[Dovecot] Expire plugin

[Thomas M Goerger]

Hi,

We've resolved the issues that started this thread off.  We needed to
recompile our version of Dovecot (1.1.6) with the inclusion of the mySQL
libraries.  With this done, we were able to connect Dovecot to the mySQL
db, and got the expire plugin to save times to the db.  This works great,
and we're very excited to get this to work.

We're now trying to actually expunge the messages, using the expire tool,
and are running into some questions that we need answered.  I saw the
notice about the expire tool and mail_location that use %u in the path.
This is the mail_location that we're using in our configuration:

mail_location = mbox:~:INBOX=/var/mail/%u:INDEX=/var/mail/.dovecot-index/%1u/%u/

The documentation refers to pulling values from the userdb to set a HOME
or MAIL variable so that dovecot can see the proper location with the
1.1.x series.  What userdb is this referring to?  We haven't used a
userdb with any of our implementations of dovecot to this point, and
setting one up at this point really isn't an option.  The documentation
seems to indicate that you can use a passwd file to set these variables,
but that to do so means manipulating each user's entry, which again,
really isn't an option.

Is there anyone that is getting around this somehow?  Seems pretty common
to use %u within the mail_location, so I'm wondering how people have dealt
with this.  Is there any other way to get around this problem?  We were
looking at the expire tool source to see if we could manipulate how the
user is being passed there.  This would be an option we would pursue, if
we could know what changes would need to be made.  Seems like the expire
tool utilizes much of the dovecot code itself to do its job.

Thanks!

*************************************************************************
* Tom Goerger  -  Email/Unix System Administrator 			*
*									*
* University of Minnesota		       Email:  tmg at umn.edu	*
* Operations, Infrastructure and Architecture  Phone:  4-5804		*
* Internet Services			       Office: 626J WBOB	*
* 									*
*************************************************************************

On Fri, 23 Apr 2010, Thomas M Goerger wrote:

> Actually, this is where the problem is coming in.  We'd switched the
> server from using IMAPS to IMAP, and I'd neglected to change the folder
> location.  So, now using the mail/Trash folder, I'm again seeing the
> permission denied.  We'd determined that the dict-server socket that was
> being used was a stale one.  So, we removed it, and are now getting a "No
> such file or directory" error.
>
> How is this socket created?  I'd have thought it would be created upon
> Dovecot starting up, but it is not doing so.  Is it something in the
> plugin settings that causes this to be created?
>
> Thanks!
>
> *************************************************************************
> * Tom Goerger  -  Email/Unix System Administrator 			*
> *									*
> * University of Minnesota		       Email:  tmg at umn.edu	*
> * Operations, Infrastructure and Architecture  Phone:  4-5804		*
> * Internet Services			       Office: 626J WBOB	*
> * 									*
> *************************************************************************
>
> On Fri, 23 Apr 2010, Thomas M Goerger wrote:
>
> > I do now see on the console:
> >
> > Apr 22 16:56:14 mars.tc.umn.edu imap(testg019): :
> > net_connect_unix(/var/opt/dovecot/run/dovecot/dict-server) failed: Connection refused
> >
> > I owned this file to mysql:mysql now, and the error has gone away on
> > subsequent logins, but I still don't see anything in the db.
> >
> > Thanks!
> >
> > *************************************************************************
> > * Tom Goerger  -  Email/Unix System Administrator 			*
> > *									*
> > * University of Minnesota		       Email:  tmg at umn.edu	*
> > * Operations, Infrastructure and Architecture  Phone:  4-5804		*
> > * Internet Services			       Office: 626J WBOB	*
> > * 									*
> > *************************************************************************
> >
> > On Fri, 23 Apr 2010, Thomas M Goerger wrote:
> >
> > > Yes, the plugin is loading.  The libraries associated are being touched
> > > upon user login, so it looks like expire is running.  Just that nothing is
> > > being added to the database upon a user putting something into the Trash.
> > > We do have our mail not in root of a user folder, but in mail/.  So, I
> > > added mail/Trash to the plugin settings thinking that that was the
> > > problem, but there was no difference.  I checked to make sure that the
> > > user that I'd set up in the db had the correct permissions to be able to
> > > talk to the right db and tables.  Does it need to have any global
> > > permissions set?
> > >
> > > Most importantly though, is there any logging being done anywhere?
> > > Anything I can check to see what interaction might be happening between
> > > dovecot and the db?
> > >
> > > Thanks!
> > >
> > > *************************************************************************
> > > * Tom Goerger  -  Email/Unix System Administrator 			*
> > > *									*
> > > * University of Minnesota		       Email:  tmg at umn.edu	*
> > > * Operations, Infrastructure and Architecture  Phone:  4-5804		*
> > > * Internet Services			       Office: 626J WBOB	*
> > > * 									*
> > > *************************************************************************
> > >
> > > On Fri, 23 Apr 2010, Steffen Kaiser wrote:
> > >
> > > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> > > > Hash: SHA1
> > > >
> > > > On Thu, 22 Apr 2010, Thomas M Goerger wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > expires table when I look.  Is there anywhere that expire can log to so I
> > > > > can see what might be happening?  It doesn't look like it logs to the
> > > >
> > > > Did you checked that the plugin is loaded at all?
> > > >
> > > > Regards,
> > > >
> > > > - --
> > > > Steffen Kaiser
> > > > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> > > > Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux)
> > > >
> > > > iQEVAwUBS9FRQr+Vh58GPL/cAQIBVgf6AnYmZqePcumF1g1tmz+TxMlInf3T44Rk
> > > > anYKFYRY0SfF/pDyyJLAYzQHDK1/57qT6H1CND4MdYlPHW2uGXAdwd+7HH4XuA/v
> > > > bCSqWX+MreDFkxb6TXutMJ+4ymyJNK+y1Hs8vyPS1Pq76Lg1V2TkpuebKp6NfUim
> > > > 7d1yVFT2LmFh6MIkRUQygCD9wZcSGoeQbeheumrLO2r3p0yhnCRi/WhiPY40G31v
> > > > OCbHj6VXq10NRU8dr0z8Wpdq9JrIT3WEe/XoMHXz5CPKow9Kbj737zK5AT/5b/Gq
> > > > IlvyJb3j6YQ2QwF3G4KZvFkkC3GcdCB/QtpiciYMiEY92kSX9p/ggw==
> > > > =9l2w
> > > > -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> > > >
> > >
> >
>