March 2007 - dovecot - dovecot.org

[Dovecot] imaptest updates
by Timo Sirainen 13 Mar '07

13 Mar '07

I spent the last 5 hours or so updating my imaptest tool. It's beginning to become almost like a real IMAP client. http://dovecot.org/tools/imaptest10.c contains a version that compiles against Dovecot v1.0 (instead of against CVS HEAD). imaptest is this tool that I've been using for a few years to do stress testing. It can create a lot of dummy IMAP client connections which execute some commands. Today I added some new features to it: - Support for pipelining commands (where allowed by IMAP spec). Looks like it about doubles the throughput. "no_pipelining" option disables this. - Support for MULTIAPPEND extension. When multiple mails are APPENDed one after another this extension is used to save them all in one transaction. - Previous versions gave an error when trying to append large mails. Now large mails work too. - By default the commands are executed in one specific order. Using "random" option randomizes the order. - You can separately specifify probabilities of how often to execute each command. 0 means never, 100 means always, 10 means 10% of the time and so on. 100,30 means that it's always executed, and then it's executed again and again with 30% probability. The basic way to run it is: ./imaptest user=test pass=password host=imap.domain.org mbox=/home/user/mail/dovecot clients=1 Or if you want to run multiple users, you can use user=test%d which will use users test1..test100 (the size is hardcoded in USER_RAND define). If you want to do benchmarking, you can set it to run for specified amount of time, and you should also give random number generator the same seed every time: ./imaptest seed=123 secs=300 If you want to test/benchmark only the login+logout speed, use: ./imaptest - select=0 To create a lot of long-running clients doing STATUS and NOOPs: ./imaptest clients=100 - logout=0 status=50 noop=50 delay=100 To test copying messages: ./imaptest copybox=Trash By default LOGIN command is used. If you want to try AUTHENTICATE: ./imaptest auth=100 Hmm. I guess that's about it. The list of commands that you can use starts from line 134. You can use either the long names or the short names.

3 4

[Dovecot] Timed Out or Disconnect Errors on emails with attachments
by Tudor Holton 13 Mar '07

13 Mar '07

Hello all, I've migrated our Maildir system from Courier-IMAP-SSL to Dovecot with SSL and now we're getting "Connection to <server> Timed Out" errors when sending mail with attachments. The mail gets sent, however it doesn't save the mail in the user's "Sent" folder. Our IMAP and SMTP servers are different. So the client sends to the SMTP server first, completes that, and then opens a channel to Dovecot and dovecot appears to receive the data (TB gives a progress bar as it's sending to dovecot) and then disconnects _after_. We have a mixed bag of clients here from Thunderbird on Linux and Windows, through Outlook Express to Outlook. All show similar errors. I enabled the logs on dovecot, however it wasn't very informative. At the time it occurred the only line in the log file was: dovecot: 2007-03-13 16:21:12 Info: IMAP(tudor): Disconnected This is obviously different from "Disconnected: Logged out". Emails without attachments behave ok, it only occurs with emails with attachments. Has anyone else had any experience of this? Cheers, Tudor.

3 3

[Dovecot] Prayer, Maildir and Folders whose names begin with "."
by Mike Brudenell 13 Mar '07

13 Mar '07

Greetings - I think I've just had one of my fears confirmed: not Dovecot-specific exactly, but it affects how we will use of Prayer (Webmail Software) with Dovecot... Currently our production service uses MBX-format mailboxes with the UW IMAP server; we also use the University of Cambridge "Prayer" software for Webmail. By default Prayer saves its preference settings, address book and so on in a regular IMAP folder called ".prayer" And one of the nice things about the UW IMAP server is that you can tell it not to include files whose names start "." when returning the list of folders for a LIST command. This means: * People don't see the secret ".prayer" folder when they look at the list; * But if something (eg, Prayer) knows its name it can open this folder to get at its content. The combination of these is that (a) Prayer can store its settings and (b) users don't see where, so can't open/tamper with the secret settings folder for Prayer. But I've just discovered that I can't create a folder called ".prayer" using Maildir-format mailboxes. The problem appears to be the leading "." I suspect it's because the Maildir++ specification at http://www.inter7.com/courierimap/README.maildirquota.html says this: > Folders are created as subdirectories under the main Maildir. The name of > the subdirectory always starts with a period. For example, a folder named > "Important" will be a subdirectory called ".Important". You can't have > subdirectories that start with two periods. A folder named ".prayer" would lead to a subdirectory being created called "..prayer" I think. Q. Can anyone confirm that you can't create Maildir folders called ".somename"? Q. Are there any other Prayer users out there using Dovecot and Maildir format mailboxes? What are you doing about the user-settings folder for Prayer? (And do you manage to hide it from view, so they can't tamper with its contents?) Cheers, Mike B-) -- The Computing Service, University of York, Heslington, York Yo10 5DD, UK Tel:+44-1904-433811 FAX:+44-1904-433740 * Unsolicited commercial e-mail is NOT welcome at this e-mail address. *

