- dovecot - dovecot.org

[Dovecot] Server 1.0.1 migration: Maildir : UID inserted in the middle of mailbox
by damien chambe - EGS 29 Jun '07

29 Jun '07

Hello all, Since a migration from dovecot 1.rc16 to Dovecot 1.0.1 + new server, every day I have a lot of errors like this : Jun 21 17:42:34 dovecot1 deliver(damien.chambe(a)egs-gestion.fr): msgid=<467A9B3E.5070605(a)egs-gestion.fr>: saved mail to INBOX Jun 21 17:42:34 dovecot1 postfix/pipe[10242]: 92DD11FA8B: to=<damien.chambe(a)egs-gestion.fr>, relay=dovecot, delay=0, status=sent (egs-gestion.fr) Jun 21 17:42:34 dovecot1 postfix/qmgr[2724]: 92DD11FA8B: removed Jun 21 17:42:37 dovecot1 dovecot: IMAP(damien.chambe(a)egs-gestion.fr): Maildir /mnt/baie/hula/dovecot/maildir/damien.chambe sync: UID inserted in the middle of mailbox (374 > 1, file = 1182330228.P30307Q0M224874.dovecot1:2,ST) Jun 21 17:42:37 dovecot1 dovecot: IMAP(damien.chambe(a)egs-gestion.fr): Disconnected: Mailbox is in inconsistent state, please relogin. Jun 21 17:51:41 dovecot1 dovecot: imap-login: Login: user=<damien.chambe(a)egs-gestion.fr>, method=PLAIN, rip=10.6.1.104, lip=10.5.3.38 Jun 21 17:51:41 dovecot1 dovecot: IMAP(damien.chambe(a)egs-gestion.fr): Corrupted index cache file /opt/dovecot/indexes/damien.chambe/.INBOX/dovecot.index.cache: indexid changed After this error, all UID are regenerated. And, when the user logs in, all headers are sent back to the client (IMAP / thunderbird 1.5.x or 2.0.0.4). No email are lost or duplicated, but it cause a huge traffic on our DSL lines, and user are complaining... There's also other errors related to UID: Jun 21 16:11:01 dovecot1 deliver(pr(a)egs-gestion.fr): rename(/mnt/baie/hula/dovecot/maildir/pr/dovecot-uidlist.lock, /mnt/baie/hula/dovecot/maildir/pr/dovecot-uidlist) failed: No such file or directory Jun 21 16:11:01 dovecot1 deliver(pr(a)egs-gestion.fr): file_dotlock_replace(/mnt/baie/hula/dovecot/maildir/pr/dovecot-uidlist) failed: No such file or directory Jun 21 16:11:02 dovecot1 deliver(pr(a)egs-gestion.fr): /mnt/baie/hula/dovecot/maildir/pr/dovecot-uidlist: next_uid was lowered (374 -> 373) Jun 21 16:11:02 dovecot1 deliver(pr(a)egs-gestion.fr): msgid=<467A85CB.50009(a)fica.fr>: saved mail to INBOX Jun 21 16:11:02 dovecot1 dovecot: IMAP(pr(a)egs-gestion.fr): rename(/mnt/baie/hula/dovecot/maildir/pr/dovecot-uidlist.lock, /mnt/baie/hula/dovecot/maildir/pr/dovecot-uidlist) failed: No such file or directory Here's the context: Our Dovecot server had to be changed due to a hardware problem I was forced to use SUSE SLES 10 for the new one, instead of SLES 9 on the old server. X86-32 I've kept the same configuration files for postfix, dovecot. We use dovecot deliver. Old postfix version was 2.1.1, now I have 2.2.9 During the migration, I've changed dovecot 1.rc16 to dovecot 1.0.0 When I saw this error, I upgraded to dovecot 1.0.1, but same problem (I use suse rpm packages ) I have 400 mailbox, all Maildir. The problem happens 50 times a day, so not on every mail received. I store mails on NFS, and index on local disk. There's only one dovecot server, so no multiple access. I've tried to remove all index files, and remove dovecot-uidlist, all is correctly re-created, but the problem remains. Could it be an NFS locking problem ? Since only mail are stored on maildir + NFS, and index on local disk, so I didn't set lock_method or nmap_disable Could it be related to this: see email from from Doug Concil : [Dovecot] NFS lock contention for dovecot-uidlist on may 17 , 2007 ? dovecot -n # 1.0.1: /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf protocols: imap pop3 ssl_disable: yes disable_plaintext_auth: no login_dir: /var/run/dovecot/login login_executable(default): /usr/lib/dovecot/imap-login login_executable(imap): /usr/lib/dovecot/imap-login login_executable(pop3): /usr/lib/dovecot/pop3-login login_user: dovecotlogin login_process_per_connection: no login_processes_count: 5 max_mail_processes: 2048 first_valid_uid: 120 first_valid_gid: 12 default_mail_env: maildir:/mnt/baie/hula/dovecot/maildir/%n:INDEX=/opt/dovecot/indexes/%n mail_location: maildir:/mnt/baie/hula/dovecot/maildir/%n:INDEX=/opt/dovecot/indexes/%n mail_executable(default): /usr/lib/dovecot/imap mail_executable(imap): /usr/lib/dovecot/imap mail_executable(pop3): /usr/lib/dovecot/pop3 mail_plugins(default): quota imap_quota mail_plugins(imap): quota imap_quota mail_plugins(pop3): mail_plugin_dir(default): /usr/lib/dovecot/modules/imap mail_plugin_dir(imap): /usr/lib/dovecot/modules/imap mail_plugin_dir(pop3): /usr/lib/dovecot/modules/pop3 pop3_uidl_format(default): pop3_uidl_format(imap): pop3_uidl_format(pop3): %08Xu%08Xv auth default: verbose: yes passdb: driver: ldap args: /etc/dovecot/dovecot-ldap.conf userdb: driver: ldap args: /etc/dovecot/dovecot-ldap.conf socket: type: listen master: path: /var/run/dovecot/auth-master mode: 384 user: dovecot group: mail plugin: quota: maildir:storage=1500000:messages=40000 Thanks, -- Cordialement, Damien Chambe EGS 42 bld jules janin - BP 240 - 42006 Saint Etienne Cedex 1 Tel : 04 77 49 48 16 Fax : 04 77 49 48 45 Site institutionnel : http://www.groupe-laurent.com Site catalogue : http://ecat.groupe-laurent.com

