[BUGS] Dovecot not starting on startup

[Edwin Groothuis]

On Tue, Apr 22, 2008 at 01:45:54PM +1000, Jerahmy Pocott wrote:
> A few times now I'v had this server reboot (for unknown reasons likely  
> involving someone pulling its plug out) and dovecot has failed to  
> start on reboot. Manually starting it using the rc.d script and it  
> runs fine, no error messages. I have dovecot_enable="YES" in the /etc/ 
> rc.conf, so I had a look at the /usr/local/etc/rc.d/dovecot script and  
> noticed the following:
> 
> # PROVIDE: dovecot
> # REQUIRE: LOGIN ntpdate
> # KEYWORD: shutdown
> 
> It requires ntpdate? Does this mean I need to have run ntpdate prior  
> to starting it? I no longer use ntpdate because ntpd provides the same  
> function for initially setting the time and then maintains it and  
> ntpdate is now depreciated. I'm not used to this new rc script  
> format.. The whole script used to be in these files =p

http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=ports/117894

Feel free to submit a new PR against the issue.

The ntpdate thing is funny, it should be ran as the first thing
because afterwards you get different times in everything is very
confusing for life, the universe and everything else.

Personally I have ntpd enabled and not ntpdate, but if you run both
(ntpdate first, to make sure your time is right, and then ntpd to
make sure your computer stays in sync) I'm not going to attack you
on that.

When to start it? No idea. I believe that it should be removed and
that the time needs to be taken care of properly on that machine:
always run ntpd. You can quote me on this when you submit the PR.

Edwin
-- 
Edwin Groothuis      |            Personal website: http://www.mavetju.org
edwin at mavetju.org    |              Weblog: http://www.mavetju.org/weblog/