Initialization failed: Namespace '': mkdir(/var/www/mail) failed: Permission denied

trash at skrilnetz.net trash at skrilnetz.net
Thu Oct 26 19:10:05 EEST 2017


  Quoting trash at skrilnetz.net:

> Quoting Aki Tuomi <aki.tuomi at dovecot.fi>:
>
>>> On October 26, 2017 at 5:53 PM trash at skrilnetz.net wrote:
>>>
>>>   Quoting Aki Tuomi <aki.tuomi at dovecot.fi>:
>>>
>>> On October 26, 2017 at 5:40 PM trash at skrilnetz.net wrote:
>>>
>>>   Quoting Steffen Kaiser <skdovecot at smail.inf.fh-brs.de>:
>>>
>>> On Thu, 26 Oct 2017, trash at skrilnetz.net wrote:
>>>
>>> /dovecot: lda(www-data): Error: user www-data: Initialization
>>> failed: Namespace '': MKDIR(/VAR/WWW/MAIL) failed: Permission
>>> denied (euid=33(www-data) egid=33(www-data) missing +w perm:
>>> /var/www, dir owned by 1001:1001 mode=0755//)  /
>>>
>>> I did some troubleshooting and I don't understand where
>>> the MKDIR(/VAR/WWW/MAIL) is coming from. Mailboxes are in /var/mail
>>> and
>>>
>>> ^^ /var/mail contains the INBOX only
>>>
>>> sending/receiving emails is working as it always did.
>>>
>>> mail_location is still setup to be MAIL_LOCATION =
>>> MBOX:~/MAIL:INBOX=/VAR/MAIL/%U
>>>
>>> Everything else is in ~/MAIL (why uppercase?)
>>>
>>> Why is it trying a mkdir in /var/www?
>>>
>>> Because most likely /var/www is the home directory of www-data and
>>> you've configured to use $HOME/MAIL as base directory, which is
>>> /var/www/mail
>>> - -- Steffen Kaiser
>>>
>>> I don't know where the uppercase is coming from. In the email I've
>>> sent its lower case.
>>>
>>> How can I fix that without changing permissions of /var/www? Where is
>>> $HOME/MAIL configured? Why do I get this error now for the first time,
>>> when there was no change to the system configuration?
>>>
>>> Probably someone attempted to send email via a crappy script and
>>> it's now trying to deliver to www-data.
>>>
>>> first_valid_uid = 1001
>>> last_valid_uid = 1001
>>>
>>> also, doveconf -n would be useful.
>>> Aki
>>>
>>> Here is doveconf -n: https://pastebin.com/raw/s6cKwHGc
>>
>> Home directory is provided by passwd userdb when present in passwd  
>> file. to override it, use
>>
>> userdb {
>>   driver = passwd
>>   override_fields = home=/var/mail/%Lu
>> }
>> Aki
>
>   Thanks for the quick replies.
>   I've checked, and the user database information is stored in  
> /home/user/mail/ for every user.
>   That works as expected without changing anything. I have still the  
> same question…
>   Why is it trying to write to /var/www when the mailbox is in  
> /var/mail/ and the user data in /home/user/mail/?
>
>    

  Ok, got it!
   
  It's trying to deliver to user www-data and because of below line in  
passwd, it attempts to create the dir in www, right?
   
  /www-data:x:33:33:www-data:/var/www:/usr/sbin/nologin/
   
  How can I find out with email is causing the error message?
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