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[Dovecot] lda and mail_location
by Mark Edwards 28 Jun '07

28 Jun '07

I have the following set in the main level of my dovecot.conf file: mail_location = maildir:/var/mail/virtual/%u I decided to enable the lda protocol for local delivery from postfix, so I could use sieve plugins. The lda protocol seems to ignore settings in the rest of the dovecot.conf file, however, such as the above. Unless lda has a pre-existing maildir mailbox, it can't create one. How do I give lda defaults to follow, if the above statement doesn't do it? Here is the output of dovecot -n Thanks! ---- # /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf log_timestamp: %Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S protocols: imap pop3 imaps pop3s listen: 127.0.0.1 ssl_listen: [::] ssl_cert_file: /etc/ssl/private/mail.antsclimbtree.com.pem ssl_key_file: /etc/ssl/private/mail.antsclimbtree.com.pem login_dir: /var/run/dovecot/login login_executable(default): /usr/lib/dovecot/imap-login login_executable(imap): /usr/lib/dovecot/imap-login login_executable(pop3): /usr/lib/dovecot/pop3-login valid_chroot_dirs: /var/mail verbose_proctitle: yes first_valid_uid: 8 last_valid_uid: 8 first_valid_gid: 8 last_valid_gid: 8 mail_extra_groups: mail mail_location: maildir:/var/mail/virtual/%u maildir_copy_with_hardlinks: yes mail_executable(default): /usr/lib/dovecot/imap mail_executable(imap): /usr/lib/dovecot/imap mail_executable(pop3): /usr/lib/dovecot/pop3 mail_plugin_dir(default): /usr/lib/dovecot/modules/imap mail_plugin_dir(imap): /usr/lib/dovecot/modules/imap mail_plugin_dir(pop3): /usr/lib/dovecot/modules/pop3 imap_client_workarounds(default): outlook-idle delay-newmail imap_client_workarounds(imap): outlook-idle delay-newmail imap_client_workarounds(pop3): outlook-idle pop3_uidl_format(default): pop3_uidl_format(imap): pop3_uidl_format(pop3): %08Xu%08Xv pop3_client_workarounds(default): pop3_client_workarounds(imap): pop3_client_workarounds(pop3): outlook-no-nuls oe-ns-eoh namespace: type: private separator: / inbox: yes auth default: mechanisms: plain login username_format: %Lu verbose: yes passdb: driver: ldap args: /etc/dovecot/dovecot-ldap.conf userdb: driver: ldap args: /etc/dovecot/dovecot-ldap.conf socket: type: listen client: path: /var/spool/postfix/private/auth mode: 432 user: postfix group: postfix master: path: /var/run/dovecot/auth-master mode: 384 user: mail group: mail

