local IMAP server

[Timothy Murphy]

Lewis NH2 wrote:

> I plan to go for fetchmail to retrieve the email from the ISP and
> dovecot to provide the local IMAP server. Now I am a bit unsure about
> the setup. As far as I can see, it seems that most solutions found on
> the net involves a 3rd agent, for instance procmail.
> 
> Is it possible to go only with fetchmail and dovecot? If I understood
> correctly, dovecot comes up with a LDA that can be directly evoked
> from fetchmail using the mda directive. Is this correct?
> 
> Does someone have succeed in setting such configuration up?

I do precisely this (if I understand you correctly).

1. I run dovecot on my CentOS home server.
The changes I've made to /etc/dovecot.conf are:
---------------------------
#protocols = imap imaps pop3 pop3s
protocols = imap imaps

#info_log_path =
info_log_path = /var/log/dovecot

#ssl_listen =
ssl_listen = *:993

#ssl_disable = no
ssl_disable = no

#ssl_cert_file = /etc/pki/dovecot/certs/dovecot.pem
#ssl_key_file = /etc/pki/dovecot/private/dovecot.pem
ssl_cert_file = /etc/pki/dovecot/certs/dovecot.pem
ssl_key_file = /etc/pki/dovecot/private/dovecot.pem

#   mail_location = maildir:~/Maildir
mail_location = maildir:~/Maildir
mail_debug = yes

#mailbox_idle_check_interval = 30
mailbox_idle_check_interval = 30

#maildir_copy_with_hardlinks = no
maildir_copy_with_hardlinks = yes

protocol imap {
>      listen = *:143
>      ssl_listen = *:993
---------------------------

[I created the ssl_cert and ssl_key files by running
/usr/share/doc/dovecot-1.0.7/examples/mkcert.sh ]

2. I collect email on the server from 5 sites with fetchmail.
I have entries like /etc/cron.d/fetch.maths on the server
---------------------------
5,15,25,35,45,55 * * * * tim /usr/bin/fetchmail -s pop.maths.tcd.ie
---------------------------

3. I have a stanza in .fetchmailrc for each site like
---------------------------
poll pop.gmail.com
        proto POP3
        port 995
        user "***" password "***" ssl
---------------------------
(The stanzas differ slightly for some sites,
and required a little experimentation.)

Nb I'm no dovecot guru.
If anyone can suggest improvements on the above I shall be grateful.

-- 
Timothy Murphy  
e-mail: gayleard /at/ eircom.net
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland