Check the config file for dovecot. I don't know squat about it as I have never used it. Check its directory and see if your old config file is there. If not, restore it from backup if possible, or reconfigure it the way you had it.

OK I googled Dovecot and found out it is a Pop3/Imap server. You do have connections listed above to an Imap2 server.

Oh right it is for pop3/imap whiel I used postfix for smtp, ok now I remember. So good thing I was not able to delete it then. Hmm but I'm pretty sure I had nuked postfix from starting up so I must of had some other smtp server, but not sure what. I tried installing exim, but also got that stupid locale stuff, so it seems I can't excape that, and I have no clue what I'm suppost to put, I don't want it to start installing more junk that will break more stuff.

Until you answer the locale question, it will continue to come up every time you run apt.
Look at /usr/share/i18n/SUPPORTED to look up the locale for your country. But it is up to you. Postfix shouldn't be too tough to configure if broken (or I should say reverted to default).

As for more things breaking, first ask yourself what other services does this server host. If email is it, you are probably ok by now (damage is done). Either way, newer versions will be more secure and less buggy as a general rule. It is dangerous to run old out of date software on a production server if there are any recently discovered (since the last apt-get upgrade) vulnerabilities. Debian Sarge was recently made stable, so this mass download and upgrade you just experienced will be very rare. Any updates to Sarge from here on out will likely be security fixes. This is a production server isn't it?

I just thought of something. Maybe I have a firewall runnning, how would I tell? Since maybe that's blocking it from listening or something. I just managed to get exim installed, I just did not pick any locale to be safe, and still, after starting it up, nothing works, it wont listen on 25.

Type iptables -L to find out what your firewall is doing.

Port 25 is for inbound smtp email, not something dovecot does by the looks of it.

it's production, but runs on a LAN, so security is not as much of an issue as if it was online. If it was online it would of been owned already, since I'm still very new to linux and did not even get into security yet. Thats something I'll get into once I feel confortable with linux.

This is what I get when I run the IPtables command.

Chain INPUT (policy ACCEPT)
target prot opt source destination

Chain FORWARD (policy ACCEPT)
target prot opt source destination

Chain OUTPUT (policy ACCEPT)
target prot opt source destination
borg:~#

Your firewall is blocking NOTHING. So you know that is not the issue.

If this system is critical to your business, you have some serious studying to do. Start at the beginning (general Debian howtos) and then work on the servers you are running postfix howtos (see my sig for a good postfix howto).

If you get stuck or don't understand something, search these forums for it, it is bound to have been answered before. If not, post a question (it is linuxquestions after all).

Hmm I think exim is an MTA not a SMTP server, or is it the same thing? this is where mail gets complicated. When I start it it says:

Starting MTA: exim4.

But yet nothing is listening on port 25.

edit: hmm well locally I can finally connect to port 25 now, just can't externally, but I did tell it tolisten on the external (as in, the 192.168.1.10 one rather then 127.0.0.1) so I'm slowly getting somewhere... I just hope this won't affect anything like mail that's on the server, given I'm using a different smtp server. If it uses maildir's by default then I'm screwed.

An MTA (Mail Transfer Agent) is a mail server. Exim only listens to 127.0.0.1 by default. You have to configure it to listen on your network interfaces if that is the goal. If you need Exim, start by typing

man exim

If this is an established mail server than I would suggest you use whichever mail server you were using before. That will reduce the losses.

W00T! Got it working. I never even thought of trying to reinstall postfix. I did, and now it works. I just restored the files from a backup and I was all set. Now my next task is to set easier to restore backups since right now my backups are not really that well organized. I need a tape drive or something too, for off site backups.. you never know.

Glad you got it working. You can never back-up too much, I always say. Once you get the feel of things in Debian, you will be glad you took the time to learn it. Read the howtos, they are a wealth of information.