Hi there. I've got a running qmail+vpopmail+mysql5 server on FreeBSD and I would like to give IMAP access to it (both for user's sake and to have a decent webmail), so I decided to install dovecot (it certainly does its work on my home box). Problem is: I haven't had success with authentication.

At first I tried the most obvious: using the vpopmail backend. Unfortunately I received lots of "vmysql: MySQL server has gone away" just like in http://article.gmane.org/gmane.mail.imap.dovecot/10321

So I decided to spice up a query to vpopmail's MySQL table, and there another problem was waiting for me: "Access denied" just like in this thread http://article.gmane.org/gmane.mail.imap.dovecot/9077 Only difference: in my case using OLD_PASSWORD() didn't solve the problem and -thinking about it better- couln't possibly have solved it: that FreeBSD is a recent fresh install and I installed MySQL 5.0.18 from sources using the "ports" system, so a library with no support for new PASSWORD() has never seen the light on that box.

I kinda went around the problem using a shell script to dump the MySQL table to a SQLite file and authentication dovecot against that, but while this work-around can do for a little bit I'd really like to solve the problem itself, and avoid having to keep ni sync those two DBs (no, unfortunately vpopmail doesn't support SQLite, else I'd use that: it would also have the nice side-effect that a "down" on mysql side wouldn't hurt the mail subsystem).

Any suggestions or idea how I could solve or, at least, better diagnose the problem(s)?

Yours, Lapo