- dovecot - dovecot.org

[Dovecot] configuration guidelines.
by Ian Mortimer 05 Sep '06

05 Sep '06

Our imap/pop service is moving from UW imap to dovecot 0.99.11 on RHEL4. This is for around 200 users with lots of different email clients, e.g.: Windows: outlook, outlook Express, eudora, thunderbird, netscape OS X: mail, eudora, thunderbird Unix/Linux: evolution, thunderbird, pine, mutt Web: squirrelmail Apart from the example configuration file, I can't find any guides for optimal values to use for dovecot's many configuration options. A few that look like they might need changing are: login_process_size = 32 login_process_per_connection = yes login_processes_count = 3 mbox_dotlock_change_timeout = 30 auth_count = 1 client_workarounds = Does anyone have any pointers to reasonable values for those or other settings? Thanks -- Ian

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Re: [Dovecot] rc7 bug? [Was: deliver LDA and INBOX location] (fwd)
by David Lee 05 Sep '06

05 Sep '06

Anyone had any thoughts on the item below? If the problem is with my config, I'd like to be guided towards how I might resolve it. If it is a bug in rc7, it would be good to fix it, and I'd be happy to beta-test. -- : David Lee I.T. Service : : Senior Systems Programmer Computer Centre : : Durham University : : http://www.dur.ac.uk/t.d.lee/ South Road : : Durham DH1 3LE : : Phone: +44 191 334 2752 U.K. : ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 1 Sep 2006 10:22:20 +0100 (BST) From: David Lee <t.d.lee(a)durham.ac.uk> To: dovecot(a)dovecot.org Subject: Re: [Dovecot] rc7 bug? [Was: deliver LDA and INBOX location] On Thu, 31 Aug 2006, David Lee wrote: > [...] > We have a well-established different convention which subdivides this, > based on the last two digits of the uid: "/var/spool/mail/12/fred" (for > fred's uid as something ending "[...]12"). This is working nicely with > dovecot, using the new rc7 functionality: > default_mail_env = mbox:%h:INBOX=/var/spool/mail/%-2.02i/%u:[...] > > I am now trying to get sendmail to use dovecot's "deliver" as the LDA, > [...] The main problem is that, according to the log file, the delivery > attempt is being made to an INBOX "/var/spool/mail//fred". That is, it > seems to be ignoring the "default_mail_env" setting. > > Have I missed something in the wiki, or is this a bug of some sort? I have looked deeper at my problem (abov). It seems to be a bug in rc7, and probably an "always been there" bug. I sprinked a few "i_info(...)" diagnostics into "deliver.c" where it does 'getenv("MAIL")' and 'getenv("DEFAULT_MAIL_ENV")'. It shows that these are being successfully read from the 'dovecot.conf' file (good). But, crucially, it seems that the "%" variable substitution is incomplete: line 483: MAIL [null] line 486: MAIL mbox:%h:INBOX=/var/spool/mail/%-2.02i/%u:INDEX=/var/spool/mail/indexes/%d/%n line 492: MAIL mbox:/home/fred:INBOX=/var/spool/mail//fred:INDEX=/var/spool/mail/indexes//fred (Aside: The act of inserting the 'i_info' will have knocked the line numbers adrift by a couple. But it shows what is (not) happening.) Note in the "INBOX=..." clause that while "%u" and "%h" have been successfully expanded (good), the "%i" variant (UNIX uid) has failed to get expanded (bad). I'm new to dovecot, so am on a steep learning curve and am unfamiliar with the source code and dovecot's principles. So it would probably take me ages to work out a suitable patch, and even then it might be inappropriate. But hopefully the above information is sufficient and suitable for someone (Timo?) to investigate more expertly and fully. If someone can produce a patch (or hints of what to patch and where) I would certainly intend to test it and work on it for you. Hope that helps. Many thanks in advance. -- : David Lee I.T. Service : : Senior Systems Programmer Computer Centre : : Durham University : : http://www.dur.ac.uk/t.d.lee/ South Road : : Durham DH1 3LE : : Phone: +44 191 334 2752 U.K. :

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[Dovecot] Effective UIDs Nad GID for VIrtual Users
by rammstein-den 05 Sep '06

