[Dovecot] need help with dovecot-lda

[Andreas Meyer]

Hello!

Ben Morrow <ben at morrow.me.uk> wrote:

> At  5PM +0100 on 14/12/12 Andreas Meyer wrote:
> > 
> > Some month ago I upgraded our dovecot installation from version 1.0.5
> > to version 2.1.7 without having any trouble. Postfix is delivering
> > email directly per virtual transport to the maildirs and mailboxes of
> > the users in /var/spool/vhosts/domains/....
> > 
> > Now I want to use dovecot-lda and created a new entry in the master.cf
> > of postfix.
> > 
> > dovecot   unix  -       n       n       -       -       pipe
> >   flags=DRhu user=vmail:vmail argv=/usr/libexec/dovecot/dovecot-lda -f
> >   ${sender} -d ${recipient}
> > 
> > It is not clear to me, how the dovecot-lda is started bei dovecot and
> > you it finds the socket dovecot postfix created.
> 
> The process listening on that 'dovecot' pipe is a Postfix pipe(8)
> process. When a delivery request comes in from elsewhere in Postfix, it
> invokes /usr/libexec/dovecot/dovecot-lda as a new child process. This
> new lda process will contact the dovecot-auth service if it needs to,
> but is otherwise not connected to the running Dovecot server at all.
> 
> If you want Dovecot to listen for deliveries (which has some efficiency
> advantages), you want to use LMTP.
> 
> > I set soft_bounce = yes in main.cf of postfix and delivery of mail fails with
> >  
> > Dec 14 16:13:34 delta postfix/virtual[14082]: BBC0F1B31294:
> > to=<xyz at anup.de>, relay=virtual, delay=395, delays=395/0.01/0/0.13,
> > dsn=4.1.1, status=SOFTBOUNCE (unknown user: "xyz at anup.de")
> 
> What happens if you run
> 
>     echo "foo" | /usr/libexec/dovecot/dovecot-lda \
>         -f xyz at anup.de -d xyz at anup.de
> 
> in the shell (as the vmail user)? Does it fail with exit code 67? This
> is EX_NOUSER, and is the standard way for LDAs to signal 'I don't know
> how to deliver to this user'. Either xyz at anup.de is not a valid address
> at that domain, or you haven't made the auth-userdb socket available to
> the vmail user. See http://wiki2.dovecot.org/LDA, under the section
> 'Virtual users'.

I did this in the shell:

delta:/ # su vmail
delta:/ # whoami
root
delta:/ # echo "test" | /usr/libexec/dovecot/dovecot-lda -f anmeyer at anup.de -d anmeyer at anup.de

and the mail was delivered to the mailbox without error. Maybe the vmail user
is the problem?
When I send an email from my desktop I get this in the mail.log:
Dec 14 21:19:42 delta postfix/virtual[16185]: A6E511B3128A: to=<anmeyer at anup.de>, relay=virtual, delay=0.15, delays=0.08/0.01/0/0.06, dsn=4.1.1, status=SOFTBOUNCE (unknown user: "anmeyer at anup.de")

The line of the /etc/shadow for vmail looks like this:
vmail::13940:0:99999:7:::

Why is root not switching to vmail? May vmail be the problem?

delta:/ # id vmail
uid=110(vmail) gid=110(vmail) Gruppen=110(vmail)

  Andreas