Chris Wakelin wrote:

On Wed, 13 Apr 2005 16:44:43 +0200 Matthieu Imbert <matthieu.imbert@ens-lsh.fr> wrote:

...

Hi, i'm using dovecot-1.0-stable.

All my mail accounts are virtual accounts that come from pam with the following configuration in auth_default: passdb = pam userdb = static uid=5000 gid=5000 home=/var/mail/vhost/example.com/%n mail=/var/mail/vhost/example.com/%n

for a user foo, if the directory /var/mail/vhost/example.com/foo already exists, then all is ok, but if the directory doesn't exists, it seems dovecot is unable to create it "on the fly". I get the following error message: Failed to create storage with data: /var/mail/vhost/example.com/foo

i'm quite sure it is not a permission related problem (i made /var/mail/vhost/example.com world writable to be sure).

I'm currently trying to understand the maildir code... But could someone tell me if the maildir directory should exist for dovecot to work ?

In the case that the answer is yes, i would say in advance that it's a problem for sites hosting a lot of virtual users, since it means that these users must receive at least one mail for their mail account to work correctly (i use postfix as MTA, and if the user's maildir doesn't exist, postfix takes care of creating it). I'm not very fond of solutions with scripts taking care of creating users.

Do you have a default_mail_env set up? Does it work with

default_mail_env = maildir:/var/mail/vhost/example.com/%n

?

It looks to me like it should create the directory if missing; see src/lib-storage/index/maildir/maildir-storage.c in maildir_create()

Mind you, I'm not at all familiar with the maildir code yet ...

Best Wishes, Chris

Yes i have this default_mail_env set (though i forgot to mention it my initial question)

Chris Wakelin wrote:

I'm wondering whether your "mail=" should have "maildir:" in it, i.e. "mail=maildir:/var/mail/vhost/example.com/%n" or maybe it should not be there at all?

The error seems to come from src/imap/namespace.c (but I was tracing the wrong mail_storage_create_with_data() call before). The lines

mail = getenv("MAIL"); if (mail == NULL) { /* support also maildir-specific environment */ mail = getenv("MAILDIR"); if (mail != NULL) mail = t_strconcat("maildir:", mail, NULL); }

seem to suggest that MAIL should have "maildir:" in it for maildirs.

Best Wishes, Chris

On Wed, 13 Apr 2005 17:16:37 +0200 Matthieu Imbert <matthieu.imbert@ens-lsh.fr> wrote:

...

Chris Wakelin wrote:

...

On Wed, 13 Apr 2005 16:44:43 +0200 Matthieu Imbert <matthieu.imbert@ens-lsh.fr> wrote:

...

Hi, i'm using dovecot-1.0-stable.

All my mail accounts are virtual accounts that come from pam with the following configuration in auth_default: passdb = pam userdb = static uid=5000 gid=5000 home=/var/mail/vhost/example.com/%n mail=/var/mail/vhost/example.com/%n

for a user foo, if the directory /var/mail/vhost/example.com/foo already exists, then all is ok, but if the directory doesn't exists, it seems dovecot is unable to create it "on the fly". I get the following error message: Failed to create storage with data: /var/mail/vhost/example.com/foo

--+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+-- Christopher Wakelin, c.d.wakelin@reading.ac.uk IT Services Centre, The University of Reading, Tel: +44 (0)118 378 8439 Whiteknights, Reading, RG6 2AF, UK Fax: +44 (0)118 975 3094

Here's what i've understood so far (these are hypotheses because i don't really now how to trace the code, i don't know gdb enough):

• The message is emitted from src/pop3/main.c line 179, because mail_storage_create_with_data returned a NULL pointer

• mail_storage_create_with_data (in src/lib-storage/mail-storage.c line 114) returns NULL because the call from mail_storage_create line 129 returned NULL

• mail-storage-create (in src/lib-storage/mail-storage.c line 72) return NULL because the function pointed to by list->storage->create returns NULL. I guess this function pointer points to maildir_create in src/lib-storage/index/maildir/maildir-storage.c line 33

• i don't know why maildir-create would return NULL...

reading the code from verify_inbox, create_maildir and mkdir_verify (in src/lib-storage/index/maildir/maildir-storage.c), it really seems that the directory should be automatically created, though i still don't fully understand the execution path which is taken.

Thanks in advance for any help

also if someone can briefly explain me how i can trace it with gdb, i would appreciate. I know how to launch a single executable with gdb, but in this case, gdb needs to "attach" to a process which is spawned by the main dovecot process, and i don't know how to do it.

--

\|||/
(o o)                              Matthieu Imbert

ooO-(_)-Ooo------------------------------------------ équipe administration réseau et systèmes Ecole normale superieure lettres et sciences humaines 15, Parvis René Descartes BP 7000 69342 LYON cedex 07 tél 0437376127, secrétariat 0437376122 fax 0437376123 contact équipe réseau et systèmes <reseau@ens-lsh.fr> contact personnel <matthieu.imbert@ens-lsh.fr>

Chris Wakelin wrote:

Ah, you're using POP! I'm more of an IMAP person myself :)

i did not look at the imap code but i agree that it must be very similar. btw i run both imap and pop3 daemons, and the same problem arises with imap. I choosed to look at the pop code to debug this.

Anyway, it looks pretty similar in src/pop3/main.c; it still seems the "mail" variable should have "maildir:" in it and yours doesn't according to the error message.

i'll check the documentation again to ensure that my options are set properly, and see if "maildir:" is missing, though i doubt that this could be the cause of my problems since when the directory is created, everything works well, thanks for pointing me on this though

I've no idea how to trace things with gdb (I can just about dump a backtrace from a core file, and that's it!).

currently looking at it, seems that i'll have to insert a sleep call just after pop3d's entry point ? Anyone can help ? Timo, how do you debug your code ? ;-)

Matthieu

On Wed, 2005-04-13 at 20:46 +0200, matthieu imbert wrote:

...

I've no idea how to trace things with gdb (I can just about dump a backtrace from a core file, and that's it!).

currently looking at it, seems that i'll have to insert a sleep call just after pop3d's entry point ? Anyone can help ? Timo, how do you debug your code ? ;-)

Usually I just run imap or pop3 directly:

MAIL=mbox:~/mail gdb ./imap