4 10

[Dovecot] error with virtual users
by Antonio Casado Rodríguez 13 Mar '07

13 Mar '07

Hi, In my dovecot-deliver.log i have this: deliver(xxuser): Mar 13 11:36:49 Error: open(/home/xxuser/.temp.alboran.24421.63c6890e35b613e8) failed: No such file or directory deliver(yyuser): Mar 13 11:38:29 Error: open(/home/yyuser/.temp.alboran.26046.dcb46511eeb37f3d) failed: No such file or directory but i haven't homedir user. I have /var/spool/mail/xxuser/ maildir Is that a error? I have Dovecot-1.0-rc19 + dovecot-deliver + rhel 4.4 Thanks you

4 4

[Dovecot] index performance issues
by Netserve 13 Mar '07

13 Mar '07

Running 1.0.rc22 We have a single file server, running NFS (Single large sas disk) with about 80Gb of mail. mount -o remount,rsize=2048,wsize=2044,actimeo=0,soft,rw xx.xx.xx.xx:/mailboxes /nfs1 There are 3 front end pop/imap servers using an LVS director. Indexes are stored on each front end server. -rw------- 1 admin 500 144 Mar 12 17:47 dovecot.index -rw------- 1 admin 500 10272 Mar 12 17:47 dovecot.index.cache -rw------- 1 admin 500 120 Mar 12 17:47 dovecot.index.log Normally everything runs fine, there are about 1500 active pop accounts and 100 Imap. Typically, 10 to 20 pop accounts are downloading at anyone time, and there may be 10 or 20 active Imap sessions. If we find that the index partition has got to 100% full and corrupted the indexes then we'll delete the entire index dir and let dovecot rebuild all the indexes however, we end up with 100mbit / 10Mb/sec of network traffic between the NFS server and the pop/imap servers. The nfs server load climbs to 20+ as does the load on the front end mail servers. It can take 4 or 5 hours for the indexes to rebuild during which time imap is slow but works and pop downloads all end up with dead processes that need clearing every few minutes. admin 5869 0.0 0.1 4384 1060 ? D 17:56 0:00 \_ pop3 [info@.co.uk 180.98] admin 5877 0.0 0.1 4392 1112 ? D 17:57 0:00 \_ pop3 [bro94 62.182] admin 5879 0.0 0.1 4396 1052 ? D 17:57 0:00 \_ pop3 [spamcatch@.com 81.163] admin 5884 0.0 0.1 4392 1056 ? D 17:57 0:00 \_ pop3 [ctaylor@.com 81.175] Normally the nfs server delivers possibly 200Kbytes of traffic average spiking to 400Kbytes but the 900+Kbytes per second sustained rate for 5 or 6 hours is killing the service. Is there something we've got wrong here? (I know a Scsi raid NFS would help as would Gbit networking but I can't see the setup we've got as needing that sort of hardware spec?) Thanks John

5 11

[Dovecot] imap + unmounted home disk
by T. Horsnell 13 Mar '07

13 Mar '07

dovecot 0.99 still (RHEL4), I'm sorry to say. The config is for mbox's to live on the user's home disk. If the user tries to make an imap connection when his home disk is unmounted, various permission denied messages are logged, as expected, but then the imap process seems to hang around instead of aborting. The result is that eventually the imap process limit is reached, and even those users whose home disks are correctly mounted, cant get at their mail. Apologies if this has already been fixed - I cant find anything relevant in the archives. Cheers, Terry

