[Dovecot] odd pam_authenticate() failed: authentication error followed by successful imap-login [solved]

[Sahil Tandon]

Sahil Tandon <sahil at tandon.net> wrote:

> I am seeing the following errors in my log:
> 
> Jul 27 18:14:23 aegis dovecot: auth-worker(default_with_listener): 
> pam(user at host.org,74.72.46.170): pam_authenticate() failed: authentication 
> error
> Jul 27 18:14:23 aegis dovecot: imap-login: Login: user=<user at host.org>, 
> method=PLAIN, rip=74.72.46.170, lip=206.251.255.39, TLS                     
  

[...]

> # dovecot -n
> # 1.1.1: /usr/local/etc/dovecot.conf
> listen: 127.0.0.1:143
> ssl_listen: *:993
> login_dir: /var/run/dovecot/login
> login_executable: /usr/local/libexec/dovecot/imap-login
> verbose_proctitle: yes
> first_valid_gid: 0
> mail_privileged_group: mail
> mail_location: maildir:~/Maildir
> imap_client_workarounds: delay-newmail outlook-idle netscape-eoh 
> tb-extra-mailbox-sep
> auth default_with_listener:
>   mechanisms: plain login digest-md5
>   passdb:
>     driver: pam
>   passdb:
>     driver: passwd-file
>     args: /usr/local/etc/dovecot/passwd
    
I guess order matters.  Once I set the virtual user database to be queried 
before pam, the error is gone.  Are there any side effects which I might not 
be considering?  Thanks.

[...]

-- 
Sahil Tandon <sahil at tandon.net>