to convert all BDB databases to skiplist on Cyrus
shutdown and convert them back on startup. That way the spool is always in
a state which can be migrated once Cyrus is shutdown.
Of course getting rid of any BDB in the default configuration of the RPM
binaries has helped much to prevent BDB mess.

Simon


Cyrus Home Page: http://www.cyrusimap.org/
List Archives/Info: http://lists.andrew.cmu.edu/pipermail/info-cyrus/

Re: competition

[Patrick Goetz]

On 9/20/2010 8:59 AM, Marc Patermann wrote:
> And still, if someone asks a mailing list (not here certainly) how to 
> start with IMAPd, many people shout, to go with dovecot and not using Cyrus.

Hi -

A little late to this thread, but here are a couple of modest observations:

1.
I have cyrus and dovecot installations (with postfix smtp).  dovecot
doesn't support an lmtp transport, which I finally decided was a deal
killer.  In our (~1000 user) dovecot system, we're using procmail to
ferry messages from the smtp server to dovecot deliver.  One very
disturbing recent finding is that with some regularity messages are not
being delivered with no notification to the sender -- they just get
dropped. We think it's an ldap authentication problem, but it doesn't
really matter what the cause is:  mail should either be delivered or
someone should find out that it wasn't withough having to snoop around
in log files.   Procmail is *supposed* to send this stuff back up the
pipe when something goes wrong, but it's not happening.  Using lmtp is
clean and simple and affords the administrator a huge amount of
flexibility when using postfix:

  mailbox_transport = lmtp:unix:/var/run/cyrus/socket/lmtp

This doesn't work with dovecot; you have to use the mailbox_command.

2.
I hate Maildir, and Maildir+ is a kludge.  I have some users whose mail
folders are nested multiple levels deep, and when push comes to shove
it's nice to be able to use the file system to examine mail messages
easily.  dovecot will eventually support some new format called dbox,
but when I asked him about it, the dovecot developer told me that it's
not production quality yet.  The simple filesystem mail message
interface is another thing I like about cyrus.

3.
So, why the sudden popularity of dovecot?  It could come down to
documentation.  The cyrus documentation currently is beyond terrible.
Dovecot has an excellent wiki which covers an awful lot of use cases.
Further, the dovecot developer (I think there's only one) is a nice guy
whom you can frequently find on IRC.  I've learned a lot about debugging
imap problems directly from him.

That said, after spending the summer on the cyrus-devel list, I have a
lot of confidence in the work that particularly Bron Gondwana has been
doing and think that with -- with an infusion of some clear
documentation, a project I'm more than happy to contribute to -- cyrus
can probably become the default open source imap server.



Cyrus Home Page: http://www.cyrusimap.org/
List Archives/Info: http://lists.andrew.cmu.edu/pipermail/info-cyrus/

Re: competition

[Jeffrey T Eaton]

> Debian is still stuck on 2.2 and there seems to be no progress in that area.
> 
> The main problem they apparently have, is the migration path for the various
> DB files from 2.2 to 2.3.
> (The 2.3 version itself works fine as .deb packages)

What "migration path"?  Cyrus 2.3 supports all of the same database
backends that Cyrus 2.2 did.

To the best of my knowledge, you can drop in Cyrus 2.3 binaries, and
with the same config files as 2.2 used, everything will just work.
You can't easily go back, because I believe that 2.3 will update
cyrus.index files to a format which 2.2 doesn't recognize, but that
shouldn't prevent anyone from upgrading.

-jeaton


Cyrus Home Page: http://www.cyrusimap.org/
List Archives/Info: http://lists.andrew.cmu.edu/pipermail/info-cyrus/

Issue with corrupted mailboxes and imapd -s connections

[David Jablonski]

We had a server crash and have some mailboxes with corruption issues.
We are running reconstructs on those mailboxes but unfortunately they
have a lot of messages and are taking a long time so we have the mail
server running and are telling our users not to access those mailboxes.

The issue is when they do the connection gets created and that imapd -s
process never dies even though the connection to the folder doesn't
work.  I have been individually killing them off myself but is there
anyway to set some sort of timeout on these processes so that these
processes eventually die?  Currently they are just churning and using a
lot of memory and taking connections as we have limited the amount of
connections based on memory constraints.

