[Dovecot] Converting from MBOX to Maildir broke procmail and Spamassasin and halted incoming mail

[Dan Roberts]

Hi Scott -

How would I tell?   I built the box from scratch and set up CentOS  
Linux 5 up on it - over one year, probably not more than three.

I had been running with a RedHat system prior to that - and I may well  
have copied the procmailrc settings from that -- don't actually  
recall.   But Dovecot, Procmail and Spamassasin all came up fresh with  
the install of CentOS.


On Sep 17, 2008, at 1:41 PM, Scott Silva wrote:

> on 9-17-2008 11:39 AM Dan Roberts spake the following:
>> I could use some help here -
>> As I use Dovecot I started here when trying to figure out why I  
>> could not add new mail folders under my Mac's Mail program, but  
>> could under Thunderbird.
>> It was quickly pointed out that my system was set up to use MBOX  
>> and not MAILDIR, and some helpful links and notes were sent back  
>> and forth giving me a good clue as to how to perform the conversion  
>> process.
>> I did have success in getting my mail accounts converted from mbox  
>> to maildir, but then ran aground.
>> I could see all of my existing mail and create new folders, but I  
>> could not see any of my incoming mail.
>> What I was late in realizing was that I needed to also adjust the  
>> settings for my LDA, which as I am using sendmail is procmail, and  
>> it was suggested that I needed to adjust /etc/procmail to include  
>> the line
>> DEFAULT=$HOME/Maildir/
>> I did that, but new mail still didn't show up correctly.   I can  
>> only assume that I have something still not properly adjusted in my  
>> procmail settings.
>> Given that I got everything else to work, and even successfully  
>> upgraded dovecot, it was very frustrating to set everything back to  
>> square one with mbox so that I had a functioning system once  
>> again.   I am about to have some time on my hands and am going to  
>> try again - but this time I thought I would ask for help before I  
>> possibly loose my ability to receive new mail - makes reading those  
>> suggestions very hard.
>> At present, my etc/procmailrc file is like this.
>> -----------
>> [dan at trailrunner etc]$ cat procmailrc
>> # send mail through SpamAssassin
>> :0 fw
>> * < 256000
>> | /usr/bin/spamc -f
>> -----------
>> In each users Home directory I have a .procmailrc file that further  
>> directs things on a user level.
>> For my directory this file is currently
>> ---------------
>> [dan at trailrunner ~]$ cat .procmailrc
>> MAILDIR=$HOME/mail
>> PROBABLYJUNK = /home/dan/mail/probably-spam
>> :O H
>> * ^X-Spam-Status:.*Yes
>> {
>> EXITCODE=67
>> :0:
>> probably-spam
>> }
>> ---------------
>> I admit that I set up Spamassasin some years ago and though I have  
>> updated things now and then, I don't recall all of the reasoning  
>> behind the setup - just know that it has been working.
>> Whether I put the new line "DEFAULT=$HOME/Maildir/" in one file,  
>> the other or both - I got no incoming mail.  My guess was that I  
>> had offended promail in one way or another.
>> So, as I prepare to do the MBOX to MAILDIR conversion once again,  
>> does anyone have any guidance to offer for how to properly adjust  
>> the procmail files so that I can continue to filter spam?
>> Much appreciated.
>> Cheers -
>> dan
> How old is the distro on the system?
> Older versions of procmail don't support maildir.
>
>
> -- 
> MailScanner is like deodorant...
> You hope everybody uses it, and
> you notice quickly if they don't!!!!
>