On 10/11/2025 07:14 EET Helmut K. C. Tessarek via dovecot <dovecot@dovecot.org> wrote:
I upgraded dovecot from 2.3 to 2.4 today and all of a sudden I get an authentication error: passwd-file: Password mismatch
My config looks like this:
passdb pam { driver = pam } passdb passwd-file { driver = passwd-file auth_username_format = %{user | username} passwd_file_path = /etc/dovecot/alternate/passwd skip = authenticated }
I haven't changed the /etc/dovecot/alternate/passwd in ages and its contents look similar to:
user:$6$blablablagfsgfsgfsgsbfssfslongbase64stringhere
Just earlier today (on 2.3) I was able to login just fine with the alternate password for my user.
Did I misconfigure dovecot or are $6$ type passwords no longer supported. Here's the debug output:
2025-11-10 05:44:58 +0100auth(userhere,server-ip-here,sasl:plain)<VrJZMTZD7rtcKosF>: Debug: pam: Finished passdb lookup 2025-11-10 05:44:58 +0100auth(userhere,server-ip-here,sasl:plain)<VrJZMTZD7rtcKosF>: Debug: passwd-file: Performing passdb lookup 2025-11-10 05:44:58 +0100auth(userhere,server-ip-here,sasl:plain)<VrJZMTZD7rtcKosF>: Debug: passwd-file: lookup: user=userhere file=/etc/dovecot/alternate/passwd 2025-11-10 05:44:58 +0100auth(userhere,server-ip-here,sasl:plain)<VrJZMTZD7rtcKosF>: Debug: passwd-file: Finished passdb lookup 2025-11-10 05:44:58 +0100auth(userhere,server-ip-here,sasl:plain)<VrJZMTZD7rtcKosF>: Debug: Auth request finished 2025-11-10 05:44:58 +0100auth(userhere,server-ip-here,sasl:plain)<VrJZMTZD7rtcKosF>: Debug: delaying auth failure
Any idea what might be going on?
Cheers, K. C.
Try adding to the passwd-file
default_password_scheme = crypt
Aki