Strange permissions error - Failed to stat sieve storage path

[John Fawcett]

On 14/10/2020 16:31, Graham Leggett wrote:
> Hi all
>
> I have dovecot-lda set up to run as vmail:vmail, with some sieve scripts in /var/lib/dovecot/sieve.
>
> The sieve scripts fail to be found with the following (detailed and very helpful) error message:
>
> Oct 14 16:13:33 gatekeeper dovecot[8109]: lda(minfrin at example.com)<8109><ZJ9nMo0Hh1+tHwAAKdTwig>: Error: sieve: file storage: Failed to stat sieve storage path: stat(/var/lib/dovecot/sieve/vacation.sieve) failed: Permission denied (euid=387(vmail) egid=387(vmail) missing +x perm: /var/lib/dovecot, we're not in group 97(dovecot), dir owned by 97:97 mode=0750)
>
> In this case, the user vmail is a member of the dovecot group:
>
> [root at gatekeeper dovecot]# cat /etc/group | grep vmail
> mail:x:12:postfix,vmail,opendmarc,opendkim,openarc
> dovecot:x:97:vmail
> vmail:x:387:
> [root at gatekeeper dovecot]# sudo su - vmail
> Last login: Wed Oct 14 16:15:48 SAST 2020 on pts/0
> [vmail at gatekeeper ~]$ wc -c /var/lib/dovecot/sieve/vacation.svbin 
> 530 /var/lib/dovecot/sieve/vacation.svbin
>
> Does dovecot-lda do anything odd with respect to group memberships?
>
> Regards,
> Graham
> —
>
Hi Graham

this may not solve the problem, but I thought I'd point out that the
error message relates to 

/var/lib/dovecot/sieve/vacation.sieve

whereas your test using sudo related to a different file

/var/lib/dovecot/sieve/vacation.svbin

John