[Dovecot] Failed to create storage with data:

[Matthieu Imbert]

Chris Wakelin wrote:

> I'm wondering whether your "mail=" should have "maildir:" in it, i.e.
> "mail=maildir:/var/mail/vhost/example.com/%n" or maybe it should not 
> be there at all?
> 
> The error seems to come from src/imap/namespace.c (but I was tracing 
> the wrong mail_storage_create_with_data() call before). The lines
> 
> mail = getenv("MAIL");
>         if (mail == NULL) {
>                 /* support also maildir-specific environment */
>                 mail = getenv("MAILDIR");
>                 if (mail != NULL)
>                         mail = t_strconcat("maildir:", mail, NULL);
>         }
> 
> seem to suggest that MAIL should have "maildir:" in it for maildirs.
> 
> Best Wishes,
> Chris
> 
> On Wed, 13 Apr 2005 17:16:37 +0200 Matthieu Imbert 
> <matthieu.imbert at ens-lsh.fr> wrote:
> 
> 
>>Chris Wakelin wrote:
>> > On Wed, 13 Apr 2005 16:44:43 +0200 Matthieu Imbert
>> > <matthieu.imbert at ens-lsh.fr> wrote:
>> >
>> >>Hi, i'm using dovecot-1.0-stable.
>> >>
>> >>All my mail accounts are virtual accounts that come from pam with the
>> >>following configuration in auth_default:
>> >>   passdb = pam
>> >>   userdb = static uid=5000 gid=5000 home=/var/mail/vhost/example.com/%n
>> >>mail=/var/mail/vhost/example.com/%n
>> >>
>> >>for a user foo, if the directory /var/mail/vhost/example.com/foo already
>> >>exists, then all is ok, but if the directory doesn't exists, it seems
>> >>dovecot is unable to create it "on the fly". I get the following error
>> >>message:
>> >>   Failed to create storage with data: /var/mail/vhost/example.com/foo
> 
> 
> --+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+--
> Christopher Wakelin,                                c.d.wakelin at reading.ac.uk
> IT Services Centre, The University of Reading,       Tel: +44 (0)118 378 8439
> Whiteknights, Reading, RG6 2AF, UK                   Fax: +44 (0)118 975 3094
> 
> 

Here's what i've understood so far (these are hypotheses because i don't 
really now how to trace the code, i don't know gdb enough):

- The message is emitted from src/pop3/main.c line 179, because 
mail_storage_create_with_data returned a NULL pointer

- mail_storage_create_with_data (in src/lib-storage/mail-storage.c line 
  114) returns NULL because the call from mail_storage_create line 129 
returned NULL

- mail-storage-create (in src/lib-storage/mail-storage.c line 72) return 
NULL because the function pointed to by list->storage->create returns 
NULL. I guess this function pointer points to maildir_create in 
src/lib-storage/index/maildir/maildir-storage.c line 33

- i don't know why maildir-create would return NULL...

reading the code from verify_inbox, create_maildir and mkdir_verify (in 
src/lib-storage/index/maildir/maildir-storage.c), it really seems that 
the directory should be automatically created, though i still don't 
fully understand the execution path which is taken.

Thanks in advance for any help

also if someone can briefly explain me how i can trace it with gdb, i 
would appreciate. I know how to launch a single executable with gdb, but 
in this case, gdb needs to "attach" to a process which is spawned by the 
main dovecot process, and i don't know how to do it.

-- 

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    (o o)                              Matthieu Imbert
ooO-(_)-Ooo------------------------------------------
              équipe administration réseau et systèmes
Ecole normale superieure lettres et sciences humaines
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contact équipe réseau et systèmes <reseau at ens-lsh.fr>
        contact personnel <matthieu.imbert at ens-lsh.fr>
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