[Dovecot] Getting "Can't resolve address no: Name or service not known" error when starting Dovecot

[Francesco Piraneo Giuliano]

Hi gentlemen!

After running for six month Dovecot 0.99.14 I decided to upgrade to 1.0rc15.
Actually Dovecot is running under Slackware Linux 10.2 and I got the
package from http://www.linuxpackages.net.

Problems? Yes, one! When I try to startup Dovecot program hung:

Fatal: Can't resolve address no: Name or service not known

I'm not a Dovecot or IMAP guru and I can't imagine what kind of
address number (I think is complaining about the machine's IP address)
or "name" or "service" that it doesn't know!
I googled for the entire afternoon for someone that meet the same
problem but I got no interesting clues...  Yesterday I installed also
iptables and I thought the two things are related so I disabled
iptables but... nothing!

Here some valuables (I hope!) informations for the good guys that want
to help my desperate soul...

Thank you again and I hope everybody enjoy the Christmas holidays...

Bye!
Francesco

P.S.: I hope also that the Dovecot team develop an online
documentation that reflect the versatility and complexity of the
program.... ;-)


dovecot --version
1.0.rc15

dovecot --build-options
Build options: ioloop=poll notify=inotify ipv6 openssl
SQL drivers:
Passdb: checkpassword passwd passwd-file shadow
Userdb: checkpassword passwd prefetch passwd-file static

dovecot -n
# /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf
base_dir: /var/run/dovecot/
log_path: /var/log/dovecot/errors.log
info_log_path: /var/log/dovecot/info.log
protocols: imap
listen: *:143
ssl_listen: no
ssl_disable: yes
disable_plaintext_auth: no
login_dir: /var/run/dovecot/login
login_executable: /usr/libexec/dovecot/imap-login
login_max_processes_count: 8
mail_location: mbox:/home/mail/%u:INBOX=/var/mail/%u
auth default:
  cache_size: 128
  cache_ttl: 60
  count: 8
  passdb:
    driver: shadow
  userdb:
    driver: passwd


Follows the full configuration file:
# Base directory where to store runtime data.
base_dir = /var/run/dovecot/

# Protocols we want to be serving: imap imaps pop3 pop3s
# If you only want to use dovecot-auth, you can set this to "none".
protocols = imap

# IP or host address where to listen in for connections. It's not currently
# possible to specify multiple addresses. "*" listens in all IPv4 interfaces.

   listen = 192.168.1.100

   protocol imap {
     listen = *:143
   }

# Disable LOGIN command and all other plaintext authentications
disable_plaintext_auth = no

# Should all IMAP and POP3 processes be killed when Dovecot master process
# shuts down.
shutdown_clients = yes

# Use this logfile instead of syslog(). /dev/stderr can be used if you want to
# use stderr for logging (ONLY /dev/stderr - otherwise it is closed).
log_path = /var/log/dovecot/errors.log

# For informational messages, use this logfile instead of the default
info_log_path = /var/log/dovecot/info.log

# Prefix for each line written to log file. % codes are in strftime(3)
# format.
log_timestamp = "%b %d %H:%M:%S "

# Syslog facility to use if you're logging to syslog. Usually if you don't
# want to use "mail", you'll use local0..local7. Also other standard
# facilities are supported.
syslog_facility = mail

##
## SSL settings
##

ssl_listen = no

# Disable SSL/TLS support.
ssl_disable = yes

##
## Login processes
##

# Directory where authentication process places authentication UNIX sockets
# which login needs to be able to connect to.
login_dir = /var/run/dovecot/login

# User to use for the login process.
login_user = dovecot

# Set max. process size in megabytes.
login_process_size = 32

# Should each login be processed in it's own process (yes), or should one
# login process be allowed to process multiple connections (no)?
login_process_per_connection = yes

# Number of login processes to keep for listening new connections.
login_processes_count = 3

# Maximum number of login processes to create.
login_max_processes_count = 8

# Greeting message for clients.
login_greeting = Dovecot ready.

# Space-separated list of elements we want to log.
login_log_format_elements = user=<%u> method=%m rip=%r lip=%l %c

# Login log format. %$ contains login_log_format_elements string, %s contains
# the data we want to log.
login_log_format = %$: %s

##
## Mailbox locations and namespaces
##

# Location for users' mailboxes.

mail_location = mbox:/home/mail/%u:INBOX=/var/mail/%u

##
## IMAP specific settings
##

protocol imap {
  # Login executable location.
  login_executable = /usr/libexec/dovecot/imap-login

  # IMAP executable location.
  mail_executable = /usr/libexec/dovecot/imap
}

##
## Authentication processes
##

# Executable location
auth_executable = /usr/libexec/dovecot/dovecot-auth

# Set max. process size in megabytes.
auth_process_size = 256

# Authentication cache size in kilobytes. 0 means it's disabled.
auth_cache_size = 128

# Time to live in seconds for cached data.
auth_cache_ttl = 60

# List of allowed characters in username.
auth_username_chars =
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ01234567890.-_@

auth default {
  # Space separated list of wanted authentication mechanisms
  mechanisms = plain

  # /etc/shadow or similiar, using getspnam().
  passdb shadow {
  }

  # /etc/passwd or similar, using getpwnam()
  userdb passwd {
  }

  # User to use for the process.
  user = root

  # Number of authentication processes to create
  count = 8
}

##
## Dictionary server settings
##

dict {
}

##
## Plugin settings
##

plugin {
}