If you need more information from me please let me know...thanks...

This is the error we see in the maillog:

Sep 21 09:30:46 mailserver imaps[20968]: imaps TLS negotiation failed:
 [ip.add.ress]
Sep 21 09:30:46 mailserver imaps[20968]: Fatal error:
tls_start_servertls() failed

I scrubbed the connection details.  Thanks...


Relevent config info:

cyrus.conf:

# standard standalone server implementation

START {
  # do not delete this entry!
  recover   cmd="ctl_cyrusdb -r"

  # this is only necessary if using idled for IMAP IDLE
  idled cmd="idled"
}

# UNIX sockets start with a slash and are put into /var/lib/imap/sockets
SERVICES {
  # add or remove based on preferences
  imap  cmd="imapd" listen="imap" prefork=2 maxchild=20
  imaps cmd="imapd -s" listen="imaps" prefork=1 maxchild=230
#  pop3 cmd="pop3d" listen="pop3" prefork=0
#  pop3scmd="pop3d -s" listen="pop3s" prefork=0
  sieve cmd="timsieved" listen="sieve" prefork=0

  # these are only necessary if receiving/exporting usenet via NNTP
#  nntp cmd="nntpd" listen="nntp" prefork=3
#  nntpscmd="nntpd -s" listen="nntps" prefork=1

  # at least one LMTP is required for delivery
  lmtp  cmd="lmtpd -a" listen="lmtp" prefork=0
  lmtpunix  cmd="lmtpd" listen="/var/lib/imap/socket/lmtp" prefork=1

  # this is only necessary if using notifications
#  notify   cmd="notifyd" listen="/var/lib/imap/socket/notify" proto="udp"
prefork=1
}

EVENTS {
  # this is required
  checkpointcmd="ctl_cyrusdb -c" period=30

  # this is only necessary if using duplicate delivery suppression,
  # Sieve or NNTP
  delprune  cmd="cyr_expire -E 3" at=0400

  # this is only necessary if caching TLS sessions
  tlsprune  cmd="tls_prune" at=0430

Cyrus Home Page: http://www.cyrusimap.org/
List Archives/Info: http://lists.andrew.cmu.edu/pipermail/info-cyrus/

Re: competition

[Adam Tauno Williams]

On Tue, 2010-09-21 at 14:14 +0200, Marc Patermann wrote:
> Hi,
> Adam Tauno Williams schrieb am 21.09.2010 12:04 Uhr:
> > On Tue, 2010-09-21 at 11:44 +0200, Marc Patermann wrote:
> >> André Schild schrieb am 21.09.2010 10:40 Uhr:
> >>> Am 21.09.2010 09:31, schrieb Pascal Gienger:
>  I begin to be tired from this "dovecot is much more besser, you
>   HAVE TO USE IT", why don't you migrate, ... ...?
> >> Yes, I'm too. But this is what you see in forums and mailing list.
> >> And my post is intended to see what the Cyrus community can do to
> >> /explain/ the product any better.
> > "Be there" is the only thing I can think of.  The only way to counter
> >  advocates is to be one.
> Yes, "Be there" - but "Be prepared" and have something to point to: "See
> it is easy and all there, dude!"
> >>> One important thing is the documentation of the imap server, and
> >>>  there cyrus could offer more (Just my opinion)
> >> The new web site is a good start. We should start a best practice
> >> section in the wiki. - How do I install Cyrus on Debian/Ubuntu/...?
> > Ugh, please no.  Distro specific directions are lame, pointless, and 
> > unmaintainable [beyond possibly packages-are-here].
> Yes, you're right. But in many cases it just point to somewhere else,
> which might be better than having nothing.
> For Ubuntu there is a howto: http://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/Cyrus_IMAPD and
> what do you get? 2.2.13 - uargh:
> http://packages.ubuntu.com/lucid/cyrus-imapd-2.2
> That may not be, what we want.

It is an Ubuntu wiki - *of course* it is out of date.  And probably
wrong/bad in the first place.