2 4

[Dovecot] Password encoding
by David Mills 13 Mar '07

13 Mar '07

Hi, I've currently got a problem authenticating to my dovecot server (1.0rc15). The server is set up to authenticate against a mysql server, with a default password scheme of 'crypt'. The problem is that some of the passwords I need to transfer (all from /etc/shadow files) are md5 encoded, and when I put {md5-crypt} in front of the password to force the scheme, dovecot answers :"Unknown password scheme md5-crypt". If anyone has any ideas, I'd really appreciate it. TIA for your time. David -- David Mills Enki Technologies 01 76 00 71 20Unknown password scheme md5-crypt *De nouveaux sites voient le jour...* *...avec GenieBuilder !* Site de Vico <http://www.vico.fr> - enki.fr <http://www.enki.fr>

3 2

[Dovecot] Problems fetching mail
by Curt LeCaptain 13 Mar '07

13 Mar '07

I'm attempting to replace UW-IMAP with Dovecot, as my UW-IMAP implementation seems to be not working very well. Here's the problem I had with UW-IMAP: In Horde/IMP, messages just wouldn't appear at all. If I opened up the user's IMAP box via an IMAP client, I'd get a Bogus sequence in UID fetch error. So, now I've got Dovecot in place, and I'm getting the following error upon attempting to look at this same box: Error in IMAP command UID: Invalid UID messageset. Now, this user has 3 messages, each X-UID increments by one, starting at 1, so: X-UID: 1 X-UID: 2 X-UID: 3 None of those seem out of the ordinary size wise. I'm not sure what config information you'll need of me, as I'm new to dovecot, but any help would be appriciated. Thanks, Curt L.

3 8

[Dovecot] Quota and Trash
by Bernhard Schmidt 12 Mar '07

12 Mar '07

Hi, I finally got a grip on our mail guys to try out Dovecot after they started migrating a ~15k user mailsystem to Maildir+NFS (Netapp)+Courier and the performance was not as good as expected. So far the results are impressive, although there are of course a few small issues to be solved. One is the current Quota handling, which they use with Courier IMAP and (still) think it needs to be replicated 1:1 to dovecot. Currently they use maildir++ quota format. Mails moved to Trash get not included in the Quota calculation (standard "feature" of Courier IMAP) and get expunged after a certain period of days (IMAP_EMPTYTRASH). Is there any way we could replicate this behaviour with Dovecot? Not including mails in the Trash-folder into quota calculation seems to be a no-go to me according to the documentation, you can ignore the quota limit when copying messages into a certain folder with the "ignore" keyword but they are still included. This issue is directly related with the second one. Deleting old mails in Trash could be archieved with the expire-plugin, but that does not work with Dovecot v1.0, and I'd definitely want to run this. So I have to use "find", which deletes the mail from the folder. However, those mails are still included in the Quota calculation, so that will very likely become incorrect. Is there a generic recommendation for a tool that could be used to rebuild maildir quota calculations? Any other ideas how I could solve this problem and have dovecot behave like Courier here? Thanks, Bernhard

3 7

[Dovecot] Search not working?
by Marc Perkel 12 Mar '07

12 Mar '07

I switched for mbox to maildir last night and now searching folders isn't working. Getting a timeout. Is there something I might have forgot to configure?

2 3

[Dovecot] 1.0.rc26 released
by Timo Sirainen 12 Mar '07

12 Mar '07

http://dovecot.org/releases/dovecot-1.0.rc26.tar.gz http://dovecot.org/releases/dovecot-1.0.rc26.tar.gz.sig Most importantly this should fix mbox problems in recent RCs. * Changed --with-headers to --enable-header-install * If time moves backwards only max. 5 seconds, sleep until we're back in the original present instead of killing ourself. An error is still logged. - IMAP: With namespace prefixes LSUB prefix.* listed INBOX.INBOX. - deliver: Ignore mbox metadata headers from the message input. X-IMAP header crashed deliver. - deliver: If mail_debug=yes, drop out DEBUG environment before calling sendmail binary. Postfix's sendmail didn't really like it. - mbox: X-UID brokeness fixes broke rc25 even with valid X-UID headers. Now the code should finally work right. - Maildir: When syncing a huge maildir, touch dovecot-uidlist.lock file once in a while to make sure it doesn't get overwritten by another process. - Maildir++ quota: We didn't handle NUL bytes in maildirsize files very well. Now the file is rebuilt when they're seen (NFS problem). - Index/view handling fix should fix some crashes/errors - If index files were moved to a different endianess machine, Dovecot logged all sorts of errors instead of silently rebuilding them. - Convert plugin didn't change hierarchy separators in mailbox names. - PostgreSQL authentication could have lost requests once in a while with a heavily loaded server. - Login processes could have crashed in some situations - auth cache crashed with non-plaintext mechanisms

