[Dovecot] moving 1.2.13 system to another hard drive

[Paul Scott]

On Sat, Sep 18, 2010 at 04:52:31PM +0100, William Blunn wrote:
> On 18/09/2010 01:15, Paul Scott wrote:
> >I have just set up a new system on a new hard drive on the same
> >computer. fetchmail is correctly putting mail in
> >/var/mail/<username>.
> 
> Whilst I am no expert on fetchmail, as far as I know fetchmail does
> not deliver mail itself but rather passes it on to an MTA. So I
> think it may be your MTA that is delivering mail to mbox files in
> /var/mail.

Thanks for that reminder.

> >I have copied my entire Maildir directory from the old hard drive.
> >I have made what changes I understood to dovecot.conf.
> >
> >Dovecot was working on the other drive even though I'm not
> >completely sure how I got it working before.
> 
> How about looking at the old Dovecot configuration under /etc on the
> old drive?

I have done that several times.

> Having said that, having mail delivered to mbox files under
> /var/mail, but other folders under Maildir might not be the best
> configuration:
> 
> * to get Dovecot to be able to handle that setup means having two
> different mailbox formats which means a namespace configuration,
> 
> * your INBOX is going to an mbox under /var/mail, which is fraught
> with potential locking problems (unless this has somehow magically
> been taken care of for you).
> 
> You may be better off getting all mail delivered straight to
> Maildir, thereby making everything Maildir.

That's what I thought was happening since it was happening on the 
previous setup.  OTOH mutt sees the old INBOX but doesn't see the
other folders anymore.

> This would then make your Dovecot configuration simpler, and also
> remove the potential locking problems of using mbox.

I don't know how to do that.  Everything was under Maildir in the previous
system and I don't know why it doesn't seem to be now.

> >Any ideas for debugging this certainly simple problem for some of you.
> 
> Please try to describe a specific symptom or specific symptoms you
> are experiencing.

Dovecot doesn't seem to be putting mail in the Maildir INBOX.  Now I see
log messages which may make things much clearer.  It may be about passwords 
which are the same on the new system as the old.

Sep 18 09:55:31 bliss dovecot: imap-login: Disconnected (auth failed, 4 attempts): user=<paul>, method=PLAIN, rip=68.0.135.186, lip=192.168.1.102

> Please provide the output of "dovecot -n".

paul at bliss:~$ sudo dovecot -n
# 1.2.13: /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf
# OS: Linux 2.6.32-5-686 i686 Debian squeeze/sid 
log_timestamp: %Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S 
ssl: no
disable_plaintext_auth: no
login_dir: /var/run/dovecot/login
login_executable: /usr/lib/dovecot/imap-login
mail_privileged_group: mail
mail_location: maildir:~/Maildir
mbox_write_locks: fcntl dotlock
auth default:
  passdb:
    driver: pam
  userdb:
    driver: passwd

> It might also be an idea to say what MTA you are using.

AFAIK: exim4

> For The Avoidance Of Doubt, I am not 'taking on your case', but
> merely providing one step of suggestions. 

This was very helpful.  I still not sure exactly the password problem
is but that probably narrows it down for now.

Please reply to the list (i.e. not to me).

Certainly,

Many thanks,

Paul