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

28 May 2021


      ...
On 19/01/2017 21:47 John Richards john@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 = 
...
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

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

Aki Tuomi