05 Sep '06

Hello to All. I have a system with FreeBSD 6.1 Release, Dovecot 1.0 Release Candidate 7. I am a novice user in unix world and when my first deal with with Dovecot is Virtual users. User databes in master.passwd file (like a /etc/master.passwd) created by "pw". All works fine, BUT --- If user exclusivly virtual (there is no user with same name in system) IMAP folders are created normal with a right access rights(they described in dovecot.conf statically UID 555) - all cool - BUT when i trying to login with a Virtual user with the SAME LOGIN NAME as in SYSTEM (FreeBSD's /etc/master.passwd user) USER ---- going something strange: imap folders that creating for this user takig wrong ACCES RIGHTS (access rights for system user), not statically with UID 555! What the ... ?! -----------------------Edited Part of Dovecot.conf----------------------------------------------------- default_mail_env = mbox:/var/new/%u:INBOX=/var/virtual/%u auth default { # Space separated list of wanted authentication mechanisms: # plain login digest-md5 cram-md5 ntlm rpa apop anonymous gssapi #mechanisms = digest-md5 # /etc/passwd or similar, using getpwnam() # In many systems nowadays this uses Name Service Switch, which is # configured in /etc/nsswitch.conf. # passdb passwd { # } #auth_user=root #userdb passwd-file { # args = /bsd/dove/passwd #} userdb passwd { args = /bsd/dove/passwd } passdb passwd-file { args = /bsd/dove/master.passwd } # /etc/passwd or similar, using getpwnam() # In many systems nowadays this uses Name Service Switch, which is # configured in /etc/nsswitch.conf. # static settings generated from template userdb static { # Template for settings. Can return anything a userdb could normally # return, eg.: uid, gid, home, mail, nice # # A few examples: # # args = uid=500 gid=500 home=/var/mail/%u # args = uid=500 gid=500 home=/home/%u mail=mbox:/home/%u/mail nice=10 # args = uid=555 gid=125 } } ------------------------------------END------------------------------------- In logs I also have: dovecot: Sep 04 22:47:03 Info: IMAP(radeon): Effective uid=1001, gid=1001 instead dovecot: Sep 04 22:59:39 Info: IMAP( ): Effective uid=555, gid=125 - - - - -- - -- - - I so angry! P.S. Sorry for my english,my native language is Russian :)

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[Dovecot] Upgrading from Package on OpenBSD
by Michael Starks 05 Sep '06

05 Sep '06

Hi, First, let me say I looked for a way to search the archives online but must be missing something. Can someone point me to a URL? On to the question: I'm currently running dovecot-0.99.14p1 from packages on OpenBSD 3.8. I'm interested in running the latest version. What is the best practice for migrating/upgrading on OpenBSD? Thanks in advance.

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[Dovecot] Maildir messages owned by Root.
by Simon 05 Sep '06

05 Sep '06

G'day I am having an interesting issue, that I can not find a fixe for. I am running dovecot 1.0 rc7, on a Freebsd 5.4 x86 box, with around 1500ish users, using Maildir storage format. I have a very small number of user, with the same problem, when messages are moved from ~username/Maildir/new to ~username/Maildir/cur a random number, of the files ownership, will change to root. And my users can then not download any mail until this has been fixed. I have an identical setup running on Solaris 10 x86, that does not have this problem. Has anybody come across this before on Freebsd or any other operating system. Or have any suggestions, on what I can try to fix the problem. I have not been able to emulate it in a lab environment, and the logs on the server do not produce an error.

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[Dovecot] OT: NIS Authentication
by Jeff Graves 04 Sep '06