7 14

Re: [Dovecot] separate partition for index/uidlist - Thanks
by Daniel 12 Mar '07

12 Mar '07

Timo Sirainen: > > And what is exactly the use of the so called Quota reporting plugin? > > > It adds IMAP quota commands that can tell the client the current quota > usage and the quota limit. Just wanted to thank you for the kind support, and the great software, so.. thanks! Daniel

1 0

[Dovecot] MySQL database structure
by Erdenebat Gantomor 12 Mar '07

12 Mar '07

In Postfix+Postfixadmin+Dovecot+SASL+MySQL case what is the best and compact MySQL database structure for storing all configuration? What will you suggest me guys? I've already installed postfixadmin and I'm confusing (actually my experience is not enough) extending and organizing my database for postfix+dovecot. Please give me some quick tips. -- Best regards, Erdenebat Guntomor/ /mailto:RkLogin@gmail.com

2 1

[Dovecot] Dovecot Convert
by Marc Perkel 12 Mar '07

12 Mar '07

Trying to figure out how to convert an existing mbox system to maildir Below is my dovecot.conf file. Tried adding this at the bottom of the file and nothing happens. plugin { convert_mail = mbox:/vhome/%d/home/%n:INBOX=/vhome/%d/home/%n/INBOX convert_skip_broken_mailboxes=yes } What am I doing wrong? ## Dovecot 1.0 configuration file # '#' character and everything after it is treated as comments. Extra spaces # and tabs are ignored. If you want to use either of these explicitly, put the # value inside quotes, eg.: key = "# char and trailing whitespace " # Default values are shown after each value, it's not required to uncomment # any of the lines. Exception to this are paths, they're just examples # with real defaults being based on configure options. The paths listed here # are for configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc --localstatedir=/var # --with-ssldir=/etc/ssl # Base directory where to store runtime data. #base_dir = /var/run/dovecot/ # Protocols we want to be serving: # imap imaps pop3 pop3s protocols = imap imaps pop3 pop3s # IP or host address where to listen in for connections. It's not currently # possible to specify multiple addresses. "*" listens in all IPv4 interfaces. # "[::]" listens in all IPv6 interfaces, but may also listen in all IPv4 # interfaces depending on the operating system. If you want to specify ports # for each service, you will need to configure these settings inside the # protocol imap/pop3 { ... } section, so you can specify different ports # for IMAP/POP3. #listen = * # IP or host address where to listen in for SSL connections. Defaults # to above if not specified. #ssl_listen = # Disable SSL/TLS support. #ssl_disable = no # PEM encoded X.509 SSL/TLS certificate and private key. They're opened before # dropping root privileges, so keep the key file unreadable by anyone but # root. Included doc/mkcert.sh can be used to easily generate self-signed # certificate, just make sure to update the domains in dovecot-openssl.cnf #ssl_cert_file = /etc/pki/dovecot/dovecot.pem #ssl_key_file = /etc/pki/dovecot/private/dovecot.pem ssl_cert_file = /usr/share/ssl/certs/imapd.pem ssl_key_file = /usr/share/ssl/certs/imapd.pem # File containing trusted SSL certificate authorities. Usually not needed. #ssl_ca_file = # Request client to send a certificate. #ssl_verify_client_cert = no # SSL parameter file. Master process generates this file for login processes. # It contains Diffie Hellman and RSA parameters. #ssl_parameters_file = /var/run/dovecot/ssl-parameters.dat # How often to regenerate the SSL parameters file. Generation is quite CPU # intensive operation. The value is in hours, 0 disables regeneration # entirely. #ssl_parameters_regenerate = 24 # SSL ciphers to use #ssl_cipher_list = all:!low # Disable LOGIN command and all other plaintext authentications unless # SSL/TLS is used (LOGINDISABLED capability). Note that 127.*.*.* and # IPv6 ::1 addresses are considered secure, this setting has no effect if # you connect from those addresses. disable_plaintext_auth = no # Use this logfile instead of syslog(). /dev/stderr can be used if you want to # use stderr for logging (ONLY /dev/stderr - otherwise it is closed). log_path = /var/log/dovecot # For informational messages, use this logfile instead of the default info_log_path = /var/log/dovecot # Prefix for each line written to log file. % codes are in strftime(3) # format. #log_timestamp = "%b %d %H:%M:%S " ## ## Login processes ## # Directory where authentication process places authentication UNIX sockets # which login needs to be able to connect to. The sockets are created when # running as root, so you don't have to worry about permissions. Note that # everything in this directory is deleted when Dovecot is started. #login_dir = /var/run/dovecot/login # chroot login process to the login_dir. Only reason not to do this is if you # wish to run