[Dovecot] redirecting temp email files to another directory

[Timo Sirainen]

On Sun, 2009-01-18 at 23:32 -0800, JANE CUA wrote:
> > > sample temp files that gets create in /var/spool/mail
> > > -rw------ jane mail _43398509485894865jane
> > 
> > I'm certain Dovecot didn't create this file at least directly.
> > 
> > > -rw------ jane mail jane.lock
> > 
> > This is a dotlock and it can be created by Dovecot. You could 
> > also  
> > probably disable it. http://wiki.dovecot.org/MboxLocking 
> > http://wiki.dovecot.org/MailboxFormat/mbox
> 
> I have put the squirrelmail+dovecot offline now.  It's hard to
> simulate the problem when I am the only one testing it.  The issues
> came about, when I put it up online and the users started to use it.
> 
> Disabling it meaning remarking the following?
> #mbox_read_locks = fcntl
> #mbox_write_locks = dotlock fcntl 

You can disable dotlocks by setting:

mbox_write_locks = fcntl

But like the MboxLocking page says, you should make sure that the other
software that accesses the mbox files also use fcntl locking. Otherwise
you'll get corrupted files.

> > > other users create these files randomly as well in 
> > /var/spool/mail, / 
> > > var/spool/mail is an NFS mount.
> > 
> > Hmm. NFS is a pretty good suspect here. I know that in some 
> > situations  
> > it creates such temp files, although they're usually  
> > named .nfs.something. Are those files deleted or are they just 
> > lying  
> > around? What size do they have?
> 
> The _* files go away but for the .lock files, some of them don't go away and if they don't go, users no longer receives new emails, but can still send out emails.
> The temp file with _* has 0 file size, I don't remember what the .lock size it,  I will see if I can simulate this again. 

I guess the _* files are written when .lock file is deleted but another
process still has the file open. But like I said, normally Linux uses
".nfs" prefix for them. I guess your kernel doesn't for some reason.

Anyway you shouldn't have .lock files lying around. Sounds like Dovecot
(or something else) is crashing which leaves them. Have you looked if
there are error messages in logs? http://wiki.dovecot.org/Logging
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