Change dovecot mail location of index and control files (dovecot-uidlist) to ~/Maildir

Virtualmin
1

Hi,
I would like to change the mail location of index and control files uid files from /var/lib/dovecot-virtualmin/ to the default place of ~/Maildir.

Before I do it I want to ask why was this choice made, in case I am missing something.

Is there any functionality in virtualmin that would be lost if I make the change?
Is the uid files placed in /var/lib/dovecot-virtualmin/ for security reasons?

The reason I want to make the change is because I sync home folders with a backup server and I occassionally transfer mail server to the backup server for maintenance reasons on the original server.

I used to have courier as an imap and pop server but I switched recently to dovecot. Courier stored uid files in home folders, so when I transfered mail server to the backup server, pop clients did not complain. Now they cannot find uid files and they download all messages again.

Copying uid files in /var/lib/dovecot-virtualmin/ to the backup server complicates things in my setup, so I am considering changing the default mail location of dovecot index and control files to the default place of ~/Maildir

Should I make the change?

2

Howdy,

Different Linux distributions have that defaulting to different locations.

Either location can work great! It’s no problem to have those index files located in the users home directory.

If your /var directory were on a different partition – having those index files stored in /var would prevent any possible corruption if the users quota were to fill up.

Though, in theory, you don’t technically need to backup the index files, they would all be regenerated whenever the user logs in next.

However, it should be no problem to move those to ~/Maildir if that’s your preferred place.

-Eric

3

Ok.

Thanks for your quick reply!