[Dovecot] Import from Evolution

[Jonathan Ryshpan]

On Sat, 2012-06-16 at 22:16 +0200, Patrick Ben Koetter wrote:
> * Jonathan Ryshpan <jonrysh at pacbell.net>:
> > I need to import the mail database generated by the evolution mail
> > reader into dovecot.  Evolution stores its mail in maildir format (fully
> > standards compatible, I think); I would be using the maildir format in
> > dovecot.  Is there anything in the wiki, etc. explaining exactly how to 
> > do this?
> > 
> > Why do this?  Evolution is hopelessly broken, and is not likely to be 
> > fixed in the forseeable future, and I would like to keep my mails in
> > maildir form.  Reviews of kmail are very bad, and thunderbird uses the
> > mbox format for storage.
> 
> If it is native maildir you can configure that/your account to use maildir and
> simply copy your mailbox over to Dovecot. When Dovecot accesses the mailbox it
> will create the necessary index files and you are ready to use it. 

I have now set up dovecot on my system, and should now be in business,
but when Thunderbird connects to Dovecot it doesn't see any folders.
Here is the situation.  Please excuse the length of this message; I have
tried to include all useful information.

My system is Fedora-17 Linux with all updates running on x86_64
hardware.  Dovecot is installed and running with this configuration:

        $ dovecot -n
        # 2.1.7: /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf
        # OS: Linux 3.4.3-1.fc17.x86_64 x86_64 Fedora release 17 (Beefy Miracle) 
        mail_location = mbox:~/Dovecot:INBOX=/var/spool/mail/%u
        mail_privileged_group = mail
        managesieve_notify_capability = mailto
        managesieve_sieve_capability = fileinto reject envelope encoded-character vacation subaddress comparator-i;ascii-numeric relational regex imap4flags copy include variables body enotify environment mailbox date ihave
        mbox_write_locks = fcntl
        namespace inbox {
          inbox = yes
          location = 
          mailbox Drafts {
            special_use = \Drafts
          }
          mailbox Junk {
            special_use = \Junk
          }
          mailbox Sent {
            special_use = \Sent
          }
          mailbox "Sent Messages" {
            special_use = \Sent
          }
          mailbox Trash {
            special_use = \Trash
          }
          prefix = 
        }
        passdb {
          driver = pam
        }
        plugin {
          sieve = ~/.dovecot.sieve
          sieve_dir = ~/sieve
        }
        ssl = required
        ssl_cert = </etc/pki/dovecot/certs/dovecot.pem
        ssl_key = </etc/pki/dovecot/private/dovecot.pem
        userdb {
          driver = passwd
        }

The folder ~/Dovecot contains a very large number of files and folers,
which were all copied from the mail database of evolution, and consist
of all the actual mail archived by evolution, but not its index files.

        $ ls -lA Dovecot
        total 4976
        drwx------. 5 jonrysh jonrysh    4096 Jul  6  2011 .Drafts
        drwx------. 5 jonrysh jonrysh    4096 Jul  6  2011 .Outbox
        drwx------. 5 jonrysh jonrysh    4096 Jul  6  2011 .Sent
        drwx------. 5 jonrysh jonrysh    4096 Jul  6  2011 .Tamburas
        drwx------. 5 jonrysh jonrysh    4096 Jul  6  2011 .Templates
        drwx------. 5 jonrysh jonrysh    4096 Jul  6  2011 .adax
        drwx------. 5 jonrysh jonrysh    4096 Jul  6  2011 .ads
        drwx------. 5 jonrysh jonrysh    4096 Jul  6  2011 .alissa
        drwx------. 5 jonrysh jonrysh    4096 Jul  6  2011 .ally-bank
        ...
        drwx------. 5 jonrysh jonrysh    4096 Jul  6  2011 .vicente
        drwx------. 5 jonrysh jonrysh    4096 Jul  6  2011 .walgreens
        drwx------. 5 jonrysh jonrysh    4096 Jul  6  2011 .wells
        drwx------. 5 jonrysh jonrysh    4096 Jul  6  2011 .westwind
        drwx------. 5 jonrysh jonrysh    4096 Dec 31 10:36 .wview
        drwx------. 5 jonrysh jonrysh    4096 Jul  6  2011 .yum
        -rw-------. 1 jonrysh jonrysh       0 Jun 22 18:10 Trash
        drwx------. 2 jonrysh jonrysh 4530176 Jun 22 13:31 cur
        drwx------. 2 jonrysh jonrysh    4096 Jul  6  2011 new
        drwx------. 2 jonrysh jonrysh    4096 Jun 22 13:31 tmp

Thunderbird reports that is can connect with the Dovecot imap server,
but doesn't show any of these folders.  It shows only the Folders Inbox
and Trash.  Clicking on Inbox causes the Thunderbird error message:

        The current operation on 'Inbox' did not succeed. The mail
        server for account jonrysh at localhost responded: [SERVERBUG]
        Internal error occurred. Refer to server log f…

and /var/log/maillog shows the corresponding error:

        Jun 22 18:23:10 amito dovecot: imap(jonrysh): Error: chown(/home/jonrysh/Dovecot/.imap/INBOX, group=12(mail)) failed: Operation not permitted (egid=1000(jonrysh), group based on /var/spool/mail/jonrysh - see http://wiki2.dovecot.org/Errors/ChgrpNoPerm)

As a complete Dovecot/IMAP newbie, I am completely confused.  Any advice
will be much appreciated.

jon