> > Once the packages are installed setting up is essentially the same
> > everywhere.
> Yes. But "install" is always first. If you do not get the user to get it
> installed, everything else is useless.
> 
> If you were a newbie and most people were trying to talk you away from
> Cyrus and there is no deb or rpm, would you try to compile the software 
> yourself?

There are RPMs.  The first Bing result for "cyrus-imapd rpm".

So, while I understand your point, I don't think the situation is as
dire as building-from-source.

> >> - From single server to multi server? - How to start with
> >> partitions and why? - Where to get latest releases (rpm/deb) when
> >> is not in my distriburtion (simon matter etc.)? - Everyone is
> >> talking about "Push-Mail" - how to do it with Cyrus?
> > It just happens if you your client supports IMAP idle.
> _I_ know that. :)
> It is just one example what I think user could search for. And "Push 
> mail" IMHO was one of the email buzz words of the last few years.
> > K9 on the Android seems to work very well with Cyrus in the 'push'
> > mode.  Although I've noticed users usually turn it off within a
> > couple of weeks - really, nobody wants push-mail once they have it.
> I disagree.

That IMAP idle works, or that people don't actually want push?

> >> - What if I want "Groupware" later, can I still use Cyrus? (link to
> >> projects supporting Cyrus, OX etc)
> > Shameless self promotion -I have a chapter on Cyrus in WMOGAG 
> > (OpenGroupware Administrator's Guide) 
> >  
> > I've gotten quite a few compliments on it.
> You could put your "Shameless self promotion" in the wiki then. :)

It certainly isn't an 'official' Cyrus project document, so I'm hesitant
to do so.



Cyrus Home Page: http://www.cyrusimap.org/
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Repos [Was: competition]

[Adam Tauno Williams]

On Tue, 2010-09-21 at 12:25 +0200, Syren Baran wrote:
> Am Dienstag, den 21.09.2010, 11:48 +0200 schrieb André Schild:
> > Am 21.09.2010 11:35, schrieb Simon Matter:
> > >> I don't know, where this bad karma is coming from - I'm still happy with
> > > I guess it's simply because for many years there were no clean packages
> > > for the most used operating systems.
> > Debian is still stuck on 2.2 and there seems to be no progress in that area.
> Most people like to use versions from repositories. For obvious reasons.
> Might make sense for cyrus to host their own repository. If it's just a
> simple entry in sources.list(.d) more people would use the recent
> version.

The OBS supports just about every distro there is;  why not host there?
It is setup already, and free.



Distributions include:
openSUSE 11.0 - 11.3
SLES 9 - 11
Debian 5
Fedora 10 -
CentOS5
RHEL4 & RHEL5
The myriad Ubuntus


Cyrus Home Page: http://www.cyrusimap.org/
List Archives/Info: http://lists.andrew.cmu.edu/pipermail/info-cyrus/

Re: competition

[Claus]

Hi,

> [...]
> The new web site is a good start.
> We should start a best practice section in the wiki.
> - How do I install Cyrus on Debian/Ubuntu/...?
> - From single server to multi server?
> - How to start with partitions and why?
> - Where to get latest releases (rpm/deb) when is not in my
>distriburtion (simon matter etc.)?

I think this may also be a problem: Where to get up to date packages?

In Debian they are still on Version 2.2.13. And Ubuntu probably also. And as 
Squeeze will be finished sooner or later, they will still have the 2.2.13 
packages in their repositories.

Having a repository with the latest 2.3 and then the 2.4 cyrus versions would 
be a good thing.

This helps in getting a working cyrus server for not only newbie users.

But I know that keeping a seperate repository is quite a lot of work.

Best regards,

Claus

Cyrus Home Page: http://www.cyrusimap.org/
List Archives/Info: http://lists.andrew.cmu.edu/pipermail/info-cyrus/

Re: competition

[Marc Patermann]

Hi,

Adam Tauno Williams schrieb am 21.09.2010 12:04 Uhr:
> On Tue, 2010-09-21 at 11:44 +0200, Marc Patermann wrote:
>> André Schild schrieb am 21.09.2010 10:40 Uhr:
>>> Am 21.09.2010 09:31, schrieb Pascal Gienger:

 I begin to be tired from this "dovecot is much more besser, you
  HAVE TO USE IT", why don't you migrate, ... ...?
>> Yes, I'm too. But this is what you see in forums and mailing list.
>> And my post is intended to see what the Cyrus community can do to
>> /explain/ the product any better.
> "Be there" is the only thing I can think of.  The only way to counter
>  advocates is to be one.
Yes, "Be there" - but "Be prepared" and have something to point to: "See
it is easy and all there, dude!"

