Quota - frustrated trying to configure ...

[Garry Glendown]

Hi,

after fighting Dovecot almost every step of the way, I have finally
gotten most of the functions configured on a customer box (used Cyrus on
a previous install, but it was dropped from SLES 12 ...)

The mail server setup uses LDAP for user authentication, has a central
maildir tree (.../dovecot/maildir/<USER>/...) that is used for all
users' mail, sieve is also running well. The users themselves are just
virtual users, they do not have a local home directory or anything.

I was now trying to get Quota to work ... Looking at the Wiki more or
less showed the same "spotty" results of the rest of the Wiki. Fine for
anybody that needs the documentation just as a reference, but somewhat
lacking for someone that does not have experience in setting up Dovecot.
I tried following the wiki, as well as checking on other web pages I
came across.

In order to keep the setup simple, and not have to jump through hoops to
set up any SQL backup etc., I tried using a file-based storage of the
quota entries, as in:

dict {
        quota = file:/data/dovecot/db/quota.db
}

I also added quota entries in the other places I believe are necessary,
and set up a rule like this:

plugin {
  quota_rule = *:storage=1G
  quota_rule2 = Trash:storage=+100M
}

I got through dovecot restart without errors, and IMAP still answers.
But attempting to do a recalculation of the current quota usage ends up
with this error:

doveadm(root): Error: chdir(/root/) failed: Permission denied
(euid=479(dovecot) egid=478(dovecot) missing +x perm: /root, dir owned
by 0:0 mode=0700)
doveadm(root): Error: chdir(/root) failed: Permission denied

It looks like dovecot doesn't actually attempt to look at the central
maildir, but instead seems to attempt to enter the current user's
homedir (which, in this case, is root).

What am I (possibly) missing here? Is this way of setting it up even
viable? While I need a general per-user-quota, I also need the ability
to overwrite each user's default quota ... is there any recommendable
more detailed documentation on how to set up quota?

Thanks, -garry