the whole Dovecot without roots. # http://wiki.dovecot.org/Rootless #login_chroot = yes # User to use for the login process. Create a completely new user for this, # and don't use it anywhere else. The user must also belong to a group where # only it has access, it's used to control access for authentication process. # Note that this user is NOT used to access mails. # http://wiki.dovecot.org/UserIds #login_user = dovecot # Set max. process size in megabytes. If you don't use # login_process_per_connection you might need to grow this. login_process_size = 64 # Should each login be processed in it's own process (yes), or should one # login process be allowed to process multiple connections (no)? Yes is more # secure, espcially with SSL/TLS enabled. No is faster since there's no need # to create processes all the time. login_process_per_connection = no # Number of login processes to create. If login_process_per_user is # yes, this is the number of extra processes waiting for users to log in. #login_processes_count = 3 # Maximum number of extra login processes to create. The extra process count # usually stays at login_processes_count, but when multiple users start logging # in at the same time more extra processes are created. To prevent fork-bombing # we check only once in a second if new processes should be created - if all # of them are used at the time, we double their amount until limit set by this # setting is reached. This setting is used only if login_process_per_use is yes. #login_max_processes_count = 128 # Maximum number of connections allowed in login state. When this limit is # reached, the oldest connections are dropped. If login_process_per_user # is no, this is a per-process value, so the absolute maximum number of users # logging in actually login_processes_count * max_logging_users. #login_max_logging_users = 256 # Greeting message for clients. #login_greeting = Dovecot ready. # Space-separated list of elements we want to log. The elements which have # a non-empty variable value are joined together to form a comma-separated # string. #login_log_format_elements = user=<%u> method=%m rip=%r lip=%l %c # Login log format. %$ contains login_log_format_elements string, %s contains # the data we want to log. #login_log_format = %$: %s ## ## Mail processes ## # Maximum number of running mail processes. When this limit is reached, # new users aren't allowed to log in. #max_mail_processes = 1024 # Show more verbose process titles (in ps). Currently shows user name and # IP address. Useful for seeing who are actually using the IMAP processes # (eg. shared mailboxes or if same uid is used for multiple accounts). #verbose_proctitle = no # Show protocol level SSL errors. #verbose_ssl = no # Valid UID range for users, defaults to 500 and above. This is mostly # to make sure that users can't log in as daemons or other system users. # Note that denying root logins is hardcoded to dovecot binary and can't # be done even if first_valid_uid is set to 0. #first_valid_uid = 500 #last_valid_uid = 0 # Valid GID range for users, defaults to non-root/wheel. Users having # non-valid GID as primary group ID aren't allowed to log in. If user # belongs to supplementary groups with non-valid GIDs, those groups are # not set. #first_valid_gid = 1 #last_valid_gid = 0 # Grant access to these extra groups for mail processes. Typical use would be # to give "mail" group write access to /var/mail to be able to create dotlocks. #mail_extra_groups = # ':' separated list of directories under which chrooting is allowed for mail # processes (ie. /var/mail will allow chrooting to /var/mail/foo/bar too). # This setting doesn't affect login_chroot or auth_chroot variables. # WARNING: Never add directories here which local users can modify, that # may lead to root exploit. Usually this should be done only if you don't # allow shell access for users. See doc/configuration.txt for more information. #valid_chroot_dirs = # Default chroot directory for mail processes. This can be overridden for # specific users in user database by giving /./ in user's home directory # (eg. /home/./user chroots into /home). Note that usually there is no real # need to do chrooting, Dovecot doesn't allow users to access files outside # their mail directory anyway. #mail_chroot = # Enable mail process debugging. This can help you figure out why Dovecot # isn't finding your mails. #mail_debug = no # Default MAIL environment to use when it's not set. By leaving this empty # dovecot tries to do some automatic detection as described in # doc/mail-storages.txt. There's a few special variables you can use, eg.: # # %u - username # %n - user part in user@domain, same as %u if there's no domain # %d - domain part in user@domain, empty if there's no domain # %h - home directory # # See doc/variables.txt for full list. Some examples: # # default_mail_env = maildir:/var/mail/%1u/%u/Maildir # default_mail_env = mbox:~/mail/:INBOX=/var/mail/%u # default_mail_env = mbox:/var/mail/%d/%n/:INDEX=/var/indexes/%d/%n # default_mail_env = mbox:/vhome/%d/home/%n:INBOX=/vhome/%d/home/%n/INBOX:INDEX=/nobackup/imap-cache/%d-%n # If you need to set multiple mailbox locations or want to change default # namespace settings, you can do it by defining namespace sections: # # You can have private, shared and public namespaces. The only difference # between them is how Dovecot announces them to client via NAMESPACE # extension. Shared namespaces are meant for user-owned mailboxes which are # shared to other users, while public namespaces are for more globally # accessible mailboxes. # # REMEMBER: If you add any namespaces, the default namespace must be added # explicitly, ie. default_mail_env does nothing unless you have a namespace # without a location setting. Default namespace is simply done by having a # namespace with empty prefix. #namespace private { # Hierarchy separator to use. You should use the same separator for all # namespaces or some clients get confused. '/' is usually a good one. #separator = / # Prefix required to access this namespace. This needs to be different for # all namespaces. For example "Public/". #prefix = # Physical location of the mailbox. This is in same format as # default_mail_env, which is also the default for it. #location = # There can be only one INBOX, and this setting defines which namespace # has it. #inbox = yes # If namespace is hidden, it's not advertised to clients via NAMESPACE # extension or shown in LIST replies. This is mostly useful when converting # from another server with different namespaces which you want to depricate # but still keep working. For example you can create hidden namespaces with # prefixes "~/mail/", "~%u/mail/" and "mail/". #hidden = yes #} # Space-separated list of fields to initially save into cache file. Currently # these fields are allowed: # # flags, date.sent, date.received, size.virtual, size.physical # mime.parts, imap.body, imap.bodystructure # # Different IMAP clients work in different ways, so they benefit from # different cached fields. Some do not benefit from them at all. Caching more # than necessary generates useless disk I/O, so you don't want to do that # either. # # Dovecot attempts to automatically figure out what client wants and it keeps # only that. However the first few times a mailbox is opened, Dovecot hasn't # yet figured out what client needs, so it may not perform optimally. If you # know what fields the majority of your clients need, it may be useful to set # these fields by hand. If client doesn't actually use them, Dovecot will # eventually drop them. # # Usually you should just leave this field alone. The potential benefits are # typically unnoticeable. #mail_cache_fields = # Space-separated list of fields that Dovecot should never save to cache file. # Useful if you want to save disk space at the cost of more I/O when the fields # needed. #mail_never_cache_fields = # Like mailbox_check_interval, but used for IDLE command. #mailbox_idle_check_interval = 30 # Allow full filesystem access to clients. There's no access checks other than # what the operating system does for the active UID/GID. It works with both # maildir and mboxes, allowing you to prefix mailboxes names with eg. /path/ # or ~user/. #mail_full_filesystem_access = no # Maximum allowed length for mail keyword name. It's only forced when trying # to create new keywords. #mail_max_keyword_length = 50 # Save mails with CR+LF instead of plain LF. This makes sending those mails # take less CPU, especially with sendfile() syscall with Linux and FreeBSD. # But it also creates a bit more disk I/O which may just make it slower. #mail_save_crlf = no # Use mmap() instead of read() to read mail files. read() seems to be a bit # faster with my Linux/x86 and it's better with NFS, so that's the default. # Note that OpenBSD 3.3 and older don't work right with mail_read_mmaped = yes. #mail_read_mmaped = no # Don't use mmap() at all. This is required if you store indexes in remote # filesystems (NFS or clustered filesystem). #mmap_disable = no # Don't write() to mmaped files. This is required for some operating systems # which use separate caches for them, such as OpenBSD. #mmap_no_write = no # Locking method for index files. Alternatives are fcntl, flock and dotlock. # Dotlocking uses some tricks which may create more disk I/O than other locking # methods. #lock_method = fcntl # By default LIST command returns all entries in maildir beginning with dot. # Enabling this option makes Dovecot return only entries which are directories. # This is done by stat()ing each entry, so it causes more disk I/O. # (For systems setting struct dirent->d_type, this check is free and it's # done