Wheezy Dovecot workarounds

[Steve Litt]

Hi all,

In switching from Ubuntu to Debian Wheezy (7.5 64bit, network install),
I'm finding some surprises in getting Dovecot to work. 

PROBLEM:
As installed, the package manager doesn't give you the dovecot
executable.

WORKAROUND:
To install the dovecot executable, you need to follow these
instructions:

http://wiki2.dovecot.org/HowTo/DebianStable

PROBLEM:
Even when you install Dovecot, it doesn't work, as evidenced by the
inability of a local email client to talk to it. Further elements of
the symptom are that nmap -A -T4 LocalIPAddress, whether LocalIPAddress
is the IP of eth0, or 127.0.0.1, fails to find any open ports. Telnet
can't operate dovecot at port 143, and openssl can't operate it at 993.
However, bizarrly, executing these same commands on a remote machine
into the original machine (including accessing the machine's Dovecot
from an email client) work perfectly.

WORKAROUND
To "solve" this problem, do the following raindance as root:

ifdown lo
ifup lo

After the raindance, local access to Dovecot works perfectly, and all
nmap commands perform as expected.

LOL, hey man, don't shoot me, I'm just the messenger.

SteveT

Steve Litt                *  http://www.troubleshooters.com/
Troubleshooting Training  *  Human Performance