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[Dovecot] UW-IMAP conversion part 2
by Andrew Z 28 Jun '07

28 Jun '07

FWIW, the Dovecot 1.0.1 convert plugin works with all my UW-IMAP mboxes moved to ~/mail. At least that shows that my system otherwise works. Also, I wrote a script to move the mboxes and preserve the IMAP subscriptions. (I hope the list accepts the attached script.)

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[Dovecot] Locking problems on Dovecot 1.x in Maildir
by Ronald MacDonald 28 Jun '07

28 Jun '07

Hi list, Overall, everything works fine, and all the emails are delivered without anything messing up. But then, from time to time, the transaction logs for some users become corrupted, meaning emails cannot be read at all from dovecot. With a bit of a search on google, it seems to be a problem with locking on the transaction log. The individual files are fine - it's maildir, so the chances of 2 accesses on the same file are near impossible. But the problem seems to come when things get a bit busy, and inevitably, the transaction log tends to get corrupted all too often now for me to just go in and delete the log, and start afresh. I've addressed the issue temporarily by putting the index in memory by the :INDEX=MEMORY as opposed to a static file. This isn't ideal, but it seems to save the system going up in arms. Is there an alternative to using this system? Ronald. -- Ronald MacDonald http://www.rmacd.com/ 0777 235 1655

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[Dovecot] convert plugin problem from UW-IMAP
by Andrew Z 28 Jun '07

