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doveadm search -A mailbox INBOX.Trash savedbefore 30d

but I'm told not to:

"If the -A option is present, the command will be performed for all users. Using this option in combination with system users from userdb { driver = passwd } is not recommended, because it contains also users with a lower UID than the one configured with the first_valid_uid setting."

I'm using userdb { driver = passwd-file } but I'm guessing that's the same thing. Am I understanding this correctly?

Which passwd-file do you use? Does this file contains any users, which uid is lower than first_valid_uid?

Here's what my Gentoo-default auth-passwdfile.conf.ext says:

passdb { driver = passwd-file args = scheme=CRYPT username_format=%u /etc/dovecot/users } userdb { driver = passwd-file args = username_format=%u /etc/dovecot/users }

But I don't have an /etc/dovecot/users file. I also don't seem to have any mail user uid lower than 1000, but I do have some users above 1000 which aren't mail users (nobody, etc).

• Grant

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[…] Here's what my Gentoo-default auth-passwdfile.conf.ext says:

passdb { driver = passwd-file args = scheme=CRYPT username_format=%u /etc/dovecot/users } userdb { driver = passwd-file args = username_format=%u /etc/dovecot/users }

But I don't have an /etc/dovecot/users file. I also don't seem to have any mail user uid lower than 1000, but I do have some users above 1000 which aren’t mail users (nobody, etc).

Hello Grant,

So as to avoid any ambiguity, could you post the output of "doveconf -n"?

Sure, here it is:

doveconf -n

2.2.16: /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf

OS: Linux x86_64 Gentoo Base System release 2.2

listen = 127.0.0.1 mail_location = maildir:~/.maildir namespace inbox { inbox = yes location = mailbox Drafts { special_use = \Drafts } mailbox Junk { special_use = \Junk } mailbox Sent { special_use = \Sent } mailbox "Sent Messages" { special_use = \Sent } mailbox Trash { special_use = \Trash } prefix = INBOX. separator = . } passdb { args = * driver = pam } passdb { args = scheme=CRYPT username_format=%u /etc/dovecot/users driver = passwd-file } protocols = imap service imap-login { inet_listener imap { port = 143 } } ssl_cert = </etc/ssl/dovecot/server.pem ssl_key = </etc/ssl/dovecot/server.key userdb { driver = passwd } userdb { args = username_format=%u /etc/dovecot/users driver = passwd-file }

• Grant

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But I don't have an /etc/dovecot/users file. I also don't seem to have any mail user uid lower than 1000, but I do have some users above 1000 which aren’t mail users (nobody, etc).

Hello Grant,

So as to avoid any ambiguity, could you post the output of "doveconf -n"?

Sure, here it is:

doveconf -n

2.2.16: /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf

OS: Linux x86_64 Gentoo Base System release 2.2

listen = 127.0.0.1 mail_location = maildir:~/.maildir […] passdb { args = * driver = pam } passdb { args = scheme=CRYPT username_format=%u /etc/dovecot/users driver = passwd-file } […] userdb { driver = passwd } userdb { args = username_format=%u /etc/dovecot/users driver = passwd-file }

Thank you, Grant.

It thus appears that your server is configured to make use of system users, for both user authentication and user lookup. That you don’t have a /etc/dovecot/users file just means that the system is the only source for user information.

You may find more details at http://wiki2.dovecot.org/Authentication/MultipleDatabases.

And yes, the warning about doveadm’s -A option thus appears to be relevant in your case.

In that case it sounds like my best options would be to either continue expunging old mail with a separate line for each user or switch to /etc/dovecot/users for user lookup and maintain a list of mail users there so I can use doveadm -A. How can I switch to /etc/dovecot/users?

• Grant