[Dovecot] Help configuring dovecot

Charlie Brady charlieb-dovecot at e-smith.com
Tue Jun 24 17:33:08 EEST 2003


On Tue, 24 Jun 2003, Spectron International, Inc. wrote:

> I installed Dovecot and OpenLDAP and at least now Dovecot is connecting to
> LDAP and it seems to be getting all the information. My problem is that now
> I'm getting the following error:
> 
> "mail process isn't allowed for root"

You don't say where you are seeing this error message, or anything about 
the circumstances. See:

http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html

> and it still doesn't work. What does that error means? Directory permissions
> wrong? Cant run as root? Root can't read mail? The important thing is, how
> do I solve it?

I can't answer any of your questions. I don't know what you are trying to 
do. I do have some insight into the message though: delivering mail as the 
root account is a bad idea. Reading mail as the root account is an even 
worse idea. Mail programs are usually large and complex programs, and in 
general insufficiently paranoid about security. You should always alias 
root@ to some other account.

OK, I've found your error message in the source code. The obvious solution 
appears to be to try logging into IMAP with a non-root account. [The error 
message could be clearer with this advice - "Root login is not permitted" 
or similar.]

--
Charlie



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