Re: [Devil-Linux-discuss] Postfix and Dovecot SASL startup catch-22

[Bruce S. <br...@ar...>]

> > I've been meaning to point this out for a while; I don't reboot very
> > often so it's not a big priority.
> >
> > To use dovecot SASL with postfix you need to start dovecot first.
> > However
> > dovecot needs to create a socket in postfix jail
> > (/var/spool/postfix/private)
> > which, of course, doesn't exist until postfix is started.
> 
> Does that mean your /var/spool/postfix is not on a harddisk?
> I would highly recommend running a mail server only with the spool
> directory mounted to a harddisk.

I don't know much about Postfix (I'm a sendmail guy), but I do have
Postfix configured on a couple of DL boxes without a hard drive.
HOWEVER, it's only purpose is to SEND email, it cannot receive any email
(port 25 is blocked), so I don't have the worry about incoming email
filling up my memory.

> > What I notice is that postfix doesn't complain if
> > /var/spool/postfix/private
> > exists when it is started.
> >
> > I'm thinking that the dovecot init.d script could mkdir -p this directory
> > before starting (perhaps commented out since most users won't need it).
> 
> Anybody have any thoughts on this?

A send-only setup is the only legit reason that I can think of to run
Postfix on a diskless system.  And with this kind of setup, dovecot
doesn't serve any purpose that I can think of.  Does a send-only setup
(without dovecot) need a /var/spool/postfix/private directory?

If so, then I think a mkdir -p would be a good idea.  Otherwise, I don't
know.  I guess it wouldn't hurt to do this in the dovecot init script:

[ ! -d /var/spool/postfix/private ] && mkdir -p /var/spool/postfix/private

 - BS