[Dovecot] Dovecot, Outlook Express and new accounts
I have come across a strange situation, involving new accounts. I am running Dovecot 0.99.10-5 on Fedora Core 2. Dovecot is configured to use pam for authentication, and the dovecot pam service is configured to use pam_mkhomedir.
When an account is created and the user logs in through SquirrelMail, there is no problem. The standard folders are available - Inbox, Drafts, Sent Items and Trash.
When logging in through Outlook Express first, it gives the following error:-
The server did not respond to this IMAP command before the connection was terminated.
Configuration: Account: mail.server Server: mail.server User name: username Protocol: IMAP Port: 143 Secure(SSL): 0 Code: 800ccc0f
A packet trace shows the following:-
<<< * OK dovecot ready.
008E CAPABILITY
<<< * CAPABILITY IMAP4rev1 SORT THREAD=REFERENCES MULTIAPPEND UNSELECT LITERAL+ IDLE CHILDREN LISTEXT LIST-SUBSCRIBED STARTTLS AUTH=PLAIN <<< 008E OK Capability completed.
008F LOGIN "username" "password"
<<< 008F OK Logged in.
008G IDLE
<<< + idling
DONE
<<< 008G OK Idle completed. 008H LIST "" "*"
Connection to host lost.
My suspicion that Outlook Express is not intelligent enough to create the folders, although the sudden connection drop might indicate a bug.
If it is not a bug, is there a workaround?
Regards
-- Chris Hills IT Services North East Worcestershire College
Marius Stan wrote:
news.gmane.org wrote:
If it is not a bug, is there a workaround?
My workaround is to send a test email every time I create a new account. My mail server (exim) auto-creates this required dir.
Marius
Thanks Marius.
Would you mind sharing your pertinent exim configuration? This is something else I have had trouble with; sending email to a new user who has not logged in, exim shows the following:-
2004-09-01 13:45:36 1C2UUa-0006HI-IE == username@domain.gtld R=userforward defer (-1): failed to stat /home/group/username/. (No such file or directory)
Exim is configured to deliver emails into $home.
Regards
-- Chris Hills IT Services North East Worcestershire College
news.gmane.org wrote:
Thanks Marius.
Would you mind sharing your pertinent exim configuration? This is something else I have had trouble with; sending email to a new user who has not logged in, exim shows the following:-
2004-09-01 13:45:36 1C2UUa-0006HI-IE == username@domain.gtld R=userforward defer (-1): failed to stat /home/group/username/. (No such file or directory)
Exim is configured to deliver emails into $home.
Looks like you deliver emails to 'real' users; I don't know if this applies to your setup, since I'm using virtual users, but here's my relevant transport:
maildir_delivery: driver = appendfile directory = /var/mail/$domain/$local_part maildir_format create_directory delivery_date_add envelope_to_add return_path_add user = exim group = mail mode = 0660 directory_mode = 0770
HTH, Marius
Marius Stan wrote:
news.gmane.org wrote:
Thanks Marius.
Would you mind sharing your pertinent exim configuration? This is something else I have had trouble with; sending email to a new user who has not logged in, exim shows the following:-
2004-09-01 13:45:36 1C2UUa-0006HI-IE == username@domain.gtld R=userforward defer (-1): failed to stat /home/group/username/. (No such file or directory)
Exim is configured to deliver emails into $home.
Looks like you deliver emails to 'real' users; I don't know if this applies to your setup, since I'm using virtual users, but here's my relevant transport:
maildir_delivery: driver = appendfile directory = /var/mail/$domain/$local_part maildir_format create_directory delivery_date_add envelope_to_add return_path_add user = exim group = mail mode = 0660 directory_mode = 0770
HTH, Marius
Marius
Mine is
local_delivery: driver = appendfile delivery_date_add envelope_to_add return_path_add mode = 0660 directory_mode = 0770 directory = $home maildir_format create_directory
I noticed I did not have the create_directory directive, which I added, but to no avail :/ (Yes I did restart exim!)
