Mailbox problem on centos O/S after some "fiddling"

[Aki Tuomi]

> On 19/01/2017 21:47 John Richards <john at watchetwebdesign.co.uk> wrote:
> 
>  
> Good day from Somerset, England
> 
> Version 2.2.10
> 
> Problem after a huge centos update
> 
> Data:-  Server has 8 mailboxes under /var/mail/"user name"
> 
> history:- After update, mail to ONE user was going into mqueue as 
> undeliverable
>           Had to delete and recreate the user.
> 
>           somewhere along the line (ME!) /var/mail/;imap   var/mail/new
>           were deleted
> 
>           After new user and reboot server no one could access mailboxes
>           with password error except ONE user randomly....This created
>           the /var/mail/.mbox folder and sub folders but with the owner
>           as the user name.  Then any mail for other users was put in the
>           /var/new folder and just sat there.
> 
>           only the "owner" of this folder could get mail, everyone else was
>           prohibited with password error.
> 
>           chown the folder (owner:group) to root did nothing
> 
>           BUT
> 
>           When .mbox was give PUBLIC execute permissions (771) suddenly
>           everything works fine!
> 
> I do not understand why dovecot creates this folder as we ONLY ever use pop3
> (currently with plain text auth but going to secure when this sorted)
> for mail and also why when it writes the blank folder it "owns" it with the
> user accessing it (also the /var/mail/new folder takes the same owner)
> 
> I have trolled everywhere and spent a whole day on this so any clues would
> be very gratefully accepted as do not like to leave this folder as 771 (note
> the folder INBOX within it is only 770 and the log file in that is 660)
> 
> Is this INBOX needed at all for pop3 ?
> 
> rgds
> John Richards
> UK
> 
> =================   
> 
> 
> 
> dovecot -n
> 
> # 2.2.10: /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf
> # OS: Linux 3.10.0-514.2.2.el7.x86_64 x86_64 CentOS Linux release 
> 7.3.1611 
> (Core                                                                                                                      
> )  ext4
> auth_mechanisms = plain login
> disable_plaintext_auth = no
> mail_location = mbox:/var/mail/:INBOX=/var/mail/%u
> mbox_write_locks = fcntl
> namespace inbox {
>   inbox = yes
>   location =
>   mailbox Drafts {
>     special_use = \Drafts
>   }
>   mailbox Junk {
>     special_use = \Junk
>   }
>   mailbox Sent {
>     special_use = \Sent
>   }
>   mailbox "Sent Messages" {
>     special_use = \Sent
>   }
>   mailbox Trash {
>     special_use = \Trash
>   }
>   prefix =
> }
> passdb {
>   driver = shadow
> }
> protocols = pop3
> service imap-login {
>   inet_listener imap {
>     port = 143
>   }
>   inet_listener imaps {
>     port = 993
>     ssl = yes
>   }
> }
> ssl_cert = </etc/pki/tls/certs/watchetwebdesign.co.uk.crt
> ssl_key = </etc/pki/tls/private/watchetwebdesign.co.uk.key
> userdb {
>   driver = passwd
> }


> mail_location = mbox:/var/mail/:INBOX=/var/mail/%u

You are putting everyone's non-INBOX folders into same place. And indexes. I'm amazed anything works.

> mail_location = mbox:~/.mail:INBOX=/var/mail/%u

Is much safer.

Aki