28 Jun '07

Though there are conversion scripts, I'd like to give the convert plugin a chance. I have Dovecot 1.0.1 on Trustix Secure Linux 2.2 (Linux 2.4.27), and we had UW IMAP 2002e. Dovecot seems to work OK (e.g. I can add copy messages to it), but things break when I activate the convert plugin. The Wiki suggests convert_mail = mbox:~/:INBOX=/var/mail/%u # <--- locally changed to /var/spool/mail/%u convert_skip_broken_mailboxes=yes However, when I start Dovecot, then I get: Starting Dovecot Imap: ILoading modules from directory: /usr/lib/dovecot/imap IModule loaded: /usr/lib/dovecot/imap/lib20_convert_plugin.so IEffective uid=65534, gid=65534, home= Imbox: data=~/:INBOX=/var/spool/mail/dump-capability Imbox: root=, index=, inbox=/var/spool/mail/dump-capability Eopen(/.temp.localhost.localdomain.7834.96dd6ef6b7dfc402) failed: Permission denied Error: imap dump-capability process returned 89 Fatal: Invalid configuration in /etc/dovecot.conf So based on a tip on the mailing list, I try convert_mail = mbox:/home/users/%u:INBOX=/var/spool/mail/%u But the session fails, and Thunderbird can't connect properly. /var/log/dovecot.log Jun 26 11:39:25 Info: IMAP(andrewz): Module loaded: /usr/lib/dovecot/imap/lib20_convert_plugin.so Jun 26 11:39:25 Info: IMAP(andrewz): Effective uid=501, gid=501, home=/home/users/andrewz Jun 26 11:39:25 Info: IMAP(andrewz): mbox: data=/home/users/andrewz:INBOX=/var/spool/mail/andrewz Jun 26 11:39:25 Info: IMAP(andrewz): mbox: root=/home/users/andrewz, index=/home/users/andrewz, inbox=/var/spool/mail/andrewz Jun 26 11:39:25 Info: IMAP(andrewz): mbox: data=/home/users/andrewz:INBOX=/var/spool/mail/andrewz Jun 26 11:39:25 Info: IMAP(andrewz): mbox: root=/home/users/andrewz, index=/home/users/andrewz, inbox=/var/spool/mail/andrewz Jun 26 11:39:25 Info: IMAP(andrewz): maildir: data=/home/users/andrewz/Maildir Jun 26 11:39:25 Info: IMAP(andrewz): maildir: root=/home/users/andrewz/Maildir, index=/home/users/andrewz/Maildir, control=, inbox= Jun 26 11:39:25 Info: imap-login: Login: user=<andrewz>, method=PLAIN, rip=192.168.0.230, lip=192.168.0.60 /var/log/mail/errors Jun 26 11:39:25 localhost dovecot: IMAP(andrewz): Mailbox conversion: Couldn't copy mailbox Maildir/cur/1182879232.P7263Q0M965055.localhost.localdomain:2,Sa: BUG: Unknown internal error Jun 26 11:39:25 localhost dovecot: IMAP(andrewz): Mailbox conversion: Couldn't create mailbox directory Maildir..Trash Jun 26 11:39:25 localhost dovecot: IMAP(andrewz): Sending log messages too fast, throttling.. Jun 26 11:39:25 localhost dovecot: child 7888 (imap) returned error 89 I also tried convert_mail = mbox:%h:INBOX=/var/spool/mail/%u , but that acts like mbox:/home/users/%u. Then, I tried removing ~/Maildir . That doesn't help. When I connect via telnet, I get "1 OK Logged in.", and the remote host closes the connection. Also, I am not clear how Dovecot knows when to stop. With mbox in ~/mail, then dovecot can rename it, but we have mbox in ~/ which of course cannot be renamed. (I suggest moving mboxes to a new subdirectory.) I rebuild Dovecot based from a modified Fedora RPM .spec. My configuration is: # 1.0.1: /etc/dovecot.conf info_log_path: /var/log/dovecot.log protocols: imap ssl_disable: yes disable_plaintext_auth: no login_dir: /var/run/dovecot/login login_executable: /usr/libexec/dovecot/imap-login mail_location: maildir:~/Maildir mail_debug: yes mail_plugins: convert auth default: passdb: driver: pam userdb: driver: passwd plugin: convert_mail: mbox:/home/users/%u:INBOX=/var/spool/mail/%u convert_skip_broken_mailboxes: yes Andrew

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[Dovecot] deliver without lookup
by Bruno Puga 28 Jun '07

