Abstractio of Dovecot Users

Abstractio of Dovecot Users

[Marek Paśnikowski]

Dear all.

I recently completed the monumental project of self-hosting my email on Guix, all by myself. I am now thoroughly exhausted, but need to complete one final task.

I am currently having the mail delivered to my user account directly, but this is not I want.  I need to abstract email accounts from system accounts to prepare for future transfer to a dedicated server microcomputer.

I would like to ask you, which dovecot service configuration parameters should I look at, for declaration of what I have seen on the net named “vmail”.

My immediate goal is to declare a dedicated inbox for DMARC reports and a bunch of aliases for 'marek' mail account, stored separately from the system's 'marek' account.

Re: Abstractio of Dovecot Users

[Felix Lechner via]

Hi Marek,

On Mon, Nov 20 2023, Marek Paśnikowski wrote:

> I recently completed the monumental project of self-hosting my email
> on Guix, all by myself.

Kudos! Will you please blog about your experience or add something to
the Cookbook? [1]

> I need to abstract email accounts from system accounts

There are many ways to do that [2] although more detailed inquiries
might be better placed with the Dovecot folks.

Thanks for using Guix!

Kind regards
Felix

[1] https://guix.gnu.org/en/cookbook/en/guix-cookbook.html
[2] https://doc.dovecot.org/configuration_manual/virtual_users/

Re: Abstractio of Dovecot Users

[Thorondir via]

Hi Marek,

On 11/20/23 23:40, Marek Paśnikowski wrote:
> I would like to ask you, which dovecot service configuration parameters should I look at, for declaration of what I have seen on the net named “vmail”.
>
> My immediate goal is to declare a dedicated inbox for DMARC reports and a bunch of aliases for 'marek' mail account, stored separately from the system's 'marek' account.

Way back when I first started on the journey of email self-hosting, I 
found the ArchWiki[0] to have enough information to get me started. 
After doing that, do try to understand why it does what it does, because 
there is quite a bit of complexity in there.

But in short:

  * you create a local user [yes, usually "vmail"] who gets everything
    and stores it according to who it's supposed to be for
  * the question of "who is it for" is usually answered by entries in a
    database or map file
  * both postfix and dovecot need to know about and use the database or
    map file

Hope that helps,
Thorondir


[0]: 
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Virtual_user_mail_system_with_Postfix,_Dovecot_and_Roundcube 

Re: Abstractio of Dovecot Users

[Marek Paśnikowski]

Email z Środa, 22 listopada 2023 od Felix Lechner:
> Hi Marek,
> 
> On Mon, Nov 20 2023, Marek Paśnikowski wrote:
> 
> > I recently completed the monumental project of self-hosting my email
> > on Guix, all by myself.
> 
> Kudos! Will you please blog about your experience or add something to
> the Cookbook? [1]

I was actually thinking of trying to write a general Scheme module for a quick, minimal setup of email on Guix, but right now my system configuration is an ugly monolith.

My roadmap looks like this:
1. Abstract email away from the system.
2. Build a personal PGP infrastructure.
3. Use the above to serve Git repositories.
4. Use the above to modularize my Guix configurations; prepare to use Linux From Scratch books to build my personal distribution of Guix
5. Learn how to use Emacs tools to automate  publishing of web content <= This is where I could try writing some text about serving email from Guix.

Would you like a copy of my current system configuration for reference?
 
> > I need to abstract email accounts from system accounts
> 
> There are many ways to do that [2] although more detailed inquiries
> might be better placed with the Dovecot folks.

I started writing a refusing answer, but did one more search for virtual_users and found that Dovecot docs do include a “Simple Virtual User Installation.” I will try following that. It is not as self-containing solution as I hoped, but I need to get things done before optimizing them.

Re: Abstractio of Dovecot Users

[Marek Paśnikowski]

Email z Środa, 22 listopada 2023 od Thorondir:
> Hi Marek,
> 
> On 11/20/23 23:40, Marek Paśnikowski wrote:
> > I would like to ask you, which dovecot service configuration parameters should I look at, for declaration of what I have seen on the net named “vmail”.
> >
> > My immediate goal is to declare a dedicated inbox for DMARC reports and a bunch of aliases for 'marek' mail account, stored separately from the system's 'marek' account.
> 
> Way back when I first started on the journey of email self-hosting, I 
> found the ArchWiki[0] to have enough information to get me started. 
> After doing that, do try to understand why it does what it does, because 
> there is quite a bit of complexity in there.
> 
> But in short:
> 
>   * you create a local user [yes, usually "vmail"] who gets everything
>     and stores it according to who it's supposed to be for
>   * the question of "who is it for" is usually answered by entries in a
>     database or map file
>   * both postfix and dovecot need to know about and use the database or
>     map file

The reminder to reconfigure OpenSMTPD is helpful, thank you.

