Doveadm auth test fails

[John Fawcett]

On 06/01/2022 01:16, Ken Wright wrote:
> I've been having trouble logging into my email server (postfix 3.4.13,
> dovecot 2.3.7.2, postfixadmin 3.3.8).  I decided to try the doveadm
> auth test, and got the following result:
>
> kwright at grace:~$ sudo doveadm auth test me at mydomain.com
> Password:
> passdb: me at mydomain.com auth failed
> extra fields:
>    user=me at mydomain.com
>
> I logged in to PostfixAdmin and made sure I was using the correct
> password, but got exactly the same result afterward.  Should I have
> restarted Dovecot after changing the password?  I'm totally confused by
> this problem; any and all suggestions will be gratefully received!
>
> Ken
>
>
>
Ken

Dovecot does have credential caching, so potentially the info could be 
coming from the cache though dovecot uses some logic to understand when 
it should do a new query so normally its not necessary to flush the 
cache or restart dovecot after changing a password. If you're doing 
testing on a a non live server in the process of being set up then you 
may want to take the cautious approach of restarting dovecot.

The command output you gave above does not provide useful information 
about why the command is failing. You may be able to find other 
information in the log.

You may want to investigate turning on authentication and password 
debugging to progress this problem.

auth_debug = yes

auth_debug_passwords = yes

(and restart dovecot)

Then try an authentication test again or even a full login test

doveadm auth login username

Those settings will give you information in the log about what dovecot 
is doing internally in relation to lookup up the user info and password 
including information about password mismatches.

John