28 Jun '07

Hello friends! Is it possible to make deliver delivery a message without making a lookup using virtual users? I've read the section "Without a Lookup" (http://wiki.dovecot.org/LDA) in the wiki but I can´t do the same thing in my config and I can´t figure this out. From the forum I found this thread ( http://www.mail-archive.com/dovecot@dovecot.org/msg02956.html) but didn't understand why it didn't work in my config. I've tried: HOME=/path/to/user/homedir deliver -f test(a)test.com and I receive the message: Fatal: destination user parameter (-d user) not given I'm asking this because I need to migrate a system from maildrop to dovecot that has a script made by the system admin before me that makes something like follow. When someone send a message to all(a)domain.com, postfix call a transport that calls a script like this: ################################ cat > /tmp/message.txt cd /home/vmail/domain.com/ for i in *; do cat /tmp/message.txt | maildrop -d vmail $i domain.com done ################################ Where $i is all my users that have an domain account. This script delivery the message direct to the user's maildir, without making a lookup. I know to do this with Dovecot deliver making a lookup, but I'd like to do this without. Again, is it possible with deliver ? Or any ideas to workaround this? version 1.0.0 dovecot -n # /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf base_dir: /var/run/dovecot/ log_path: /var/log/dovecot-imapd.log log_timestamp: %Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S protocols: imap disable_plaintext_auth: no login_dir: /var/run/dovecot//login login_executable: /usr/lib/dovecot/imap-login mail_location: maildir:/home/vmail/%d/%n/ mail_debug: yes mail_plugins: quota imap_quota acl imap_client_workarounds: outlook-idle delay-newmail namespace: type: private separator: . prefix: INBOX. inbox: yes namespace: type: private separator: . auth default: verbose: yes debug: yes debug_passwords: yes passdb: driver: sql args: /etc/dovecot/dovecot-sql.conf userdb: driver: prefetch userdb: driver: sql args: /etc/dovecot/dovecot-sql.conf socket: type: listen client: master: path: /var/run/dovecot/auth-master mode: 384 user: vmail group: vmail plugin: acl: vfile:/etc/dovecot/acls Thanks, Bruno.

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[Dovecot] deliver errors
by azher＠niit.edu.pk 28 Jun '07

28 Jun '07

Hi, I am using ver 1.0.1 and getting the following errors in mail.log and auth.log respectively. However I can login to imap and retrieve emails no problem, while sending email is also ok. Jun 27 23:59:21 webmail sm-mta[1889]: l5RIvhQE001865: Warning: program /usr/local/libexec/dovecot/deliver unsafe: Group writable directory Jun 27 23:27:30 webmail dovecot-auth: (pam_unix) authentication failure; logname= uid=0 euid=0 tty=dovecot ruser= rhost=127.0.0.1 user=azher Can someone plz suggest what can be wrong. Regards -Azher

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[Dovecot] IMAP IDLE goes to sleep
by Julian Cowley 27 Jun '07