Regards
-- Chris Hills IT Services North East Worcestershire College
news.gmane.org wrote:
s
local_delivery: driver = appendfile delivery_date_add envelope_to_add return_path_add mode = 0660 directory_mode = 0770 directory = $home
try "file = $home" here
maildir_format create_directory
I noticed I did not have the create_directory directive, which I added, but to no avail :/ (Yes I did restart exim!)
another thing: looks like the 'userforward' router is refusing your message; this happens _before_ getting into the transport phase, so check the above router. Mine (userforward router) is commented out, btw
Marius
Marius Stan wrote:
news.gmane.org wrote:
s
local_delivery: driver = appendfile delivery_date_add envelope_to_add return_path_add mode = 0660 directory_mode = 0770 directory = $home
try "file = $home" here
maildir_format create_directory
I noticed I did not have the create_directory directive, which I added, but to no avail :/ (Yes I did restart exim!)
another thing: looks like the 'userforward' router is refusing your message; this happens _before_ getting into the transport phase, so check the above router. Mine (userforward router) is commented out, btw
Marius
Well spotted! I overlooked this. Thanks to David for pointing me towards the ignore_eacces and ignore_enotdir directives. Having added these to the userforward router, the mail gets as far as the local_delivery router, but again failing with:-
2004-09-01 14:47:13 1C2VSD-0000HJ-JW == username@ne-worcs.ac.uk R=localuser T=local_delivery defer (2): No such file or directory: failed to chdir to /home/group/username
The directory /home/group/username does not already exist; exim should try and create it.
Regards
-- Chris Hills IT Services North East Worcestershire College
On 2004.09.01 16:38, news.gmane.org wrote:
Well spotted! I overlooked this. Thanks to David for pointing me towards the ignore_eacces and ignore_enotdir directives. Having added these to the userforward router, the mail gets as far as the local_delivery router, but again failing with:-
2004-09-01 14:47:13 1C2VSD-0000HJ-JW == username@ne-worcs.ac.uk R=localuser T=local_delivery defer (2): No such file or directory: failed to chdir to /home/group/username
The directory /home/group/username does not already exist; exim should try and create it.
Exim doesn't run as root so it can't just create directories anywhere.
If /home/group is writeable by the same group-id exim runs as, then exim will be able to create the directory, otherwise it won't.
Mike.
Miquel van Smoorenburg wrote:
On 2004.09.01 16:38, news.gmane.org wrote:
Well spotted! I overlooked this. Thanks to David for pointing me towards the ignore_eacces and ignore_enotdir directives. Having added these to the userforward router, the mail gets as far as the local_delivery router, but again failing with:-
2004-09-01 14:47:13 1C2VSD-0000HJ-JW == username@ne-worcs.ac.uk R=localuser T=local_delivery defer (2): No such file or directory: failed to chdir to /home/group/username
The directory /home/group/username does not already exist; exim should try and create it.
Exim doesn't run as root so it can't just create directories anywhere.
If /home/group is writeable by the same group-id exim runs as, then exim will be able to create the directory, otherwise it won't.
Mike.
Hi Mike
I have had conversations with several people about this. Even when setting modes on /home/group to 777, exim still defers with the same message.
Regards
On Wed, 1 Sep 2004, news.gmane.org wrote:
Date: Wed, 01 Sep 2004 14:10:05 +0100 From: news.gmane.org chills@ne-worcs.ac.uk To: dovecot@dovecot.org Subject: [Dovecot] Re: Dovecot, Outlook Express and new accounts
[ ... ]
Mine is
local_delivery: driver = appendfile delivery_date_add envelope_to_add return_path_add mode = 0660 directory_mode = 0770 directory = $home maildir_format create_directory
I noticed I did not have the create_directory directive, which I added, but to no avail :/ (Yes I did restart exim!)
Can you post your whole config ? I suspect that the problem actually lies elsewhere.
DHS
David Sheryn -- david at ballooning dot org dot uk
"Microsoft DNS service terminates abnormally when it receives a response to a dns query that was never made. Fix information: run your DNS service on a different platform." -- bugtraq
My suspicion that Outlook Express is not intelligent enough to create the folders, although the sudden connection drop might indicate a bug.
If it is not a bug, is there a workaround?
Regards
-- Chris Hills IT Services North East Worcestershire College
I had the same problem with Outlook Express but I changed my dovecot.conf to default_mail_env = mbox:~/mail/:INBOX=/var/mail/%u and Outlook Express creates the folders for new users without having to do a test send first.
Colin M
participants (6)
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Chris Hills
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Colinm
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David Sheryn
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Marius Stan
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Miquel van Smoorenburg
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