Dovecot deleting files and directories

[Jan Ekholm]

Hi,

I’m a new Dovecot user and using version 2.2.18 on an OpenSuse system. In general it all works
quite nicely and clients can connect to Dovecot and manage mails normally. The layout used is
maildir. The users are all virtual, i.e. they do not exist on the Linux system. They all log in
without any authentication due to a very specialized and internal setup.

However, sometimes Dovecot simply deletes mails from the maildir structure. It also seems
to delete entire users too. This is not a simple case of clients deleting mails, but the entire
folder for the user seems to sometimes get nuked. I’ve also seen that only the mails and
Dovecot’s admin files (indexes etc) are deleted.

The log file is not really too informative, mostly lines of this form:

Jul 01 14:00:36 imap(firstname.lastname at domain.x): Info: Disconnected: IMAP session state is inconsistent, please relogin. in=781 out=2630
Jul 01 14:00:36 imap(operators-east at east.domain.x): Debug: Namespace : /opt/mail/operators-east doesn't exist yet, using default permissions
Jul 01 14:00:36 imap(operators-east at east.domain.x): Debug: Namespace : /opt/mail/operators-east doesn't exist yet, using default permissions
Jul 01 14:00:36 imap(operators-east at east.domain.x): Debug: Namespace : Using permissions from /opt/mail/operators-east: mode=0700 gid=default
Jul 01 14:00:36 imap(firstname.lastname at domain.x): Debug: Namespace : /opt/mail/firstname.lastname doesn't exist yet, using default permissions
Jul 01 14:00:36 imap(firstname.lastname at domain.x): Debug: Namespace : /opt/mail/firstname.lastname doesn't exist yet, using default permissions
Jul 01 14:00:36 imap(firstname.lastname at domain.x): Debug: Namespace : Using permissions from /opt/mail/firstname.lastname: mode=0700 gid=default
Jul 01 14:01:03 imap-login: Info: Login: user=<firstname.lastname at domain.x>, method=PLAIN, rip=127.0.0.1, lip=127.0.0.1, mpid=9326, secured, session=<2+YiPc4ZGwB/AAAB>
Jul 01 14:01:03 imap(firstname.lastname at domain.x): Debug: Effective uid=1001, gid=100, home=/opt/mail/firstname.lastname
Jul 01 14:01:03 imap(firstname.lastname at domain.x): Debug: maildir++: root=/opt/mail/firstname.lastname, index=, indexpvt=, control=, inbox=/opt/mail/firstname.lastname, alt=
Jul 01 14:01:07 imap-login: Info: Login: user=<operators-east at east.domain.x>, method=PLAIN, rip=127.0.0.1, lip=127.0.0.1, mpid=9333, secured, session=<11NpPc4ZHAB/AAAB>
Jul 01 14:01:07 imap(operators-east at east.domain.x): Debug: Effective uid=1001, gid=100, home=/opt/mail/operators-east
Jul 01 14:01:07 imap(operators-east at east.domain.x): Debug: maildir++: root=/opt/mail/operators-east, index=, indexpvt=, control=, inbox=/opt/mail/operators-east, alt=

I’ve changed the name and domain. Not sure if the namespace complaints have anything to do with the directories on disk,
but normally they are there when the logging comes.

Below is the used config file. I can’t see anything that would trigger deletions and there is no logging or similar
about it. To me it’s quite serious that an IMAP server randomly deletes mails and its own files.

###########################################################################################
# support only IMAP, no pop3
protocols = imap

# listen only on IPv4 (the default is: "* ::")
listen = *

# where logging gets sent
log_path = /var/log/dovecot.log

# disable SSL
ssl = no
disable_plaintext_auth = no

# we're using maildir without any extra folders in the user's home directory (set in userdb)
mail_location = maildir:~

# user ids
default_login_user    = dovenull
default_internal_user = dovecot

# auth config
auth_verbose = yes
auth_mechanisms = plain

# password scheme. Uses an external Python application to verify the password. It gets
# sent the username and password and can perform authentication. The current one
# simply accepts anything.
passdb {
    driver = checkpassword
    args   = /opt/dovecot-2.2.18/bin/checkpassword.py
}
   
# user database
userdb {
    driver = static
    args   = uid=navie gid=users home=/opt/mail/maildir/%n
}
###########################################################################################

Anything obviously wrong? I’ve seen that mail_location and mail_home should not be the same, but using

mail_location = maildir:~/mail

gives the exact same behavior.


Best regards,
    Jan Ekholm