>>> One important thing is the documentation of the imap server, and
>>>  there cyrus could offer more (Just my opinion)
>> The new web site is a good start. We should start a best practice
>> section in the wiki. - How do I install Cyrus on Debian/Ubuntu/...?
>> 
> 
> Ugh, please no.  Distro specific directions are lame, pointless, and 
> unmaintainable [beyond possibly packages-are-here].
Yes, you're right. But in many cases it just point to somewhere else,
which might be better than having nothing.
For Ubuntu there is a howto: http://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/Cyrus_IMAPD and
what do you get? 2.2.13 - uargh:
http://packages.ubuntu.com/lucid/cyrus-imapd-2.2
That may not be, what we want.

> Once the packages are installed setting up is essentially the same
> everywhere.
Yes. But "install" is always first. If you do not get the user to get it
installed, everything else is useless.

If you were a newbie and most people were trying to talk you away from
Cyrus and there is no deb or rpm, would you try to compile the software 
yourself?

>> - From single server to multi server? - How to start with
>> partitions and why? - Where to get latest releases (rpm/deb) when
>> is not in my distriburtion (simon matter etc.)? - Everyone is
>> talking about "Push-Mail" - how to do it with Cyrus?
> It just happens if you your client supports IMAP idle.
_I_ know that. :)
It is just one example what I think user could search for. And "Push 
mail" IMHO was one of the email buzz words of the last few years.

> K9 on the Android seems to work very well with Cyrus in the 'push'
> mode.  Although I've noticed users usually turn it off within a
> couple of weeks - really, nobody wants push-mail once they have it.
I disagree.

>> - What if I want "Groupware" later, can I still use Cyrus? (link to
>> projects supporting Cyrus, OX etc)
> Shameless self promotion -I have a chapter on Cyrus in WMOGAG 
> (OpenGroupware Administrator's Guide) 
>  
> I've gotten quite a few compliments on it.
You could put your "Shameless self promotion" in the wiki then. :)


Marc

Cyrus Home Page: http://www.cyrusimap.org/
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Re: competition

[J. Roeleveld]

On Tuesday 21 September 2010 11:44:45 Marc Patermann wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> André Schild schrieb am 21.09.2010 10:40 Uhr:
> > Am 21.09.2010 09:31, schrieb Pascal Gienger:



> > One important thing is the documentation of the imap server, and
> > there cyrus could offer more (Just my opinion)
> 
> The new web site is a good start.
> We should start a best practice section in the wiki.
> - How do I install Cyrus on Debian/Ubuntu/...?
> - From single server to multi server?
> - How to start with partitions and why?
> - Where to get latest releases (rpm/deb) when is not in my
>distriburtion (simon matter etc.)?
> - Everyone is talking about "Push-Mail" - how to do it with Cyrus?
> - What if I want "Groupware" later, can I still use Cyrus?
>(link to projects supporting Cyrus, OX etc)
> - I want to have virtual users in LDAP/RDBMS - how to do it?
> There may be much more basic task which may be well know to us but would
> be interesting to newbies to know.

Don't forget one of the most important details (which I think should be listed 
right after "how to install / configure"):
- How do I backup and restore my email?
(eg. what needs to be backed up and what can be "rebuild")

> Just my 2 Cent

And mine, makes 4 cents :)

--
Joost

Cyrus Home Page: http://www.cyrusimap.org/
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Re: Re: competition

[Syren Baran]

Am Dienstag, den 21.09.2010, 11:48 +0200 schrieb André Schild:
> Am 21.09.2010 11:35, schrieb Simon Matter:
> >> I don't know, where this bad karma is coming from - I'm still happy with
> > I guess it's simply because for many years there were no clean packages
> > for the most used operating systems.
> >
> Debian is still stuck on 2.2 and there seems to be no progress in that area.

