Hello Dovecot devs,

I think I found a bug in Dovecot's config handling. The semantic of e.g.

ssl_server { cert_file = /etc/ssl/certs/ssl-cert-snakeoil.pem key_file = /etc/ssl/private/ssl-cert-snakeoil.key }

in a config file is slightly different to

ssl_server_cert_file = /etc/ssl/certs/ssl-cert-snakeoil.pem ssl_server_key_file = /etc/ssl/private/ssl-cert-snakeoil.key

If the directives are used in the second (flat) format, they can be overridden by doveadm (or the sieve* binaries), if the first (structured) version is used, they cannot be overridden. Even if the flat format is used in a "local" config file to override the default config as installed by the CE Debian package (which uses the structured), overriding the value of ssl_server_key_file on the doveadm cmdline is not possible.

This prevents unprivileged users to use doveadm or the sieve* binaries as they cannot the tools will fail with an access error for the key file, even if the users knows and uses "-o ssl_server_key_file=''" or "-o ssl_server/key_file=''".

I did not test overriding other settings in structured format, but I assume, that the issue is also present there. That means, settings that are specified in the structured format CANNOT be overridden with the "-o" cmdline option.

I would like to ask you, to fix this issue in one of the next releases, please!

Best regards,

P.S.: It would be nice, if doveconf would also get a "-o" option to test overrides.

Patrick Cernko <pcernko@mpi-klsb.mpg.de> +49 681 9325 5815 Joint Scientific IT and Technical Service Max-Planck-Institute für Informatik & Softwaresysteme