[Dovecot] 1.0.alpha3 plaintext authentication problem

[Sergey Redin]

Hello everyone,

  Since the upgrade to 1.0.alpha3 I experience a strange problem with 
plaintext
authentication. I successfully login first few (2-5) times after the 
dovecot restart,
and then on a reason I cannot login any more (both via POP3 and IMAP). I 
tried
to find out what could be the reason for this but I failed. Nothing is 
changed
inside the user's home directory or /var/run/dovecot, but I cannot login 
any more.
I guess there is something wrong inside dovecot-auth od dovecot process 
itself.
I just start to receive "01 NO Authentication failed." or "-ERR 
Authentication failed."
from dovecot and
"Authenticate PLAIN failed: Unsupported authentication mechanism.: 
method=PLAIN"
in my logs, even though I used the same PLAIN two minutes ago without a 
problem.

  Here is my dovecot.conf:

nevoservice# egrep -v '^[       ]*(\#.*)?$' /usr/local/etc/dovecot.conf
protocols = imap pop3
ssl_disable = no
ssl_cert_file = /etc/mail/certs/server.crt
ssl_key_file = /etc/mail/certs/server.key
disable_plaintext_auth = no
log_path = /var/log/dovecot/log
info_log_path = /var/log/dovecot/info
login_user = dovecot
login_processes_count = 1
verbose_proctitle = no
first_valid_gid = 0
mail_extra_groups = mail
mail_debug=yes
default_mail_env = mbox:/var/mail/%u
maildir_copy_with_hardlinks = yes
protocol imap {
  imap_client_workarounds = delay-newmail outlook-idle netscape-eoh 
tb-extra-mailbox-sep
}
protocol pop3 {
  pop3_uidl_format = %08Xu%08Xv
  pop3_client_workarounds = outlook-no-nuls oe-ns-eoh
}
auth_verbose = yes
auth_debug = yes
auth default {
  mechanisms = plain
  passdb passwd-file {
        args = /usr/local/etc/dovecot.passwd
  }
  userdb passwd-file {
        args = /usr/local/etc/dovecot.passwd
  }
  user = root
}

  Here are two lines in dovecot.passwd which define the user that I use:

wail:password-hash:1050:1032:Administrator 
wail.spb.ru:/home/wail.spb.ru:::/var/mail/wail
wail at nevoservice.ispvds.com:password-hash:1050:1032:Administrator 
wail.spb.ru:/home/wail.spb.ru:::/var/mail/wail

  A few lines from my /var/log/dovecot/info file:

dovecot: Oct 10 02:03:11 Info: auth(default): client in: AUTH   1       
PLAIN   service=POP3    lip=82.146.50.34        rip=82.146.63.23        
resp=AHdhaWwAVGxNSFRuUlI2
dovecot: Oct 10 02:03:11 Info: auth(default): client out: OK    1       
user=wail
dovecot: Oct 10 02:03:11 Info: auth(default): master in: REQUEST        
3       53919   1
dovecot: Oct 10 02:03:11 Info: auth(default): master out: USER  3       
wail    uid=1050        gid=1032        home=/home/wail.spb.ru  
mail=/var/mail/wail
dovecot: Oct 10 02:03:11 Info: pop3(wail): Effective uid=1050, gid=1032
dovecot: Oct 10 02:03:11 Info: pop3(wail): maildir autodetect: 
stat(/var/mail/wail/cur) failed: Not a directory
dovecot: Oct 10 02:03:11 Info: pop3(wail): mbox autodetect: 
data=/var/mail/wail
dovecot: Oct 10 02:03:11 Info: pop3(wail): mbox autodetect: INBOX file: 
yes (/var/mail/wail)
dovecot: Oct 10 02:03:11 Info: pop3(wail): mbox: data=/var/mail/wail
dovecot: Oct 10 02:03:11 Info: pop3(wail): mbox: root exists 
(/home/wail.spb.ru/mail)
dovecot: Oct 10 02:03:11 Info: pop3(wail): mbox: 
root=/home/wail.spb.ru/mail, index=/home/wail.spb.ru/mail, 
inbox=/var/mail/wail
dovecot: Oct 10 02:03:11 Info: pop3-login: Login: user=<wail>, 
method=PLAIN, rip=82.146.63.23, lip=82.146.50.34
dovecot: Oct 10 02:03:13 Info: pop3(wail): Logout. top=0/0, retr=0/ 
del=0/3, size=5372
dovecot: Oct 10 02:03:20 Info: auth(default): client in: AUTH   1       
PLAIN   service=POP3    lip=82.146.50.34        rip=82.146.63.23        
resp=AHdhaWwAVGxNSFRuUlI2
dovecot: Oct 10 02:03:20 Info: auth(default): client out: OK    1       
user=wail
dovecot: Oct 10 02:03:20 Info: auth(default): master in: REQUEST        
4       53918   1
dovecot: Oct 10 02:03:20 Info: auth(default): master out: USER  4       
wail    uid=1050        gid=1032        home=/home/wail.spb.ru  
mail=/var/mail/wail
dovecot: Oct 10 02:03:20 Info: pop3(wail): Effective uid=1050, gid=1032
dovecot: Oct 10 02:03:20 Info: pop3(wail): maildir autodetect: 
stat(/var/mail/wail/cur) failed: Not a directory
dovecot: Oct 10 02:03:20 Info: pop3(wail): mbox autodetect: 
data=/var/mail/wail
dovecot: Oct 10 02:03:20 Info: pop3(wail): mbox autodetect: INBOX file: 
yes (/var/mail/wail)
dovecot: Oct 10 02:03:20 Info: pop3(wail): mbox: data=/var/mail/wail
dovecot: Oct 10 02:03:20 Info: pop3(wail): mbox: root exists 
(/home/wail.spb.ru/mail)
dovecot: Oct 10 02:03:20 Info: pop3(wail): mbox: 
root=/home/wail.spb.ru/mail, index=/home/wail.spb.ru/mail, 
inbox=/var/mail/wail
dovecot: Oct 10 02:03:20 Info: pop3-login: Login: user=<wail>, 
method=PLAIN, rip=82.146.63.23, lip=82.146.50.34
dovecot: Oct 10 02:03:21 Info: pop3(wail): Logout. top=0/0, retr=0/ 
del=0/3, size=5372
dovecot: Oct 10 02:03:28 Info: pop3-login: Authenticate PLAIN failed: 
Unsupported authentication mechanism.: method=PLAIN, rip=82.146.63.23, 
lip=82.146.50.34
dovecot: Oct 10 02:03:30 Info: pop3-login: Aborted login: method=PLAIN, 
rip=82.146.63.23, lip=82.146.50.34

  We see here two successfull logins with PLAIN and then suddenly PLAIN 
becomes unsupported.

  I run dovecot 1.0.alpha3 on FreeBSD 4.11, it was installed from ports 
and then I edited dovecot.conf
(and created dovecot.passwd).

Any help would be really appreciated.

Sergey Redin.