Most people like to use versions from repositories. For obvious reasons.

Might make sense for cyrus to host their own repository. If it's just a
simple entry in sources.list(.d) more people would use the recent
version.

Greetings,
Syren Baran

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<>
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Re: competition

[Adam Tauno Williams]

On Tue, 2010-09-21 at 11:44 +0200, Marc Patermann wrote:
> Hi,
> André Schild schrieb am 21.09.2010 10:40 Uhr:
> > Am 21.09.2010 09:31, schrieb Pascal Gienger:
> >> I begin to be tired from this "dovecot is much more besser, you 
> >> HAVE TO USE IT", why don't you migrate, ... ...?
> Yes, I'm too. But this is what you see in forums and mailing list. And
> my post is intended to see what the Cyrus community can do to /explain/ 
> the product any better.

"Be there" is the only thing I can think of.  The only way to counter
advocates is to be one.

> > 2. Newbies, which do not know cyrus, they just ask for advice and a 
> > simple starter experience with the imap server. In the last month 
> > there has been much posts of type "Dovecot is the 
> > greates/simples/best/etc. " So the new users are very likely to go to
> >  dovecot instead of cyrus, because of "advices" from other internet 
> > users.
> This is my experience, too.

Yep.  Also, for some reason, many people have the opinion that Cyrus is
'arcane' in some way.  I honestly have no idea where that comes from
except perhaps from the dreadful state of the documentation.  But over
the years I've been able to fairly easily figure out what I need to
know.

> > One important thing is the documentation of the imap server, and 
> > there cyrus could offer more (Just my opinion)
> The new web site is a good start.
> We should start a best practice section in the wiki.
> - How do I install Cyrus on Debian/Ubuntu/...?

Ugh, please no.  Distro specific directions are lame, pointless, and
unmaintainable [beyond possibly packages-are-here].  Once the packages
are installed setting up is essentially the same everywhere.

> - From single server to multi server?
> - How to start with partitions and why?
> - Where to get latest releases (rpm/deb) when is not in my
>distriburtion (simon matter etc.)?
> - Everyone is talking about "Push-Mail" - how to do it with Cyrus?

It just happens if you your client supports IMAP idle.  K9 on the
Android seems to work very well with Cyrus in the 'push' mode.  Although
I've noticed users usually turn it off within a couple of weeks -
really, nobody wants push-mail once they have it.

> - What if I want "Groupware" later, can I still use Cyrus?
>(link to projects supporting Cyrus, OX etc)

Shameless self promotion -I have a chapter on Cyrus in WMOGAG
(OpenGroupware Administrator's Guide)

I've gotten quite a few compliments on it.

> - I want to have virtual users in LDAP/RDBMS - how to do it?
> There may be much more basic task which may be well know to us but would 
> be interesting to newbies to know.
> IMHO the "What is Cyrus?" page should be worked over. Why do we not talk 
> about who is using Cyrus IMAPd and how - "Success Stories" (fastmail.fm?)?

-- 
Adam Tauno Williams  LPIC-1, Novell CLA

OpenGroupware, Cyrus IMAPd, Postfix, OpenLDAP, Samba


Cyrus Home Page: http://www.cyrusimap.org/
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Re: competition

[André Schild]

  Am 21.09.2010 11:35, schrieb Simon Matter:
>> I don't know, where this bad karma is coming from - I'm still happy with
> I guess it's simply because for many years there were no clean packages
> for the most used operating systems.
>
Debian is still stuck on 2.2 and there seems to be no progress in that area.

The main problem they apparently have, is the migration path for the various
DB files from 2.2 to 2.3.
(The 2.3 version itself works fine as .deb packages)

André

Cyrus Home Page: http://www.cyrusimap.org/
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Re: competition

[Marc Patermann]

Hi,

André Schild schrieb am 21.09.2010 10:40 Uhr:
> Am 21.09.2010 09:31, schrieb Pascal Gienger:

>> I begin to be tired from this "dovecot is much more besser, you 
>> HAVE TO USE IT", why don't you migrate, ... ...?
Yes, I'm too. But this is what you see in forums and mailing list. And
my post is intended to see what the Cyrus community can do to /explain/ 
the product any better.

