[Dovecot] Outlook 2000/2003 frequent disconnect issue

[Jeff Ramsey]

On Aug 1, 2007, at 2:26 AM, Timo Sirainen wrote:

> On Tue, 2007-07-31 at 17:12 -0700, Jeff Ramsey wrote:
>> I am now getting the following message on all Outlook Clients:
>>
>> "Your IMAP Server closed the connection....this can occur if the
>> connection is idle for too long"
>
> What does Dovecot show in logs as the disconnect reason?
>
> This sounds like the IDLE problem that outlook-idle workaround avoids,
> but that's the default so I'd think you haven't disabled it.
>

I've got the outlook-idle workaround turned on. I am using this line  
in the /etc/dovecot.conf:

imap_client_workarounds = outlook-idle


Dovecot does not show any reason for the disconnect. It just shows  
that the user logged out:

Aug  1 08:09:44 imap dovecot: imap-login: Login: user=<jefframsey>,  
method=PLAIN, rip=::ffff:10.11.254.52, lip=::ffff:65.174.242.66
Aug  1 08:09:44 imap dovecot: IMAP(jefframsey): Disconnected: Logged out
Aug  1 08:10:06 imap dovecot: imap-login: Login: user=<geoff>,  
method=PLAIN, rip=::ffff:10.10.254.148, lip=::ffff:65.174.242.66
Aug  1 08:10:13 imap dovecot: imap-login: Login: user=<QUINAULT- 
donnaanderson>, method=PLAIN, rip=::ffff:10.200.254.121, lip=::ffff: 
65.174.242.66
Aug  1 08:10:13 imap dovecot: imap-login: Login: user=<QUINAULT- 
donnaanderson>, method=PLAIN, rip=::ffff:10.200.254.121, lip=::ffff: 
65.174.242.66
Aug  1 08:10:52 imap dovecot: IMAP(QUINAULT-donnaanderson):  
Disconnected: Logged out
Aug  1 08:10:52 imap dovecot: IMAP(QUINAULT-donnaanderson):  
Disconnected: Logged out


I have read that this means that the client was the one that  
disconnected, but that does not make sense, because with 0.99.x, I  
did not have this issue. And I did not change anything in my Outlook  
clients. All I have changed is upgrading Dovecot.

Since my initial post, I have noticed this in my log file as well:

Aug  1 08:13:42 imap dovecot: auth(default): userdb(johnfowler,::ffff: 
65.174.242.248): user not found from userdb
Aug  1 08:13:42 imap dovecot: imap-login: Internal login failure:  
user=<johnfowler>, method=PLAIN, rip=::ffff:65.174.242.248,  
lip=::ffff:65.174.242.66
Aug  1 08:13:50 imap dovecot: imap-login: Login: user=<johnfowler>,  
method=PLAIN, rip=::ffff:65.174.242.248, lip=::ffff:65.174.242.66


This does not happen all of the time when a person logs in, in fact I  
have not heard of a single person having a login failure, or at least  
nobody has told me they got a message about an improper login or  
failed password or anything like that so far. The one thing I can  
think of is maybe the authentication methods have changed for Dovecot  
from 0.99.x to 1.0.2. I use Winbind to authenticate my Active  
Directory users to my linux boxen for all of their services, and  
Dovecot is no exception. Maybe something has changed in the /etc/ 
pam.d folder. I have not heard of anyone having any authentication  
errors at this point, however, my own computer, which uses Mac Mail  
2.1.1 as a client, has in fact been throwing these errors this  
morning, a couple of times an hour:

The server error encountered was: The user name and password  
specified in Mail preferences were not accepted by the server.


So far, I have not had any error about username and/or password from  
any of my Outlook users, just this one Mac client. As soon as I click  
on 'Go Online' at the error screen, the error goes away, and  
everything is fine for a 5 to 10 minutes, then I'll see it again. And  
no, it does not happen every time my client syncs folders to IMAP.  
More like one out of 10 times, and really random.

Has anything changed in the way that Dovecot handles authentication  
that may be causing this issue? The way that (I think) PAM handles  
authentication from Winbind is first it tries local accounts, and  
then if they fail, it tries Winbind, so if the local username is not  
found, it could explain why it is giving this error:

Aug  1 08:13:42 imap dovecot: auth(default): userdb(johnfowler,::ffff: 
65.174.242.248): user not found from userdb
Aug  1 08:13:42 imap dovecot: imap-login: Internal login failure:  
user=<johnfowler>, method=PLAIN, rip=::ffff:65.174.242.248,  
lip=::ffff:65.174.242.66

Then, when Winbind auth is tried, the authentication succeeds, and I  
get:

Aug  1 08:13:50 imap dovecot: imap-login: Login: user=<johnfowler>,  
method=PLAIN, rip=::ffff:65.174.242.248, lip=::ffff:65.174.242.66

So, I can see that the Winbind auth is working, but perhaps Dovecot  
is sending the client an auth failed after the local auth fails and  
before the Winbind auth succeeds.

Thanks for the suggestions so far, unfortunately I've already tried  
the outlook-idle workaround. Maybe I should just downgrade to 0.99.x  
again. Are there any known issues with a downgrade?



Jeff Ramsey
MIS Administrator
TMI Forest Products, Inc.
jefframsey at tubafor.com
360.477.0738





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