Automatic purging of old email in all mailboxes

[Christian Kivalo]

On 2016-08-29 21:40, Scott W. Sander wrote:
> I am using a postfix + Dovecot server as a test mail server for which 
> some
> applications in our test environment use as a target to deliver email 
> so
> that our real endusers don't receive messages from our test servers.
> 
> A few of the mailboxes in Dovecot receive hundreds of emails per day.  
> I'd
> like to automatically remove all emails in all mailboxes and mailbox
> folders that were received more than 90 days prior to the received 
> date.
> As I'm a novice Dovecot administrator, I'm not exactly sure what the 
> best
> way to accomplish this is, but I've started looking at the "doveadm
> expunge" command.  I figure I could create a cron job that calls this
> command with the -A switch and that has a search query that finds all
> emails older than 90 days.
> 
> I'm aware that I can test my query by using the "doveadm search" 
> command.
> The problem is that when I do any sort of search query with that 
> command
> (e.g. "doveadm search -A NEW"), I receive the following error messages:
> 
> Error: User listing returned failure
> doveadm: Error: Failed to iterate through some users
> 
You have to switch your userdb to something else than static, 
passwd-file for example
http://wiki2.dovecot.org/AuthDatabase/PasswdFile

> I've searched for help with this error, but most of the guidance I'm 
> seeing
> refers to making sure that dovecot-sql is configured correctly; 
> however,
> I'm using "passwd-file" for the passdb and not a true database.
> 
there is the expire plugin http://wiki2.dovecot.org/Plugins/Expire

> Here is doveconf -n:
> 
> -------
> 
> # 2.2.22 (fe789d2): /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf
> # Pigeonhole version 0.4.13 (7b14904)
> # OS: Linux 4.4.0-34-generic x86_64 Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS ext4
> auth_mechanisms = plain login
> hostname = mail.domain.test
> info_log_path = /var/log/dovecot.log
> log_path = /var/log/dovecot.log
> mail_location = maildir:/var/mail/vhosts/%d/%n
> namespace inbox {
>   inbox = yes
>   location =
>   mailbox "Deleted Items" {
>     special_use = \Trash
>   }
>   mailbox Drafts {
>     special_use = \Drafts
>   }
>   mailbox Junk {
>     special_use = \Junk
>   }
>   mailbox "Junk E-Mail" {
>     special_use = \Junk
>   }
>   mailbox Sent {
>     special_use = \Sent
>   }
>   mailbox "Sent Items" {
>     special_use = \Sent
>   }
>   mailbox "Sent Messages" {
>     special_use = \Sent
>   }
>   mailbox Trash {
>     special_use = \Trash
>   }
>   prefix =
> }
> passdb {
>   args = scheme=PLAIN username_format=%u /etc/dovecot/dovecot-users
>   driver = passwd-file
> }
> protocols = " imap lmtp pop3"
> service auth {
>   unix_listener /var/spool/postfix/private/auth {
>     group = postfix
>     mode = 0666
>     user = postfix
>   }
> }
> service imap-login {
>   inet_listener imaps {
>     port = 993
>     ssl = yes
>   }
> }
> service lmtp {
>   unix_listener /var/spool/postfix/private/dovecot-lmtp {
>     group = postfix
>     mode = 0600
>     user = postfix
>   }
> }
> service pop3-login {
>   inet_listener pop3s {
>     port = 995
>     ssl = yes
>   }
> }
> ssl = required
> ssl_cert = </etc/ssl/certs/appserver4_combined.pem
> ssl_key = </etc/ssl/private/appserver4_key.pem
> userdb {
>   args = uid=vmail gid=vmail home=/var/mail/vhosts/%d/%n
>   driver = static
> }
> 
> -------
> 
> Thank you in advance!

-- 
  Christian Kivalo