[Dovecot] Problem with mail_location and INDEX location

[Matt Jones]

HI,

I'm pulling my hair out a little trying to get dovecot to save it's 
index locally rather than in the NFS mount. No matter what I do it seems 
to save the indices in the Maildir on the NFS.

I'm using dovecot 2.0.18 on CentOS 6.3.

The relevant config I'm using:


mmap_disable = no
dotlock_use_excl = no # only needed with NFSv2, NFSv3+ supports O_EXCL and it's faster
mail_fsync = always
mail_nfs_storage = yes
mail_nfs_index = no
lock_method = dotlock

# Mail location and mailbox format.
mail_location = maildir:/%Lh/Maildir/:INDEX=/var/indexes/%Ld/%Lu/



Dovecot runs under the user:group vmail:vmail, and the user has write 
access to those directories.

[root at tay var]# ls -al
total 96
drwxr-xr-x. 24 root   root   4096 Nov 29 09:36 .
dr-xr-xr-x. 23 root   root   4096 Nov 28 15:26 ..
drwxr-x---   5 amavis amavis 4096 Nov 29 09:21 amavis
drwxr-xr-x. 10 root   root   4096 Nov 28 15:14 cache
drwxr-xr-x.  2 clamav clamav 4096 Nov 29 03:49 clamav
drwxr-xr-x.  3 root   root   4096 Nov 28 14:21 db
drwxr-xr-x.  3 root   root   4096 Nov 28 13:35 empty
drwxr-xr-x.  2 root   root   4096 Sep 23  2011 games
drwx------   2 vmail  vmail  4096 Nov 29 10:42 indexes
drwxr-xr-x. 25 root   root   4096 Nov 28 15:15 lib
drwxr-xr-x.  2 root   root   4096 Sep 23  2011 local
drwxrwxr-x.  5 root   lock   4096 Nov 29 03:49 lock
drwxr-xr-x.  5 root   root   4096 Nov 29 04:10 log
lrwxrwxrwx.  1 root   root     10 Nov 28 13:34 mail -> spool/mail
drwxr-xr-x.  2 root   root   4096 Sep 23  2011 nis
drwxr-xr-x.  2 root   root   4096 Sep 23  2011 opt
drwxr-xr-x.  2 root   root   4096 Sep 23  2011 preserve
drwxr-xr-x. 20 root   root   4096 Nov 29 09:51 run
drwxr-xr-x.  9 root   root   4096 Nov 28 15:14 spool
drwxrwxrwt.  3 root   root   4096 Nov 29 09:22 tmp
drwxr-x---   2 amavis amavis 4096 Jun  8 15:39 virusmails
drwx------.  5 vmail  vmail  4096 Nov 29 09:35 vmail
drwx------.  3 root   bin    4096 Nov 29 09:22 webmin
drwxr-xr-x. 12 root   root   4096 Nov 28 15:17 www
drwxr-xr-x.  2 root   root   4096 Sep 23  2011 yp


After restarting dovecot, and logging in via imap, I see the following 
under the Maildir:

[root at tay Maildir]# ls -al /var/vmail/vmail1/orphans.co.uk/m/a/t/matt-2011.07.06.09.41.05/Maildir
total 56
drwx------ 9 vmail vmail 4096 Nov 29 10:57 .
drwx------ 3 vmail vmail 4096 Nov 29 10:17 ..
drwx------ 2 vmail vmail 4096 Nov 29 10:41 cur
-rw------- 1 vmail vmail  248 Nov 29 10:41 dovecot.index.log
-rw------- 1 vmail vmail  120 Nov 29 10:41 dovecot.mailbox.log
-rw------- 1 vmail vmail   51 Nov 29 10:41 dovecot-uidlist
-rw------- 1 vmail vmail    8 Nov 29 10:41 dovecot-uidvalidity
-r--r--r-- 1 vmail vmail    0 Nov 29 10:41 dovecot-uidvalidity.50b73be3
drwx------ 5 vmail vmail 4096 Nov 29 10:41 .Drafts
drwx------ 5 vmail vmail 4096 Nov 29 10:41 .Junk
drwx------ 2 vmail vmail 4096 Nov 29 10:41 new
drwx------ 5 vmail vmail 4096 Nov 29 10:41 .Sent
-rw------- 1 vmail vmail   29 Nov 29 10:41 subscriptions
drwx------ 2 vmail vmail 4096 Nov 29 10:41 tmp
drwx------ 5 vmail vmail 4096 Nov 29 10:41 .Trash


[root at tay Maildir]# ls -al /var/indexes/
total 8
drwx------   2 vmail vmail 4096 Nov 29 10:42 .
drwxr-xr-x. 24 root  root  4096 Nov 29 09:36 ..


Any ideas?

Matt