> 2. Newbies, which do not know cyrus, they just ask for advice and a 
> simple starter experience with the imap server. In the last month 
> there has been much posts of type "Dovecot is the 
> greates/simples/best/etc. " So the new users are very likely to go to
>  dovecot instead of cyrus, because of "advices" from other internet 
> users.
This is my experience, too.

> One important thing is the documentation of the imap server, and 
> there cyrus could offer more (Just my opinion)
The new web site is a good start.
We should start a best practice section in the wiki.
- How do I install Cyrus on Debian/Ubuntu/...?
- From single server to multi server?
- How to start with partitions and why?
- Where to get latest releases (rpm/deb) when is not in my
   distriburtion (simon matter etc.)?
- Everyone is talking about "Push-Mail" - how to do it with Cyrus?
- What if I want "Groupware" later, can I still use Cyrus?
   (link to projects supporting Cyrus, OX etc)
- I want to have virtual users in LDAP/RDBMS - how to do it?
There may be much more basic task which may be well know to us but would 
be interesting to newbies to know.

IMHO the "What is Cyrus?" page should be worked over. Why do we not talk 
about who is using Cyrus IMAPd and how - "Success Stories" (fastmail.fm?)?


Just my 2 Cent


Marc

Cyrus Home Page: http://www.cyrusimap.org/
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Re: competition

[Simon Matter]

> I don't know, where this bad karma is coming from - I'm still happy with

I guess it's simply because for many years there were no clean packages
for the most used operating systems.

Simon


Cyrus Home Page: http://www.cyrusimap.org/
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RE: competition

[Michel Sébastien]

>> where does Cyrus IMAPd stand today?
>> When I was starting to think about moving to a open source mail system
>> (migrating away from Lotus Domino btw.), there ware Cyrus IMAPd, Courier
>> and UW-IMAP I think.
>> Cyrus was the only "full flavored" IMAP server with active development.
>> We were going the 2.2. path, while 2.3 seemed to "fresh". So there was
>> development.
>> On the other side there were still many people complaining about Cyrus
>> being too complex and too unstable with all the BDB fiddlings.
>>
>> Then dovecot emerged and quickly evolved. I don't know why,

> I begin to be tired from this "dovecot is much more besser, you HAVE TO USE 
> IT", why don't you migrate, ... ...?
>
> For me, this is a typical open source crowd behaviour. If one product tends 
> to have better results, change immediately on the faster running > train 
> (which is believed to run faster) and to dump the reliable solution 
> immediately, beginning to do advocacy in all forums, newsgroups and > 
> discussion groups to tell people that the new product is even better than 
> sliced bread.

Personally I like the competition, it encourage the continuous improvement of 
open source software. Dovecot has some good ideas or design solutions (see this 
rackspace document about Dovecot. It indicates that Apple did the switch from 
Cyrus to Dovecot  http://www.dovecot.org/talks/macsysadmin-2009-09-16.pdf )

We run Cyrus for years and are happy with it. We host nearly 30 million 
mailboxes on our biggest platform. But begin to have mailboxes with hundreds of 
thousands of emails and it becomes difficult to balance the storage. I don't 
know what is really sharding in dovecot, but I would like to have a virtual 
storage in Cyrus (emails localized in an IMAP folder stored on several storage 
nodes).

Sébastien


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Re: competition

[André Schild]

Am 21.09.2010 09:31, schrieb Pascal Gienger:
> I begin to be tired from this "dovecot is much more besser, you HAVE TO USE 
> IT", why don't you migrate, ... ...?

I think we have two different cases to consider:

1. Experienced users, running a cyrus installation for several months/years.
 Here I see no "danger" that they switch over to another imap 
project, unless
 that project provides better "overall experience" for the them.
 Running cyrus since ~8 years now, we don't intend to switch to 
another project.

