thank you for guidance,

just to recap the issue was about squirrelmail giving a wrong message : "connection dropped by imap server" instead of "invalid user or password"

as advised i connected using command line on both my old and new servers, and have posted the details including the output of dovevcot -n.

1. command prompt login. i put wrong password

telnet x.x.x.x 143

• OK [CAPABILITY IMAP4rev1 LITERAL+ SASL-IR LOGIN-REFERRALS ID ENABLE IDLE START TLS AUTH=PLAIN AUTH=LOGIN AUTH=DIGEST-MD5 AUTH=CRAM-MD5] ready.

1 login acc@mydomain.com wrongpass

1 NO [AUTHENTICATIONFAILED] Authentication failed.

2. DOVECOT LOG output

CURRENT SERVER Nov 28 08:48:39 imap-login: Info: Disconnected (auth failed, 1 attempts in 72 secs): user=

OLD SERVER Nov 28 09:06:08 imap-login: Info: Disconnected (auth failed, 1 attempts): user=acc@mydomain.com, method=PLAIN, rip=120.62.202.70, lip=72.35.76.156

3. DOVECOT CONFIG FILE DETAILS

dovecot -n

# 2.2.7: /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf # OS: Linux 2.6.32-431.29.2.el6.x86_64 x86_64 CentOS release 6.5 (Final) auth_cache_negative_ttl = 0 auth_cache_size = 32 M auth_cache_ttl = 30 mins auth_mechanisms = plain login digest-md5 cram-md5 default_login_user = vpopmail disable_plaintext_auth = no first_valid_gid = 89 first_valid_uid = 89 log_path = /var/log/dovecot.log login_greeting = ready. mail_max_userip_connections = 50 mail_plugins = " quota" managesieve_notify_capability = mailto managesieve_sieve_capability = fileinto reject envelope encoded-character vacation subaddress comparator-i;ascii-numeric relational regex imap4flags copy include variables body enotify environment mailbox date ihave namespace { inbox = yes location = prefix = separator = . type = private } passdb { args = cache_key=%u webmail=127.0.0.1 driver = vpopmail } plugin { quota = maildir:ignore=Trash quota_rule = ?:storage=0 } protocols = imap pop3 service imap-login { client_limit = 256 process_limit = 400 process_min_avail = 12 service_count = 0 vsz_limit = 384 M } service pop3-login { client_limit = 1000 process_limit = 400 process_min_avail = 12 service_count = 0 vsz_limit = 512 M } ssl_cert =

thank you for your time and patience.

rajesh

----- Original Message ----- From: Gedalya [mailto:gedalya@gedalya.net] To: 24x7server@24x7server.net,dovecot@dovecot.org Sent: Tue, 25 Nov 2014 05:54:49 -0500 Subject: Re: failed login message

On 11/25/2014 04:49 AM, 24x7server@24x7server.net wrote:

thanks for your reply

i intentionaly put the wrong password and checked the dovecot log and the message i got was

# tail -f /var/log/dovecot.log | grep "xxx@yyy.com" Nov 25 08:47:46 imap-login: Info: Aborted login (auth failed, 1 attempts in 2 secs): user=xxx@yyy.com, method=PLAIN, rip=127.0.0.1, lip=127.0.0.1, secured, session=

but in the squirrelmail login page instead of the message "unknown user or password incorrect" i get the message

ERROR: Connection dropped by IMAP server. Query: LOGOUT

in my old server where it is working correctly dovecot logs shows the error

Nov 25 14:46:12 imap-login: Info: Aborted login (auth failed, 1 attempts): user=<"xxx@yyy.com">, method=PLAIN, rip=127.0.0.1, lip=127.0.0.1, secured

and squirrelmail gives the error : "unknown user or password incorrect" which is correct.

is there any other place i need to check or some other config file (either squirrelmail or dovecot) that i need to modify

could you kindly guide me

1. Please carefully read http://dovecot.org/mailinglists.html
2. Please carefully follow the instructions at http://dovecot.org/mailinglists.html. In your case, post full details for both servers.
3. Try to manually log in to both servers using e.g. telnet in order to see any differences in the way they respond. Something like

$ telnet 192.168.9.11 143 Trying 192.168.9.11... Connected to 192.168.9.11. Escape character is '^]'.

• OK [CAPABILITY IMAP4rev1 LITERAL+ SASL-IR LOGIN-REFERRALS ID ENABLE IDLE STARTTLS LOGINDISABLED] Dovecot ready. 1 login gedalya 1234
• BAD [ALERT] Plaintext authentication not allowed without SSL/TLS, but your client did it anyway. If anyone was listening, the password was exposed. 1 NO [PRIVACYREQUIRED] Plaintext authentication disallowed on non-secure (SSL/TLS) connections. 2 logout
• BYE Logging out 2 OK Logout completed. Connection closed by foreign host.

(that's how it responds in my specific case as I disallow plaintext login)

Or if you need TLS (like me):

$ openssl s_client -starttls imap -quiet -connect 192.168.9.11:143 depth=2 C = IL, O = StartCom Ltd., OU = Secure Digital Certificate Signing, CN = StartCom Certification Authority verify error:num=19:self signed certificate in certificate chain verify return:0 . OK Pre-login capabilities listed, post-login capabilities have more. 1 login gedalya 1234 1 NO [AUTHENTICATIONFAILED] Authentication failed. 2 logout

• BYE Logging out 2 OK Logout completed.