IMAP error

[Aki Tuomi]

> On 30/03/2020 20:01 Aki Tuomi <aki.tuomi at open-xchange.com> wrote:
>  
> > On 30/03/2020 19:39 Roy Lemmon <roy at roylemmon.com> wrote:
> >  
> > Hi,
> >  
> > I am trying to setup a dovecot server on my laptop to serve my emails to emacs gnus. The emails are pulled from the mail server using isync into particular directories. I am using a Guix system.
> >
> > The dovecot service is running. I can telnet into it with:
> >  
> > telnet localhost 143
> >  
> > Trying 127.0.0.1... 
> > Connected to localhost. 
> > Escape character is '^]'. 
> > * OK [CAPABILITY IMAP4rev1 SASL-IR LOGIN-REFERRALS ID ENABLE IDLE LITERAL+ STARTTLS AUTH=PLAIN] Dovecot ready.
> >  
> > However if I then do:
> >  
> > b select inbox
> >  
> > b BAD Error in IMAP command received by server
> >  
> > I have not logged in as I have not set any username or password. I assumed that access was open on localhost. Is this not correct ?
> >  
> > I am not sure how to check further. I have checked the configuration and it is pointing to my email directories, imap is enabled etc.
> >  
> > Thanks
> >  
> > Roy. 
> > 
>
> Hi!
>  
> You can use ANONYMOUS mechanism if you want to allow public access. Clients might get confused with no authentication at all.
>  
> But even then you need some user to access as
>  
> See https://doc.dovecot.org/configuration_manual/authentication/authentication_mechanisms/
>  
> and
>  
> https://doc.dovecot.org/settings/core/#auth-anonymous-username 
>  
> ---
> Aki Tuomi
>

And here is simple config based on what we use to expose mailman archives. It should work, but as I removed settings there is small risk of mistake.

You need /srv/dovecot/anonymous directory with mail, control and index directories. control and index need to be writable for vmail. 

Then we symlink /var/lib/mailman/archives/private/dovecot.mbox/dovecot.mbox as /srv/dovecot/anonymous/mail/dovecot

dovecot.mbox should not be, as this is read-only archive.

## dovecot.conf
auth_mechanisms = anonymous
# index and control need to be writable
mail_home = /srv/dovecot/%Ln
mail_location = mbox:%h/mail:INDEX=%h/index:CONTROL=%h/control
passdb {
    args = /etc/dovecot/anon.passwd
    driver = passwd-file
}
userdb {
    args = /etc/dovecot/anon.passwd
    driver = passwd-file
}

## anon.passwd
anonymous:{PLAIN}:vmail:vmail::/srv/dovecot/anonymous::nopassword=y

Aki