[Dovecot] fchown() failed
Hello all,
I'm not sure if this question is better posed to a Fedora group because I have only had this problem since I upgraded from F9 to F11, but I figured that the specialised knowledge here might help me more...
I have been getting these entries in syslog since upgrading. Today for instance I got:
**Unmatched Entries** dovecot: Dovecot v1.2.0 starting up (core dumps disabled): 1 Time(s) dovecot: IMAP(mark): fchown() failed with file /home/mark/Mail/.imap/INBOX/dovecot.index.log.newlock: Operation not permitted: 1 Time(s) dovecot: IMAP(mark): fchown() failed with file /home/mark/Mail/.imap/INBOX/dovecot.index.tmp: Operation not permitted: 1 Time(s)
and yesterday I had:
**Unmatched Entries** dovecot: IMAP(helena): fchown() failed with file /home/wife/mail/.imap/INBOX/dovecot.index.tmp: Operation not permitted: 1 Time(s) dovecot: IMAP(toby): fchown() failed with file /home/son/mail/.imap/INBOX/dovecot.index.cache.lock: Operation not permitted: 1 Time(s) dovecot: IMAP(toby): fchown() failed with file /home/son/mail/.imap/INBOX/dovecot.index.log.newlock: Operation not permitted: 1 Time(s) dovecot: IMAP(toby): fchown() failed with file /home/son/mail/.imap/INBOX/dovecot.index.tmp: Operation not permitted: 3 Time(s)
The permissions are as follows: ls -la /home/mark/Mail/.imap/INBOX/ total 328 drwx------. 2 mark mark 4096 2009-08-18 15:32 . drwx------. 84 mark mark 4096 2009-03-05 21:53 .. -rw-------. 1 mark mark 7472 2009-08-18 15:32 dovecot.index -rw-------. 1 mark mark 286720 2009-08-19 11:46 dovecot.index.cache -rw-------. 1 mark mark 5380 2009-08-19 12:43 dovecot.index.log
Those of wife and son are similar.
As I access my mailbox several times a day (and certainly did yesterday) from several different mail clients I am surprised that the error count is only 1 for most the above entries. Is this being caused by some sort of cron job (logrotate perhaps)?
Any ideas?
All help / suggestions gratefully received...
Thanks
Mark
On Wed, 2009-08-19 at 13:18 +0100, Arthur Dent wrote:
dovecot: Dovecot v1.2.0 starting up (core dumps disabled): 1 Time(s) dovecot: IMAP(mark): fchown() failed with file /home/mark/Mail/.imap/INBOX/dovecot.index.log.newlock: Operation not permitted: 1 Time(s)
v1.2.3+ would have given a bit better error message here. Anyway the issue is that nowadays Dovecot tries to preserve mailbox's permissions so that shared mailboxes work properly. What permissions do you have in the actual INBOX file?
My guess is that you have 0660 permissions of /var/mail/$USER so Dovecot tries to preserve the group. Easiest fix that also makes your system more secure is to chmod 0600 it.
As I access my mailbox several times a day (and certainly did yesterday) from several different mail clients I am surprised that the error count is only 1 for most the above entries. Is this being caused by some sort of cron job (logrotate perhaps)?
It happens only when index files are being created/rotated, which happens automatically "every once in a while".
On Mon, 2009-08-24 at 15:05 -0400, Timo Sirainen wrote:
On Wed, 2009-08-19 at 13:18 +0100, Arthur Dent wrote:
dovecot: Dovecot v1.2.0 starting up (core dumps disabled): 1 Time(s) dovecot: IMAP(mark): fchown() failed with file /home/mark/Mail/.imap/INBOX/dovecot.index.log.newlock: Operation not permitted: 1 Time(s)v1.2.3+ would have given a bit better error message here.
Ironically, since I posted my original message last week Fedora issued an updated Dovecot package, so here is yesterday's message in syslog:
**Unmatched Entries** dovecot: Dovecot v1.2.3 starting up (core dumps disabled): 1 Time(s) dovecot: IMAP(helena): fchown(/home/wife/mail/.imap/INBOX/dovecot.index.cache.lock, -1, 12(mail)) failed: Operation not permitted (egid=501(helena), group based on /var/mail/helena): 1 Time(s) dovecot: IMAP(mark): chown(/home/mark/Mail/.imap/INBOX, -1, 12(mail)) failed: Operation not permitted (egid=500(mark), group based on /var/mail/mark): 1 Time(s) dovecot: IMAP(mark): fchown(/home/mark/Mail/.imap/INBOX/dovecot.index.cache.lock, -1, 12(mail)) failed: Operation not permitted (egid=500(mark), group based on /var/mail/mark): 1 Time(s) dovecot: IMAP(mark): fchown(/home/mark/Mail/.imap/INBOX/dovecot.index.log.newlock, -1, 12(mail)) failed: Operation not permitted (egid=500(mark), group based on /var/mail/mark): 1 Time(s) dovecot: IMAP(mark): fchown(/home/mark/Mail/.imap/INBOX/dovecot.index.tmp, -1, 12(mail)) failed: Operation not permitted (egid=500(mark), group based on /var/mail/mark): 1 Time(s) dovecot: IMAP(mark): mkdir(/home/mark/Mail/.imap/INBOX) failed: Operation not permitted: 1 Time(s)
Anyway the issue is that nowadays Dovecot tries to preserve mailbox's permissions so that shared mailboxes work properly. What permissions do you have in the actual INBOX file?
ls -la /var/mail/ total 202024 drwxrwxr-x. 2 root mail 4096 2009-08-26 10:30 . drwxr-xr-x. 15 root root 4096 2009-08-13 12:35 .. -rw-rw----. 1 clamav mail 0 2009-08-12 12:40 clamav -rw-rw----. 1 wife mail 190669010 2009-08-26 10:00 wife -rw-rw----. 1 mark mail 8421931 2009-08-26 09:46 mark -rw-------. 1 root root 787636 2009-08-26 10:30 root -rw-rw----. 1 rpc mail 0 2009-08-11 16:26 rpc -rw-rw----. 1 son mail 6750285 2009-08-26 00:39 son
My guess is that you have 0660 permissions of /var/mail/$USER so Dovecot tries to preserve the group. Easiest fix that also makes your system more secure is to chmod 0600 it.
Hmmm - OK, seems you're right about that. Will changing it break anything else? Why does group "mail" exist?
I will try chmod 0600 and see what happens.
As I access my mailbox several times a day (and certainly did yesterday) from several different mail clients I am surprised that the error count is only 1 for most the above entries. Is this being caused by some sort of cron job (logrotate perhaps)?
It happens only when index files are being created/rotated, which happens automatically "every once in a while".
Thanks very much. Your help is greatly appreciated...
Mark
participants (2)
-
Arthur Dent
-
Timo Sirainen