[Dovecot] Just trying to make dovecot work.
Ed W
lists at wildgooses.com
Sun Aug 5 12:38:49 EEST 2012
On 05/08/2012 06:22, Peter Snow wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I have to say that Dovecot is certainly the most challenging piece of
> software I've ever had the pleasure of setting up (due mainly to the
> reams of largely unhelpful documentation). After 36 almost non-stop
> hours reading and trying, I finally end up here. :-)
>
> I really would appreciate your help - and many thanks in advance!
Phew, haven't you set yourself up for a hostile response..?
It's only an opinion, but I would say that the Dovecot docs are rather
helpful and thorough? Also dovecot ships with an almost working config
out of the box, really you only need to adjust a couple of settings to
achieve most setups.
OK, reading your log files, I think this is probably the clue?
> /var/log/dovecot.log
> (showing unsuccessful login)
>
> ***************************************************************
> Aug 04 21:32:41 IMAP(peter): Error: user peter: Couldn't drop
> privileges: User is missing UID (see mail_uid setting)
> Aug 04 21:32:41 IMAP(peter): Error: Internal error occurred. Refer to
> server log for more information.
> ***************************************************************
I don't use that auth method so I don't want to give you a definitive
suggestion, but we can certainly use google to get some ideas:
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=dovecot+mail_uid+
Third link down seems to cover your question. Basically says you need
to define the setting listed above, but also why.
Note, I think it's easy to level critique against dovecot auth, but if
you look for a few moments longer you will see that you are probably
just criticising flexibility. You can use a very wide array of database
types to store your auth information and with that flexibility comes the
requirement to actually define your specific choice.
Some people run a multi-tennanted system and like to be able to run each
user under their own uid, hence that being flexible. Others want to use
LDAP or a database to store auth info (I think you can even use both at
the same time). It's even possible to use both at the same time I
believe, or to lookup users in one db, and passwords in another.
Note, I don't know your requirements, but you might want to look at some
kind of database for your user storage if you have more than a fairly
simple installation? Either LDAP or sql is likely to give you more
flexibility than a flat file pwdb, but I don't know your requirements,
so just a thought
Finally note that there are literally dozens of "how to install dovecot"
guides on the internet that will help you get a working setup with
various auth db choices. Once you understand the big picture using one
of those guides you will be able to customise things to a very specific
situation
Good luck
Ed W
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