2. Newbies, which do not know cyrus, they just ask for advice and a 
simple starter
 experience with the imap server.
 In the last month there has been much posts of type "Dovecot is the 
greates/simples/best/etc. "
 So the new users are very likely to go to dovecot instead of cyrus, 
because of "advices"
 from other internet users.

So I think we should take care, that cyrus is not loosing new users, 
because the
userbase will shrink over the years, compared to dovecot.

One important thing is the documentation of the imap server,
and there cyrus could offer more (Just my opinion)

Also the SASL stuff is not first-user friendly (But very powerfull when 
understood)
So helping new users in this area would probably also help for getting 
cyrus "recommendations" for new users.


André


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Re: Is the statuscache.db patch part of Cyrus now?

[Bron Gondwana]

On Tue, Sep 21, 2010 at 12:38:32PM +0530, Shuvam Misra wrote:
> Is this patch: 
> 
> http://www.mail-archive.com/cyrus-de...@lists.andrew.cmu.edu/msg01194.html
> 
> part of Cyrus now? We recently read a post from one friend who said he's
> using this patch as part of the optimisations for his large setup.

Yes - and it's been rewritten a bit in the soon to be released 2.4 :)
Mainly to make it a bit cheaper per access, and more likely to have
fresh data in it.

Bron.

Cyrus Home Page: http://www.cyrusimap.org/
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Re: competition

[Pascal Gienger]

Le 20 sept. 2010 à 15:59, Marc Patermann a écrit :

> Hi,
> 
> where does Cyrus IMAPd stand today?
> When I was starting to think about moving to a open source mail system 
> (migrating away from Lotus Domino btw.), there ware Cyrus IMAPd, Courier 
> and UW-IMAP I think.
> Cyrus was the only "full flavored" IMAP server with active development. 
> We were going the 2.2. path, while 2.3 seemed to "fresh". So there was 
> development.
> On the other side there were still many people complaining about Cyrus 
> being too complex and too unstable with all the BDB fiddlings.
> 
> Then dovecot emerged and quickly evolved. I don't know why,

I begin to be tired from this "dovecot is much more besser, you HAVE TO USE 
IT", why don't you migrate, ... ...?

For me, this is a typical open source crowd behaviour. If one product tends to 
have better results, change immediately on the faster running train (which is 
believed to run faster) and to dump the reliable solution immediately, 
beginning to do advocacy in all forums, newsgroups and discussion groups to 
tell people that the new product is even better than sliced bread.

Today it is dovecot, tomorrow it can be .

This kind of advocacy kills capacities, kills work time (because you have to 
tell to your boss why it is not a good idea to dump the existing installation 
only because another linux guy plotted out some coloured powerpoint slides 
stating that dovecot is the way to go) and focusses on the wrong side of the 
story.

Cyrus has been proven to be reliable for over ten years. The security record 
for Cyrus is quite high. It runs perfectly on our infrastructure. It is still 
actively developed. Until now, it does not hurt any performance barrier and 
staff is trained with it.
Just to change because numbers seem to be better or an IMHO arrogant founder 
offers "1000 euros if you can hack my server" (which is like being in a 
kindergarden from my point of view) is not a viable option. Image the cost of 
training staff to a new system. And even a "easy migration path" often turns 
out to get downtime. Downtime - for nothing you get "in plus" - no service will 
be "better" - it is far worse: as your staff isn't experienced with dovecot you 
likely will do more errors in administering ist.

As for a new installation, that can be another case. 

We are very satisfied with the performance and flexibility Cyrus IMAP gives to 
us. There's no need to change apart from being "in head with the open source 
advocacy croud".

-- 
Pascal Gienger Jabber/XMPP/Mail: pascal.gien...@uni-konstanz.de
University of Konstanz, IT Services Department ("Rechenzentrum")
Electronic Communications and Web Services
Building V, Room V404, Phone +49 7531 88 5048, Fax +49 7531 88 3739

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Is the statuscache.db patch part of Cyrus now?

[Shuvam Misra]

Is this patch: 

http://www.mail-archive.com/cyrus-de...@lists.andrew.cmu.edu/msg01194.html

part of Cyrus now? We recently read a post from one friend who said he's
using this patch as part of the optimisations for his large setup.

regards,
Shuvam

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