Dovecot IMAP Server
Got a reply last night about ten o’clock from one of the network engineers at my ISP.
For a few weeks, I had been trying to futz with the flags/tags in my e-mail. Specifically, I was trying to get them to be consistent between e-mail clients (‘mail readers’, like Thunderbird and Alpine), but while I could set the tags in each client, the flags weren’t getting cross-tagged between them. This is supposed to be a standard feature among IMAP e-mail clients.
So, last week I posted in one of the ISP-specific newsgroups, sonic.help, a request for suggestions, and several people - not just ISP technicians, but customers like me too - provided some insight. Two of the ISP people mentioned problems with the current public-facing IMAP server (using the ‘Courier’ application), and that they were validating in-house another application called ‘Dovecot’ (same type of application as ‘Courier’, but a different program - think ‘Coke vs. Pepsi’: the average end-user doesn’t really care which cola they drink, but aficionados care deeply about such things). I voiced my opinion that the ‘Dovecot’ server was a good thing and could they speed-up the implementation.
So, last night, I got an e-mail (and a posting in the newsgroup) directing me to the in-house server, which ports to use - et voilá - I’m using the Dovecot server. Apparently, I’m assisting in the β-test. It’s completely unsupported by the ISP’s tech-support… but I don’t think I’d have been given access if they thought I needed tech-support. It’s a nice feeling.
Oh - and another thing: That server - the Dovecot one - is fast. Noticeably fast.
Now, I realize that a good portion of it being fast is because outside of the internal corporate users, there’s practically no-one outside Sonic.net using this server; more workload as more users arrive, and it will eventually slow down. But holy crap it’s fast.
Dovecot is nice, too. It’s nice to see little things that the average end-user wouldn’t notice (but are supposed to be present) as missing, actually work the way the IMAP standards say they should work. Color me happy.
And impressed - once again - by my ISP, my beloved Sonic.net. Happy and impressed: that’s me.
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