Wols Lists <antlists@youngman.org.uk> writes:

> On 29/07/2023 11:13, Arsen Arsenović wrote:
>> Wols Lists<antlists@youngman.org.uk>  writes:
>> 
>>> On 29/07/2023 03:37, Bryan Gardiner wrote:
>>>> User of Claws with a local maildir here.  One mail per file always
>>>> felt safer to me.  If you do want to keep using maildir,
>>>> net-mail/dovecot provides IMAP access to ~/.maildir out of the box,
>>>> and I've found this combination to be reliable.
>>> Just a tip which bit me when I first installed dovecot ...
>>>
>>> The master config file actually chain-loads a local config file, make sure you
>>> use it. I edited the master file directly, so of course the first update
>>> overwrote and trashed it ...
>
>> That should not happen.  Where's the master config file?  Is it under a
>> directory masked by CONFIG_PROTECT?
>
> And then the dovecot maintainers update things, update the config file, and it
> breaks for all users because the config version no longer matches the program
> version ...

I don't recall Dovecot configs being version sensitive.

> The master config file is in the obvious place -
> /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf. Just like postfix breaks exactly the same way -
> /etc/postfix/main.cf.

Then that should not have been overwritten.

> Imho dovecot has got this (almost) exactly right. Just like systemd. You have
> your master file that is updated by the distro, and you have your local file
> that is updated by the sys admin.
> 
> dovecot.conf points to a file local.conf, which does not error if it doesn't
> exist, but over-rides dovecot.conf if it does. The proper way to do it!

I agree, but this is still suspicious.  CONFIG_PROTECT should've
prevented that, and offered dispatch-conf instead.

> Unlike postfix - where I can't find a place to split my local config away from
> the default config - so every time postfix is updated I have to make sure it
> doesn't try to update main.cf !!!

Again, it shouldn't be able to do that.  Please check CONFIG_PROTECT
using: portageq envvar CONFIG_PROTECT

It should, normally, contain /etc, set by profiles/base/make.defaults.

Have a lovely day.
-- 
Arsen Arsenović