Well you can continue to kid yourselves that the documentation is good if you like. The facts say differently. For example, I visit http://wiki.dovecot.org/MainConfig for help with the main config and at the top of the page it tells me that this page is for version 1.x, so I click the link to view the page for 2.x, which takes me to a page saying that the page I want has yet to be created. I therefore have no option but to refer to the version 1.x documentation. I copy "mechanisms = plain" from it but when I restart dovecot, it fails, telling me that it is not recognized!
Finally note that there are literally dozens of "how to install dovecot" guides on the internet
I noticed that also and did indeed follow many of them. Many of them though are for version 1.x but don't say so. Other's just leave you hanging. I could and probably will carry on digging on Google and probably will find a bunch of erroneous documents among the good ones and will have no easy way to tell the difference, but one might expect the official website to have the right information to save me this hassle.
By the way, I've now got it running. It wasn't failing due to the user being used to run the processes. It was due to misconfiguration of the way that the virtual users were setup, which in the end I managed to fix by interrogating a server with a working implementation (albeit ver 1.x) which was similar to what I needed and copying parts of it's config.
Although mutt now connects to it fine, roundcube doesn't, but don't worry. I'm not planning to bother you further.
Kind regards,
Peter
On 08/05/2012 05:38 PM, Ed W wrote:
On 05/08/2012 06:22, Peter Snow wrote:
Hi,
I have to say that Dovecot is certainly the most challenging piece of software I've ever had the pleasure of setting up (due mainly to the reams of largely unhelpful documentation). After 36 almost non-stop hours reading and trying, I finally end up here. :-)
I really would appreciate your help - and many thanks in advance!
Phew, haven't you set yourself up for a hostile response..?
It's only an opinion, but I would say that the Dovecot docs are rather helpful and thorough? Also dovecot ships with an almost working config out of the box, really you only need to adjust a couple of settings to achieve most setups.
OK, reading your log files, I think this is probably the clue?
/var/log/dovecot.log (showing unsuccessful login)
Aug 04 21:32:41 IMAP(peter): Error: user peter: Couldn't drop privileges: User is missing UID (see mail_uid setting) Aug 04 21:32:41 IMAP(peter): Error: Internal error occurred. Refer to server log for more information.
I don't use that auth method so I don't want to give you a definitive suggestion, but we can certainly use google to get some ideas: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=dovecot+mail_uid+
Third link down seems to cover your question. Basically says you need to define the setting listed above, but also why.
Note, I think it's easy to level critique against dovecot auth, but if you look for a few moments longer you will see that you are probably just criticising flexibility. You can use a very wide array of database types to store your auth information and with that flexibility comes the requirement to actually define your specific choice.
Some people run a multi-tennanted system and like to be able to run each user under their own uid, hence that being flexible. Others want to use LDAP or a database to store auth info (I think you can even use both at the same time). It's even possible to use both at the same time I believe, or to lookup users in one db, and passwords in another.
Note, I don't know your requirements, but you might want to look at some kind of database for your user storage if you have more than a fairly simple installation? Either LDAP or sql is likely to give you more flexibility than a flat file pwdb, but I don't know your requirements, so just a thought
Finally note that there are literally dozens of "how to install dovecot" guides on the internet that will help you get a working setup with various auth db choices. Once you understand the big picture using one of those guides you will be able to customise things to a very specific situation
Good luck
Ed W