04 Sep '06

Ran into a major issue with my setup overnight: We have a Win2K AD domain running SFU with a master and 1 slave NIS server. Our mail server is a FC1 box that runs dovecot and a MailScanner/sendmail config. The mail server is configured as a NIS client. The problem is that we lost power overnight and all of the boxes shutdown after the UPS's ran out of battery. After the power came back on, all of the boxes automatically rebooted. The problem is that our mail server is somewhat faster than the rest of the servers. It booted up before the master or slave NIS servers were up and running. Since the mail server uses a PAM NIS authentication scheme, it knows nothing about our users unless it connects to a NIS server. So, this morning users were getting "unknown username" type errors with outlook. Furthermore, the mail logs show that sendmail was rejecting mail with "unknown user" errors. It wasn't until we rebooted the mail server and it was able to reconnect to the NIS servers that mail resumed being received and users could access it. It seems like a fundamental problem with our setup. Since I'll eventually be updating the box to a newer OS and configuration, I need to plug this hole somehow without changing the authentication scheme. Furthermore, I'm concerned that if the master or slave went down while the mail server was still up, we'd see similar results. I'm thinking of one of two options to fix this but wanted to run it by everyone to see if there was a better way: 1) Configure the boot loader to wait 5 minutes before loading the OS (it uses GRUB so I'll set it display the OS menu screen for 5 minutes and then boot). Then if I'm doing maintenance to the box I can just hit enter to boot immediately and hopefully the 5 minute delay will allow the other boxes to boot after a power outage. This won't cover me if it's not a power outage (Eg. The master or slave dies). 2) Configure the mail server as an NIS slave. I'm thinking that this will basically "copy" the user info (username, password, homedir, etc.) on a schedule and store it locally on the mail server (is this how it works?). This covers both issues - power outage and a server dying. But I've read about problems getting password sync to happen quickly. I'd ideally like it to happen immediately (without any manual intervention) but I don't think this is possible. Thoughts? Jeff Graves, MCSA Customer Support Engineer Image Source, Inc. 10 Mill Street Bellingham, MA 02019 508.966.5200 - Phone 508.966.5170 - Fax jeff(a)image-src.com - Email www.image-src.com

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[Dovecot] Can't build with PAM support
by Neil Briscoe 04 Sep '06

04 Sep '06

I'm having trouble getting dovecot to compile with PAM support. Output from the configure command says its checking for pam_start in -lpam .... no. I've checked, there is a pam_start in there. So how can I force configure to see what its looking for? I've tried the --with-pam switch and that doesn't work. I'm trying to build the latest RC7 on a Debian Sarge box. Regards Neil ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Scanned for viruses, spam and offensive content by CensorNet MailSafe Professional Web & E-mail Filtering from www.censornet.com

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[Dovecot] Emails corrupted...
by Jean-François Guyet 04 Sep '06

04 Sep '06

Hi All, I have just setup a Dovecot Imap server on a Ubuntu 6.06 Lamp box. Basically I use fetchmail to retrieve emails from foregin pop accounts and then procmail transfers emails for /var/mail/username to ~/Maildir/new and other folders. Everything works fine *except* if my Thunderbird client is connected (I haven't tried any other client). If an email is received while TB is connected, then the file for the email is empty (eg size 0) leading to an empty email dated 1/jan/1970!. As I'm quite to Dovecot (and Linux in general), I'm quite a bit lost. Anyone there who could help ? Best regards Jean-François -- ----- Fin du message transféré ----- --

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[Dovecot] Mailbox Limnits
by Chris Kenward 03 Sep '06

03 Sep '06

Hi Folks Can anyone tell me whether there is a default limit on the size of IMAP mailboxes using Dovecot or, if not, where I would set that up? We're wanting to give our customers the choice of IMAP vs POP but don't want to end up with Gigabyte mailboxes. Regards Chris

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[Dovecot] SPA (NTLM) Authentication
by Neil Briscoe 03 Sep '06

03 Sep '06

Hello I have just spent a happy day (!) configuring Exim4 to accept authenticated connections from full blown Outlook clients. That works. Unfortunately, by ticking the "Use SPA" box in Outlook it now demands SPA on the POP3 server as well. The existing POP3 server doesn't support this style of authentication. I believe Dovecot will. We're already using it as an IMAP server. What I'm worried about is diverting its current view from /etc/passwd. I have an /etc/exim4/passwd file which contains three fields for the users tested so far, their name, an encrypted password, and a clear text one. Timo has already told me that the system needs access to the cleartext password (or an NTLM style password) in order to work. It would be nice if I could have the system check the /etc/exim4/passwd file and if the user wasn't there then check the /etc/passwd file - and ignore NTLM as it would normally. Regards Neil -- Neil Briscoe Adelix Ltd neil.briscoe(a)adelix.com web: www.adelix.com tel: 0845 230 9592 / fax: 0845 230 9591 / main office: 0845 230 9590 snail: The Old Post Office, Bristol Rd, Hambrook, Bristol BS16 1RY. UK. skype: stonefish001 Adelix Ltd is BS EN ISO 9001:2000 Certified (No. GB 12763) Any views expressed in this email communication are those of the individual sender, except where the sender specifically states them to be the views of a member of Adelix Ltd. Adelix Ltd. does not represent, warrant or guarantee that the integrity of this communication has been maintained nor that the communication is free of errors or interference. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Scanned for viruses, spam and offensive content by CensorNet MailSafe Professional Web & E-mail Filtering from www.censornet.com

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