Greetings,

I am setting up Dovecot 1.0.15 on my home Fedora Core 8 pc ONLY to access my mail archives across several mail clients. No access from the internet is possible or needed here.

I cannot log in with any client, the login always fails. The reason, as I understand, is that when dovecot starts it doesn't read any user name from the userdb file, so when I try to login it doesn't recognize my name and so doesn't even try to verify the password:

maillog excerpt:

Aug 3 00:06:11 polaris dovecot: Dovecot v1.0.15 starting up Aug 3 00:06:11 polaris dovecot: auth(default): passwd-file /etc/local_dovecot_passwords: Read 0 users Aug 3 00:06:11 polaris dovecot: auth(default): passwd-file /etc/local_dovecot_users: Read 0 users Aug 3 00:06:12 polaris dovecot: auth(default): new auth connection: pid=5150 Aug 3 00:06:12 polaris dovecot: auth(default): new auth connection: pid=5148 Aug 3 00:06:12 polaris dovecot: auth(default): new auth connection: pid=5149 Aug 3 00:06:26 polaris dovecot: auth(default): client in: AUTH#0111#011PLAIN#011service=IMAP#011secured#011lip=127.0.0.1#011rip=127.0.0.1#011resp=AG1hcmNvAGdpZ2V0dG8= Aug 3 00:06:26 polaris dovecot: auth(default): passwd-file(marco,127.0.0.1): lookup: user=marco file=/etc/local_dovecot_passwords Aug 3 00:06:26 polaris dovecot: auth(default): passwd-file(marco,127.0.0.1): unknown user Aug 3 00:06:27 polaris dovecot: auth(default): client out: FAIL#0111#011user=marco Aug 3 00:06:27 polaris dovecot: imap-login: Disconnected: user=<marco>, method=PLAIN, rip=127.0.0.1, lip=127.0.0.1, secured

the dovecot.conf file, purged by comments, is below. What am I missing?

TIA, Marco ##############################################################

protocols = imap

listen = localhost:143 mail_location = maildir:/home/marco/.MAIL/home_imap/

protocol imap { }

protocol pop3 { }

protocol lda { postmaster_address = postmaster@example.com }

auth_debug = yes auth_debug_passwords = yes

auth default { mechanisms = plain login passdb passwd-file { args = /etc/local_dovecot_passwords } userdb passwd-file { args = /etc/local_dovecot_users } user = root } dict { } plugin { }

###################################################

the local_dovecot_passwords and local_dovecot_users files are identical, and have permission 644: marco:{PLAIN}thepassword:500:500::/home/marco/.MAIL/home_imap/

-- Reality is for those who lack imagination