Cannot delete folder

[Linda A. Walsh]

Yves Goergen wrote:
> To be honest, I can't follow you. I see that I have inconsistent
> permissions (but all the same owner and group). I did use a different
> mail server software in the past, but that's long ago and I can't even
> remember when I switched to Dovecot. I think it was Courier-IMAP before.
>
> Maildirs for new mailboxes are still created by one of my own scripts so
> maybe that script creates the maildirs with some wrong permissions. I'll
> first have to look up what all those funny letters actually mean.
> They're too rare to remember.
---
hopefully quick explanation of letters     
                           +-d=directory
                           | usr(me) (r=read,w=write,x=cross(ing)...allows
                                        seeing things below this directory
                                        but 'r' controls seeing things *in*
                                        this directory)
                           | ||| group
                           | ||| ||| everyone else
My base permissions were : d rwx rwx r-x
most were: :               d rwx rws r-x  The 's' on the group-triplet means
                                          set-group on files+dirs below this

The exact permissions aren't so important other than to know that
1) when it creates an internal directory (like .imap/whatever), those
   it followed the permissions on my original mbox.
2) when it creats an internal mbox (like INBOX, Trash, Sent...etc) it may
    use whatever it's own umask allows.  Umasks are often set to system 
defaults
    like 022 or 002 on 'friendly systems -- they *remove* a bit from a 
permission set on a file.  Those perms are in octal (0-7), with octal 
you need
3 bits 0111 = 1*4 + 1*2 + 1*1 -- the high bit (multiplied by highest 
amount, in this case 4, corresponds to the read permission, the 2 
corresponds to write permission and the 1 corresponds to execute on 
files files, or cross-through
for directories.  So a umask of 022 would filter out the 2nd bit in each 
permission mask (i.e. the write bit for groups (the middle number) and 
the write
bit for 'other' (the 3rd group)  Since I allow groups to write, I have 
002 so
people in the same group can write. 

    Windows will use something like 077 on your home directory -- only the
user has any access, by default.  the 7's mask out access for any 
created files.

If the process that runs dovecot runs with a umask different from you, 
by default it might create differently permissioned files.  If you 
create a directory manually, that also might be different from what you 
normally see.

    In your case 'Trash' had different permissions -- a directory or 
file that would have been created by dovecot.  so it may be running with 
different default
permissions (settable via the usmask), than you.

    Hope that helps some rather than confuses more...was a quick summary 
of stuff.


>
>
>