always regardless of this setting) #maildir_stat_dirs = no # Copy mail to another folders using hard links. This is much faster than # actually copying the file. This is problematic only if something modifies # the mail in one folder but doesn't want it modified in the others. I don't # know any MUA which would modify mail files directly. IMAP protocol also # requires that the mails don't change, so it would be problematic in any case. # If you care about performance, enable it. #maildir_copy_with_hardlinks = no # Which locking methods to use for locking mbox. There's four available: # dotlock: Create <mailbox>.lock file. This is the oldest and most NFS-safe # solution. If you want to use /var/mail/ like directory, the users # will need write access to that directory. # fcntl : Use this if possible. Works with NFS too if lockd is used. # flock : May not exist in all systems. Doesn't work with NFS. # lockf : May not exist in all systems. Doesn't work with NFS. # # You can use multiple locking methods; if you do the order they're declared # in is important to avoid deadlocks if other MTAs/MUAs are using multiple # locking methods as well. Some operating systems don't allow using some of # them simultaneously. #mbox_read_locks = fcntl #mbox_write_locks = dotlock fcntl # Maximum time in seconds to wait for lock (all of them) before aborting. #mbox_lock_timeout = 300 # If dotlock exists but the mailbox isn't modified in any way, override the # lock file after this many seconds. #mbox_dotlock_change_timeout = 30 # When mbox changes unexpectedly we have to fully read it to find out what # changed. If the mbox is large this can take a long time. Since the change # is usually just a newly appended mail, it'd be faster to simply read the # new mails. If this setting is enabled, Dovecot does this but still safely # fallbacks to re-reading the whole mbox file whenever something in mbox isn't # how it's expected to be. The only real downside to this setting is that if # some other MUA changes message flags, Dovecot doesn't notice it immediately. # Note that a full sync is done with SELECT, EXAMINE, EXPUNGE and CHECK # commands. #mbox_dirty_syncs = yes # Like mbox_dirty_syncs, but don't do full syncs even with SELECT, EXAMINE, # EXPUNGE or CHECK commands. If this is set, mbox_dirty_syncs is ignored. #mbox_very_dirty_syncs = no # Delay writing mbox headers until doing a full write sync (EXPUNGE and CHECK # commands and when closing the mailbox). This is especially useful for POP3 # where clients often delete all mails. The downside is that our changes # aren't immediately visible to other MUAs. #mbox_lazy_writes = yes # umask to use for mail files and directories # umask = 077 # Drop all privileges before exec()ing the mail process. This is mostly # meant for debugging, otherwise you don't get core dumps. It could be a small # security risk if you use single UID for multiple users, as the users could # ptrace() each others processes then. #mail_drop_priv_before_exec = no # Set max. process size in megabytes. Most of the memory goes to mmap()ing # files, so it shouldn't harm much even if this limit is set pretty high. #mail_process_size = 256 # Log prefix for mail processes. See doc/variables.txt for list of possible # variables you can use. #mail_log_prefix = "%Us(%u): " ## ## IMAP specific settings ## protocol imap { # Login executable location. #login_executable = /usr/libexec/dovecot/imap-login # IMAP executable location #mail_executable = /usr/libexec/dovecot/imap # This would write rawlogs into ~/dovecot.rawlog/ directory: #mail_executable = /usr/libexec/dovecot/rawlog /usr/libexec/dovecot/imap # Maximum IMAP command line length in bytes. Some clients generate very long # command lines with huge mailboxes, so you may need to raise this if you get # "Too long argument" or "IMAP command line too large" errors often. #imap_max_line_length = 65536 # Support for dynamically loadable modules. #mail_use_modules = no #mail_modules = /usr/lib/dovecot/imap # Send IMAP capabilities in greeting message. This makes it unnecessary for # clients to request it with CAPABILITY command, so it saves one round-trip. # Many clients however don't understand it and ask the CAPABILITY anyway. #login_greeting_capability = no # Workarounds for various client bugs: # delay-newmail: # Send EXISTS/RECENT new mail notifications only when replying to NOOP # and CHECK commands. Some clients ignore them otherwise, for example # OSX Mail. Outlook Express breaks more badly though, without this it # may show user "Message no longer in server" errors. Note that OE6 still # breaks even with this workaround if synchronization is set to # "Headers Only". # outlook-idle: # Outlook and Outlook Express never abort IDLE command, so if no mail # arrives in half a hour, Dovecot closes the connection. This is still # fine, except