27 Jun '07

First of all, let me say that I'm really impressed with Dovecot. It is great. Problem description =================== Now I've got a possible bug I'd like to report. I've been learning about the IMAP protocol recently, and have started playing with the IDLE command. The problem is that Dovecot doesn't always notify the client when there is new mail available. While notifications work for the most part, it seems that Dovecot occasionally gets itself into a rut where it fails to notice any changes to the mailbox (new messages, flag changes, etc.). The problem usually becomes apparent when there is more than one email client accessing the same mailbox. In fact, this may be a requirement -- I only tested it once, but I couldn't reproduce the problem when I had only one connection open to the mailbox (which is in maildir format in my case). An example is included below. Any feedback on how to debug this problem further would be appreciated. An aside ======== After I found out about the IDLE command, I looked for implementations. I ran across this plug-in for Apple Mail (one of my favorite mail clients): http://www.rothwell.us/imapidle/index.html The web page notes that Leopard's Apple Mail may support the IDLE command natively, which is good news if true. It would be really cool if Dovecot's IDLE command can be made robust enough to make this feature really come alive. Example ======= This transcript is copied from an SSL connection directly to dovecot using openssl s_client. At the same time a separate client (Horde/IMP) has the same mailbox open: A0017 IDLE + idling * 7927 FETCH (FLAGS (\Seen \Recent)) * 7927 FETCH (FLAGS (\Deleted \Seen \Recent)) * OK Still here * OK Still here * OK Still here * OK Still here * 7940 EXISTS * 22 RECENT * OK Still here * OK Still here * OK Still here * OK Still here * OK Still here * OK Still here * OK Still here * OK Still here * OK Still here * OK Still here * 7941 EXISTS [At some point after this, something happens (or doesn't happen) and dovecot no longer notifies of new messages. The other client is still reading messages in the same mailbox and new mail is still arriving.] * OK Still here * OK Still here * OK Still here * OK Still here * OK Still here [The above message repeated another 30 times here. Finally, IDLE mode is terminated:] * OK Still here DONE * 7941 EXPUNGE A0017 OK Idle completed. [Now a NOOP is issued to gather any more untagged responses, and there's a deluge of responses, presumably all the stuff that happened while dovecot was asleep. Notice that the highest message is 7967 whereas the last one heard about was 7941.] A0018 NOOP * 7913 FETCH (FLAGS (\Deleted \Recent)) * 7914 FETCH (FLAGS (\Deleted)) * 7915 FETCH (FLAGS (\Deleted)) * 7916 FETCH (FLAGS (\Deleted)) * 7917 FETCH (FLAGS (\Deleted)) * 7918 FETCH (FLAGS (\Deleted)) * 7919 FETCH (FLAGS (\Deleted \Recent)) * 7920 FETCH (FLAGS (\Deleted \Recent)) * 7921 FETCH (FLAGS (\Deleted \Recent)) * 7922 FETCH (FLAGS (\Deleted \Seen)) * 7923 FETCH (FLAGS (\Deleted \Seen)) * 7925 FETCH (FLAGS (\Deleted \Seen)) * 7928 FETCH (FLAGS (\Deleted \Recent)) * 7967 EXISTS * 30 RECENT A0018 OK NOOP completed. Configuration ============= Here are the specifications of the dovecot used in the above test: version dovecot 1.0.1 os linux distro centos 4.5 fs ext3 arch x86_64 kernel 2.6.9-55.ELsmp configure --without inotify --with pam_stack --with forcequota2 cc gcc (GCC) 3.4.6 20060404 (Red Hat 3.4.6-8) In addition, I'm using the deliver LDA as the Postfix mailbox_command, and am using the dovecot-sieve plugin (which is used to set customized IMAP keywords). dovecot -n: # 1.0.1: /etc/dovecot.conf ssl_cert_file: /usr/lib/courier-imap/share/imapd.pem ssl_key_file: /usr/lib/courier-imap/share/imapd.pem login_dir: /var/run/dovecot/login login_executable(default): /usr/libexec/dovecot/imap-login login_executable(imap): /usr/libexec/dovecot/imap-login login_executable(pop3): /usr/libexec/dovecot/pop3-login first_valid_uid: 100 mail_location: maildir:~/Maildir maildir_copy_with_hardlinks: yes mail_executable(default): /usr/libexec/dovecot/imap mail_executable(imap): /usr/libexec/dovecot/imap mail_executable(pop3): /usr/libexec/dovecot/pop3 mail_plugin_dir(default): /usr/lib64/dovecot/imap mail_plugin_dir(imap): /usr/lib64/dovecot/imap mail_plugin_dir(pop3): /usr/lib64/dovecot/pop3 namespace: type: private separator: / inbox: yes auth default: default_realm: lava.net verbose: yes passdb: driver: sql args: /etc/dovecot-sql.conf userdb: driver: sql args: /etc/dovecot-sql.conf ps. Good thing there's no POP IDLE command!

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[Dovecot] Can't see public folder contents after renaming folder
by Robert Fraser 27 Jun '07

27 Jun '07

Hi We are using Thunderbird 2.0.0.x (Linux and Windows) with IMAP accounts against Dovecot 1.0.beta3 on Ubuntu 6.06 Dapper with Maildir. It is all working well except when we rename a folder in the public namespace, the person who renames it can no longer see the contents of the folder. If we rename it back to the original name , the person can see the contents again. If we delete the files in the index directory for that folder on the file system, the user can see the folder contents again. Can anyone tell me how to fix this? Many thanks Rob Relevant dovecot.conf details follow ------------------------------- default_mail_env = maildir:~/.Mail namespace private { separator = / inbox = yes } namespace public { separator = / prefix = Public/ location = maildir:/home/mail/public:CONTROL=~/.Mail/control/public:INDEX=~/.Mail/index/public } maildir_copy_with_hardlinks = yes umask = 0007

