[Dovecot] environment variables required for startup

[Marshal Newrock]

On Fri, 26 Jan 2007 11:20:02 -0700
Kenny Dail <kend at amigo.net> wrote:

> > Using dovecot-1.0-rc19 (quotas are working good, btw) on Gentoo, I
> > have a strange problem.  On boot, dovecot doesn't start, the init
> > script just times out. From the command line, it starts instantly
> > without problem. Also, using a program called 'monit' to make sure
> > processes stay running and restart them if they stop, if I manually
> > stop dovecot, it is then unable to start it (calling the init
> > script).  Nothing gets logged.  In all cases, it's
> > "/etc/init.d/dovecot start".
> > 
> > The only thing I can think of is that there's some environment
> > variable required which isn't being set.  monit specifically says
> > it unsets everything except for a basic path before running the
> > start program. Do any environment variables need to be set in order
> > for dovecot to start successfully?
> Actually this would have more to do with Gentoo than with Dovecot.
> Check out the init script you are using. Are you getting any errors
> on the console where you run the init script?

I have the stock init script.  No errors at all when run from the
command line, just on boot and when run by monit.  monit doesn't report
any errors, just that execution failed.  On boot, I get:

/lib/rcscripts/sh/rc-daemon.sh: line 229: 5211 Alarm
clock /sbin/start-stop-daemon '--start' '--exec' '/usr/sbin/dovecot'
'--pidfile' '/var/run/dovecot/master.pid'.

Line 229 is just: eval /sbin/start-stop-daemon "${args}"

I just did some more looking into this.  I have another server
configuration which works without a problem.  The other is the proxy,
this is the actual mailbox.  After a lot of commenting and
uncommenting, I found that monit is unable to start dovecot when
mail_plugins is set in the "protocol imap" section.  I had quota,
imap_quota, and trash, and tried each of these by themselves, and in
all cases, monit failed to start dovecot, with nothing being logged.
With mail_plugins commented out, monit starts dovecot.  In "protocol
lda", "mail_plugins = quota" with no problems.

-- 
Marshal Newrock, Ideal Solution LLC
http://www.idealso.com