[Dovecot] pop3 exim4 dovecot

[Patrick Shirkey]

On Fri, November 9, 2012 12:13 am, Odhiambo Washington wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 8, 2012 at 11:36 AM, Patrick Shirkey
> <pshirkey at boosthardware.com
>> wrote:
>
>>
>> On Thu, November 8, 2012 7:21 pm, Robert Schetterer wrote:
>> > Am 08.11.2012 08:48, schrieb Patrick Shirkey:
>> >> Hi,
>> >>
>> >> I have an exim4 and dovecot system. The system has multiple accounts.
>> >> Exim4 is receiving emails in the /var/mail/user files and dovecot is
>> >> configured to use /home/user/mail (mbox) folder.
>> >>
>> >> I have one account that dovecot is not processing
>> replies/bounces/etc...
>> >> The data is being written in the /var/mail/user file by exim4 but as
>> far
>> >> as dovecot is aware there is nothing in the pop3 inbox.
>> >>
>> >> Can anyone suggest how I can enable dovecot to know that the data is
>> in
>> >> the /var/mail/user file and deliver it to the pop3 inbox for this
>> >> account?
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> Patrick Shirkey
>> >> Boost Hardware Ltd
>> >>
>> >
>> > show logs
>> > and config like doveconf -n
>> >
>> >
>>
>> There is nothing in the  dovecot logs afaict
>>
>> echo "my test" | mail -s "test message" test at xxx
>>
>> 2012-11-08 08:34:38 1TWNZO-0000TG-8s <= root at xxx U=root P=local S=398
>> 2012-11-08 08:34:38 1TWNZO-0000TG-8s => xxx <test at xxx> R=local_user
>> T=mail_spool
>> 2012-11-08 08:34:38 1TWNZO-0000TG-8s Completed
>>
>>
>> exim -bt test at xxx
>> R: system_aliases for xxx at localhost
>> R: userforward for xxx at localhost
>> R: procmail for xxx at localhost
>> R: maildrop for xxx at localhost
>> R: lowuid_aliases for xxx at localhost (UID 1238)
>> R: local_user for xxx at localhost
>> xxx at localhost
>>     <-- test at xxx
>>   router = local_user, transport = mail_spool
>>
>>
>> - Here's the dovecot config:
>>
>> # dovecot -n
>> # 1.2.15: /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf
>> # OS: Linux 2.6.32-5-amd64 x86_64 Debian 6.0.6
>> log_timestamp: %Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S
>> protocols: pop3 pop3s
>> listen: 127.0.0.1
>> login_dir: /var/run/dovecot/login
>> login_executable: /usr/lib/dovecot/pop3-login
>> mail_privileged_group: mail
>> mail_location: mbox:~/mail
>> mail_debug: yes
>> mbox_write_locks: fcntl dotlock
>> mail_executable: /usr/lib/dovecot/pop3
>> mail_plugin_dir: /usr/lib/dovecot/modules/pop3
>> auth default:
>>   debug: yes
>>   passdb:
>>     driver: pam
>>   userdb:
>>     driver: passwd
>>
>>
>>
> You are telling dovecot that mails are in mbox format (why you even use
> mbox instead of Maildir++ beats me, but that's not what you asked for help
> with) and are stored in /home/$user/mbox so go ahead at also tell Exim to
> deliver to the same location!
> If you want Exim to deliver to /var/mail/$user then change your
> mail_location in dovecot.conf to point to this too.
>
>


Thanks for your advice. I inherited this system and it is a live B2B
system so I am trying not to break it as well as to keep it running :-)

I have seen some unusual behaviour now.

1: According to my script to process the inbox for each account the pop3
account was empty. The code was previously working for many months. I
thought it might be related to the missing mail_location directive because
the home/xxx/mail folder was missing for the specific account that was
having a problem so I added it as above but it didn't appear to fix the
problem.

2: I modified it as suggested : mail_location = INBOX=/var/mail/%u

That gave me an error

Nov  8 13:47:03 mail dovecot: POP3(xxx): mail_location: Ambiguous mail
location setting, don't know what to do with it: INBOX=/var/mail/xxx (try
prefixing it with mbox: or maildir:)
Nov  8 13:47:03 mail dovecot: POP3(xxx): Fatal: Namespace initialization
failed

3: I then disabled the directive and restarted dovecot. The processing
script now appears to be working but I see this message in the maillog:

Nov  8 13:48:00 mail dovecot: POP3(xxx):
fchown(/home/xxx/mail/.imap/INBOX/dovecot.index.tmp, -1, 8(mail)) failed:
Operation not permitted (egid=1238(xxx), group based on /var/mail/xxx)
Nov  8 13:48:00 mail dovecot: POP3(xxx):
fchown(/home/xxx/mail/.imap/INBOX/dovecot.index.log.newlock, -1, 8(mail))
failed: Operation not permitted (egid=1238(xxx), group based on
/var/mail/xxx)
Nov  8 13:48:00 mail dovecot: POP3(xxx):
fchown(/home/xxx/mail/.imap/INBOX/dovecot.index.cache.lock, -1, 8(mail))
failed: Operation not permitted (egid=1238(xxx), group based on
/var/mail/xxx)

So it looks like setting the mail_location to the /home/user did actually
help but only after the mbox was auto created by dovecot and then the
directive disabled and dovecot restarted.

Based on this it appears that this system is configured to use both the
/var/mail/user and /home/user/mail folders. I suppose it is a useful
backup to have exim4 write to /var/mail/user and have dovecot transfer the
data to /home/user/mail as it is received?

Everything was working for many months so I'm not sure why the
/home/user/mail folder was not auto created for this new account. AFAICT
it is supposed to be handled by dovecot when a mail is received and the
default location is /home/user/mail so setting it in dovecot.conf is not
explicitly required?








--
Patrick Shirkey
Boost Hardware Ltd