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[Dovecot] LSUB/SUBSCRIBE under namespaces
by bhayden＠umn.edu 27 Jun '07

27 Jun '07

Hi folks. Here's our situation: Migrating from UW-IMAP. Have lots (as in, tens of thousands) of clients set up using '~/mail' as the IMAP root, and using subscriptions. Dovecot mail_location is using '~' for mbox storage. We've disabled full filesystem access in Dovecot in order to use ACLs for shared folders. Hence we have a hidden namespace for backwards compatibility with those clients using '~/mail' (dovecot -n output is at the end of this message so you can see exact settings). Here's the problem. If the client is not taking advantage of this hidden namespace--say it's configured to use plain old 'mail' as the root directory--LSUB and SUBSCRIBE work as I'd expect. Subscribing to a folder called 'foo' puts this in the user's subscriptions file: mail/foo And this (from Thunderbird's log) is the LSUB exchange: 48203776[ed8ebe0]: 2e03600:server.umn.edu:A:SendData: 6 lsub "" "mail/*" 48203776[ed8ebe0]: ReadNextLine [stream=ed8ef88 nb=26 needmore=0] 48203776[ed8ebe0]: 2e03600:serverl.umn.edu:A:CreateNewLineFromSocket: * LSUB () "/" "mail/foo" 48203776[ed8ebe0]: ReadNextLine [stream=ed8ef88 nb=38 needmore=0] (trimmed...) 48203776[ed8ebe0]: 2e03600:bhayden.email.umn.edu:A:CreateNewLineFromSocket: 6 OK Lsub completed. All is well. However, when the client is configured with '~/mail' as the root and hence triggers the hidden namespace for such, SUBSCRIBE only writes a path relative to that namespace prefix. So as opposed the 'mail/foo' in the first example, we get: foo written to the subs folder. This leads to three problems: 1. Folders subscribed to when using this namespace will either disappear or break in a client using a different IMAP root setting that actually refers to the same place. For example, if this user moves to a client (such as both of the webmail offerings on campus) that use 'mail/' as the prefix, these folders will not be visible. This is a fairly sizeable population of our users, whom we aren't necessarily in the position to say "too bad" to. :) 2. Users moved over from UW-IMAP, who were using '~/mail' for the IMAP root, have a subscriptions file full of: ~/mail/bar Dovecot, with the same client configuration (since it's expecting a bare folder name to which it will prepend the namespace prefix), interprets this as so: 49036288[fa7e740]: 2eabc00:server.umn.edu:A:CreateNewLineFromSocket: * LSUB () "/" "~/mail/~/mail/foobar" Leading to having the folder displayed in the client's list, but giving an error on SELECT. Now, this one we could theoretically "solve" by scrubbing the prefixes out of subs files as we convert; however, that leaves us with #1 above, where the bare folder name in the subs file depends on (to the average user) an obscure client config setting, which in practice in a large heterogeneous environment is unreliable. 3. Users who have been using an IMAP root of 'mail' in some client and subscribed to folders, who then use a client with the root set to '~/mail' see what appears to be "duplicates" of the same folder at the top level and then within a bogus 'mail/' subdirectory. They (quite reasonably, from their perspective), delete one of these, only to find they've deleted the only copy of said folder. Not good. Also, users can't solve some of these problems by unsubbing and re-subbing on their own, as trying to unsubscribe from a folder that doesn't exist (such as ~/mail/~/mail/foobar in the example above) fails. So, I'm wondering if there's any way to address this. I looked through the list archives and code pretty thoroughly. Only thing I noticed was a CVS log mentioning a "subscriptions=yes" setting for namespaces, which sounded like it might address this problem. However, putting that setting into dovecot.conf causes it to fail to start with a "Unrecognized config option" error, and using