[Dovecot] Telnet access creates new maildir folders

[Fabio Catunda]

Seasoul,

Right from dovecot.conf:
# Location for users' mailboxes. This is the same as the old 
default_mail_env
# setting. The default is empty, which means that Dovecot tries to find the
# mailboxes automatically. This won't work if the user doesn't have any mail
# yet, so you should explicitly tell Dovecot the full location.
#
# If you're using mbox, giving a path to the INBOX file (eg. /var/mail/%u)
# isn't enough. You'll also need to tell Dovecot where the other 
mailboxes are
# kept. This is called the "root mail directory", and it must be the first
# path given in the mail_location setting.
#
# There are a few special variables you can use, eg.:
#
#   %u - username
#   %n - user part in user at domain, same as %u if there's no domain
#   %d - domain part in user at domain, empty if there's no domain
#   %h - home directory
#
# See /usr/share/doc/dovecot-common/wiki/Variables.txt for full list. Some
# examples:
#
#   mail_location = maildir:~/Maildir
#   mail_location = mbox:~/mail:INBOX=/var/mail/%u
#   mail_location = mbox:/var/mail/%d/%1n/%n:INDEX=/var/indexes/%d/%1n/%n
#
# <doc/wiki/MailLocation.txt>

In my case:
mail_location = maildir:/var/virtual/%Ld/%Ln/Maildir

Just because I prefer this way.

In your case I believe that something like this would be good:
mail_location = maildir:/var/mail/vmail/%Ln@%Ld

The "L" if for lowercase (I think). In e-mail RFC is specified that mail 
should be case sensitive, but it might give you some problems where 
people send e-mail to foo at domain.com  and FOO at domain.com, as we are 
working with UNIX like OS, these are different folders and different 
mailboxes.

With best regards,

Fábio Catunda.


On 12/30/2010 12:40 AM, Seasoul wrote:
> Hi,
> I am running Dovecot Version 1.0.15on a Debian server, with postfix and
> postfixadmin.
> My mailbox base is /var/mail/vmail
>
> When I send an email to a user1 at domain.com for the first time, the user
> "mail" creates a set of dovecot folders under /var/mail/vmail/
> user1 at domain.com/ and my new emails are found in /var/mail/vmail/
> user1 at domain.com/new
> When I test my server using telnet (telnet domain.com 110), I can log in
> fine as a user1, but when I type "LIST", it tells me there are no emails.
> And I realize a new set of dovecot folders were created under
> /var/mail/vmail/user1/ ! The folders are created by the user "user1".
> Obviously the folder "new" under that is empty, since my emails received are
> in /var/mail/vmail/user1 at domain.com/new and not /var/mail/vmail/user1/new .
> Therefore, connecting with an email client via POP also shows an empty
> inbox.
>
> I am lost as to what to do to fix this, and how to let the server know that
> pop access should be looking into /var/mail/vmail/user1 at domain.com/ instead
> of /var/mail/vmail/user1/ .
>
> Hopefully someone on this list will be able to save me from my misery :)
>
> Cheers
> Sea
>