Re: Abstractio of Dovecot Users

[Wojtek Kosior via]

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Cześć Marek :)

I also did set up self-hosted email under Guix (in a Guix container)
this year, with configuration here[1]. Right now I can describe it with
the same words you used – "ugly monolith".

So, you're using OpenSMTPD? Does it serve its purpose well? I used Exim
(since that was what I used before under Debian) but the Guix Exim
service misses some parts (e.g. working setuid in child Exims) so I
made a few workarounds. Does OpenSMTPD also have similar problems?

> Would you like a copy of my current system configuration for
> reference?

Sure :)

> prepare to use Linux From Scratch books to build my personal
> distribution of Guix

It can't be that bad? :) After all, it should be possible to either
include custom code in your projects via recursive git repositories or
put it into packages in your personal Guix channel or (I suppose this
is what you want) make your patches live on a git branch of Guix that
can be just `guix pull`'d.

Either way, I'd find it useful to see which of the approaches works out
the best for you. Would you be so nice to share your experiences after
a few months?

Best
Wojtek

[1] https://git.koszko.org/koszko-org-server/tree/container.scm


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On Wed, 22 Nov 2023 17:44:48 +0000 Marek Paśnikowski <marek@marekpasnikowski.pl> wrote:

> Email z Środa, 22 listopada 2023 od Thorondir:
> > Hi Marek,
> > 
> > On 11/20/23 23:40, Marek Paśnikowski wrote:  
> > > I would like to ask you, which dovecot service configuration parameters should I look at, for declaration of what I have seen on the net named “vmail”.
> > >
> > > My immediate goal is to declare a dedicated inbox for DMARC reports and a bunch of aliases for 'marek' mail account, stored separately from the system's 'marek' account.  
> > 
> > Way back when I first started on the journey of email self-hosting, I 
> > found the ArchWiki[0] to have enough information to get me started. 
> > After doing that, do try to understand why it does what it does, because 
> > there is quite a bit of complexity in there.
> > 
> > But in short:
> > 
> >   * you create a local user [yes, usually "vmail"] who gets everything
> >     and stores it according to who it's supposed to be for
> >   * the question of "who is it for" is usually answered by entries in a
> >     database or map file
> >   * both postfix and dovecot need to know about and use the database or
> >     map file  
> 
> The reminder to reconfigure OpenSMTPD is helpful, thank you.

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Re: Abstractio of Dovecot Users

[Marek Paśnikowski]

> > I recently completed the monumental project of self-hosting my email
> > on Guix, all by myself.
> 
> Kudos! Will you please blog about your experience or add something to
> the Cookbook? [1]
>
> Kind regards
> Felix
> 
> [1] https://guix.gnu.org/en/cookbook/en/guix-cookbook.html

I am back with good news: I figured out how to serve a GIT repository on a 
subdomain. My current system configuration is shared here [1]. The point of 
entry for the mail server is "wip-mail-services" in izumi.org or
system-configuration.scm .

I have not invested any effort into modularization because I had decided 
halfway through that I will reconstruct my server from scratch on a new, 
dedicated computer with extra hardware features like data redundancy.

[1] https://git.marekpasnikowski.pl/izumi/.git/

PS: Does this mailing list support NNTP? I am planning to finally configure 
Emacs GNUS for all of my communications and would appreciate knowing, that I 
am not going to waste time trying to achieve something impossible.

Re: Abstractio of Dovecot Users

[Marek Paśnikowski]

> > I recently completed the monumental project of self-hosting my email
> > on Guix, all by myself.
> 
> Kudos! Will you please blog about your experience or add something to
> the Cookbook? [1]
>
> Kind regards
> Felix
> 
> [1] https://guix.gnu.org/en/cookbook/en/guix-cookbook.html

I am back with good news: I figured out how to serve a GIT repository on a 
subdomain. My current system configuration is shared here [1]. The point of 
entry for the mail server is "wip-mail-services" in izumi.org or
system-configuration.scm .

I have not invested any effort into modularization because I had decided 
halfway through that I will reconstruct my server from scratch on a new, 
dedicated computer with extra hardware features like data redundancy.

[1] https://git.marekpasnikowski.pl/izumi/.git/

PS: Does this mailing list support NNTP? I am planning to finally configure 
Emacs GNUS for all of my communications and would appreciate knowing, that I 
am not going to waste time trying to achieve something impossible.