an imap_executable wrapper that sets the env variable as specified in the code (NAMESPACE_<number>_SUBSCRIPTIONS) sets it, as I can see from the dovecot log output: Namespace: type=private, prefix=~/mail/, sep=/, inbox=no, hidden=yes, subscriptions=yes But doesn't seem to have any effect. These two things combined lead me to believe this option was deprecated at some point? Any thoughts or suggestions? While we're moving away from UW for a reason ;), it does seem to handle this one thing more coherently as it recognizes, for example, that if the server equivalent of mail_location's storage is '~', then subscription file entries: '~/mail/foo' and 'mail/foo' are the same thing, while 'foo' is '~/foo'--regardless of client settings or namespaces. Whereas in the same situation Dovecot handles a client IMAP root of '~/mail' vs 'mail' differently, even though they are in fact the same thing. This is also internally inconsistent, because (as noted above) when a namespace is not in effect Dovecot SUBSCRIBEs using a path relative to the mail_location storage--including the client's IMAP root portion of the path--whereas when a namespace is in effect it SUBSCRIBEs with only the bare mailbox name without the current client's IMAP root to give it context and meaning. Wouldn't it seem better to have these be consistent in this respect? We need to figure this out somehow before going any further with our migration. We'll modify the source if necessary, but are hoping for a solution that doesn't require maintaining local mods to the source code unless we absolutely have to. :) And this seems like a basic enough issue that it'd be good to handle it in the real codebase. Thanks for any help or insight, -Brian Hayden Internet Services University of Minnesota dovecot -n output: (The shell script mail_executable doesn't come into play here--it sets some namespace settings only for special shared accounts using Maildir, and doesn't touch anything for the normal mbox accounts discussed above.) # /etc/opt/dovecot/dovecot.conf syslog_facility: local6 protocols: imap imaps pop3 pop3s ssl_cert_file: /etc/opt/openssl/certs/dovecot.pem ssl_key_file: /etc/opt/openssl/private/dovecot.pem shutdown_clients: no login_dir: /var/opt/dovecot/run/dovecot/login login_executable(default): /opt/dovecot/libexec/dovecot/imap-login login_executable(imap): /opt/dovecot/libexec/dovecot/imap-login login_executable(pop3): /opt/dovecot/libexec/dovecot/pop3-login max_mail_processes: 8192 first_valid_uid: 99 mail_location: mbox:~:INBOX=/var/mail/%u:INDEX=/var/mail/.dovecot-index/%1u/%u/ mail_debug: yes mail_executable(default): /opt/dovecot/libexec/dovecot/mail_path.sh mail_executable(imap): /opt/dovecot/libexec/dovecot/mail_path.sh mail_executable(pop3): /opt/dovecot/libexec/dovecot/pop3 mail_plugins(default): zlib mail_plugins(imap): zlib mail_plugins(pop3): mail_plugin_dir(default): /opt/dovecot/lib/dovecot/imap mail_plugin_dir(imap): /opt/dovecot/lib/dovecot/imap mail_plugin_dir(pop3): /opt/dovecot/lib/dovecot/pop3 imap_client_workarounds(default): delay-newmail outlook-idle tb-extra-mailbox-sep imap_client_workarounds(imap): delay-newmail outlook-idle tb-extra-mailbox-sep imap_client_workarounds(pop3): outlook-idle pop3_uidl_format(default): pop3_uidl_format(imap): pop3_uidl_format(pop3): %08Xu%08Xv namespace: type: private separator: / inbox: yes namespace: type: private separator: / prefix: ~/mail/ location: mbox:%h/mail/:INDEX=/var/mail/.dovecot-index/%1u/%u/ hidden: yes namespace: type: private separator: / prefix: ~%u/mail/ location: mbox:~%u/mail/:INDEX=/var/mail/.dovecot-index/%1u/%u/ hidden: yes namespace: type: private separator: / prefix: Shared/ location: maildir:~/Maildir/Shared:INDEX=/var/mail/.dovecot-index/%1u/u/shared auth default: username_format: %Lu passdb: driver: pam args: session=yes * userdb: driver: passwd plugin: acl: vfile:

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