file/folder perms permissions

[Steffen Kaiser]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On Thu, 4 Aug 2016, Jim Pazarena wrote:

> Forgive me if I am blind, but I cannot find default folder permissions.

there are no "default"s, because it depends on your installation heavily.

> For the home directories, with the sub of mail: and deeper, I see some files 
> with 660, some with 600, some folders with 770 some with 660

If you have folders with permission 660, they are wrong, because they miss 
access perm for all, even the owner.

> I am a bit confused. I manually messed with some files, and my MUA complained 
> about permissions. So I got that mess fixed, and in doing so I noticed the 
> seemingly contradictory permissions.

The user must be able to access the files, so:

user/owner:
+ if you use system users, Dovecot uses the user's system id to access the 
files,
+ if you use virtual users, Dovecot uses the mail_uid specified in the 
conf file or userdb,

group (usually):
+ for some operations additional permissions might be necessary, those are 
*usually* given via group "mail", e.g. sharing of mailboxes with system 
users, direct deliviering of messages without Dovecot LDA or LMTP, ...

====

usually you get very descriptive hints, what permissions are required, by 
reading the logs. Dovecot 2 even walks up directories, if an access perm 
is missing. Very convient!

====

If you have trouble with mailboxes (rather than the complete mail store of 
an user), create a new mailbox within an account, that has no problems and 
use the permissions given there for problematic mailboxes.

- -- 
Steffen Kaiser
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1

iQEVAwUBV6QtxXz1H7kL/d9rAQLB1Qf/ezS2Go1khR9D69IeAKSQ+V1Vd/7pQb2G
8HJFB8QgnLBMpmwN3vrz3+t0kWqNhW+TKusYIl70kkDYzUCC+oBeNHHVb94d20s+
sN6Up1kdLbuPJ926QiW0Sb8n6pOAyXels4L4RrKqpX4PafhtumsltOiPI82pfUpY
Mel69RRh23TAepV2CnEyeWxfQ+ffJrumsVu00FR0EAd8pFw3LsKStBfQr4qA/f/+
G2aXNHPDQK2fzmP0SFK3uxk/AXgl5cbUqxEvf7n7STxaCZpcSH3DVrK7Nt0aQEBa
dHm6dc+TgcY0GhJRmtKyLhnRQhZyiPW1vIBs3YS8uMcBQKG+cY9Bsw==
=BIxI
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----