[Discuss] Delivering mail to folders

[david at thekramers.net (David Kramer)]

Quick update: Just yesterday I contracted with Verizon for residential 
class triple play.  Giving up static IP, but going from promised 
16Mbps/? (actual 2Mbps/12Mbps) to promised 150Mbps/150Mbps and all told 
about $100+ less per month.

I also got a server on Linode and set up Postfix/Dovecot.  It's all very 
different than my current install and some of it I got wrong, like 
Dovecot wasn't showing my "inbox" from /var/mail/.  I also complicated 
things by trying to use an SSL certificate from https://letsencrypt.org 
instead of self-signed, and I'm using another domain name I control 
instead of thekramers.net so my mail keeps working while I do this, 
hoping I can add that as another domain later.  Primarily following 
https://www.linode.com/docs/email/postfix/email-with-postfix-dovecot-and-mysql

Current status:
I backed up /etc and nuked Postfix and Dovecot and starting over. 
Probably a bad idea, but I did too much of the original install 
following directions I didn't understand, which is bad.  Looking for 
other directions, many of them are way too old (Like Ubuntu 12.02 old).

The Fios install is 02/05 so I would REALLY like to have this working by 
then.  Otherwise I have to point my domain at the dynamic IP address I get.


Specific questions:
- The main issue I had with the install (before I nuked it) was Dovecot 
wasn't showing mail in /var/mail/david.  Maybe that's a stupid little 
thing.  I also coudn't log in from my Android phone (certs prolly) but I 
think I am logging in from Thunderbird.  Can't see the mail though so 
not sure.  I can restore the config easily as I made a backup.  Did I 
panic too soon? should I restore it and try again to fix those specific 
problems, and the others mentioned here?

- I currently use Postfix and Dovecot on my home server, and I use 
procmail for local delivery.  Procmail is providing critical 
functionality as I have tons of per-user and global rules that eliminate 
spam and deliver mail to specific mailboxen (not so many that I couldn't 
rewrite them in another format if needed).  It looks like the current 
way of doing things is to make Postfix hardly do anything and Dovecot 
does most of the heavy lifting, including SASL and local delivery, so I 
need to do things differently.  I can only find one page on integrating 
procmail with Dovecot (http://wiki2.dovecot.org/procmail) and it is both 
old, and internally inconsistent (references vars by the wrong name, 
etc) so I don't trust it.

How do others set up Postfix/Dovecot in a way that allows flexible 
rules-based delivery to specific mailboxes? I see "Sieve" mentioned a 
lot but not much detail. Certainly not finding "This is how you set up 
Postfix/Dovecot/Sieve" pages which makes me question how much it's used.

- letsencrypt sounded like a good option at the time, but it is still 
kinda in beta, and I couldn't connect my phone to the mail server, even 
saying "ssl accept any certificate".  Is that a good option? I'm willing 
to pay a reasonable price for a cert if I can use it for web and mail 
and there are advantages over free ones.

- If I work on this more tonight, is anyone willing to help out a bit 
via email or irc?  In the past I've tried "I need this to happen so I 
will pay for help" option on BLU and got no responses, and this is time 
sensitive, but I also don't want to end up with a server config I don't 
understand even if it does work

Thanks.  I'm willing to RTFM and figure it out but it's been tough 
wading through the obsolete stuff and the pages that talk about things 
in general but not enough information to implement it.