Outlook doesn't connect back so you don't see if new mail # arrives. # netscape-eoh: # Netscape 4.x breaks if message headers don't end with the empty "end of # headers" line. Normally all messages have this, but setting this # workaround makes sure that Netscape never breaks by adding the line if # it doesn't exist. This is done only for FETCH BODY[HEADER.FIELDS..] # commands. Note that RFC says this shouldn't be done. #imap_client_workarounds = outlook-idle } ## ## POP3 specific settings ## protocol pop3 { # Login executable location. #login_executable = /usr/libexec/dovecot/pop3-login # POP3 executable location #mail_executable = /usr/libexec/dovecot/pop3 # Don't try to set mails non-recent or seen with POP3 sessions. This is # mostly intended to reduce disk I/O. With maildir it doesn't move files # from new/ to cur/, with mbox it doesn't write Status-header. #pop3_no_flag_updates = no # Support LAST command which exists in old POP3 specs, but has been removed # from new ones. Some clients still wish to use this though. Enabling this # makes RSET command clear all \Seen flags from messages. #pop3_enable_last = no # POP3 UIDL format to use. You can use following variables: # # %v - Mailbox UIDVALIDITY # %u - Mail UID # %m - MD5 sum of the mailbox headers in hex (mbox only) # %f - filename (maildir only) # # If you want UIDL compatibility with other POP3 servers, use: # UW's ipop3d : %08Xv%08Xu # Courier version 0 : %f # Courier version 1 : %u # Courier version 2 : %v-%u # Cyrus (<= 2.1.3) : %u # Cyrus (>= 2.1.4) : %v.%u # # Note that Outlook 2003 seems to have problems with %v.%u format which is # Dovecot's default, so if you're building a new server it would be a good # idea to change this. %08Xu%08Xv should be pretty fail-safe. pop3_uidl_format = %v.%u # POP3 logout format string: # %t - number of TOP commands # %T - number of bytes sent to client as a result of TOP command # %r - number of RETR commands # %R - number of bytes sent to client as a result of RETR command # %d - number of deleted messages # %m - number of messages (before deletion) # %s - mailbox size in bytes (before deletion) #pop3_logout_format = top=%t/%T, retr=%r/%R, del=%d/%m, size=%s # Support for dynamically loadable modules. #mail_use_modules = no #mail_modules = /usr/lib/dovecot/pop3 # Workarounds for various client bugs: # outlook-no-nuls: # Outlook and Outlook Express hang if mails contain NUL characters. # This setting replaces them with 0x80 character. # oe-ns-eoh: # Outlook Express and Netscape Mail breaks if end of headers-line is # missing. This option simply sends it if it's missing. # pop3_client_workarounds = outlook-no-nuls } ## ## Authentication processes ## # Executable location #auth_executable = /usr/libexec/dovecot/dovecot-auth # Set max. process size in megabytes. #auth_process_size = 256 # Authentication cache size in kilobytes. #auth_cache_size = 0 # Time to live in seconds for cached data. After this many seconds a cached # record is forced out of cache. #auth_cache_ttl = 3600 # Space separated list of realms for SASL authentication mechanisms that need # them. You can leave it empty if you don't want to support multiple realms. # Many clients simply use the first one listed here, so keep the default realm # first. #auth_realms = # Default realm/domain to use if none was specified. This is used for both # SASL realms and appending @domain to username in plaintext logins. #auth_default_realm = # List of allowed characters in username. If the user-given username contains # a character not listed in here, the login automatically fails. This is just # an extra check to make sure user can't exploit any potential quote escaping # vulnerabilities with SQL/LDAP databases. If you want to allow all characters, # set this value to empty. #auth_username_chars = abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ01234567890.-_@ # Username character translations before it's looked up from databases. The # value contains series of from -> to characters. For example "#@/@" means # that '#' and '/' characters are translated to '@'. auth_username_translation = #@/@ # Username to use for users logging in with ANONYMOUS SASL mechanism #auth_anonymous_username = anonymous # More verbose logging. Useful for figuring out why authentication isn't # working. # auth_verbose = yes # Even more verbose logging for debugging purposes. Shows for example SQL # queries. #auth_debug = no # Maximum number of dovecot-auth worker processes. They're used to execute # blocking passdb and userdb queries (eg. MySQL and PAM). They're # automatically created and destroyed as needed. #auth_worker_max_count = 30 auth default { # Space separated list of wanted authentication mechanisms: # plain digest-md5 cram-md5 apop anonymous mechanisms = plain # # Password database is used to verify user's password (and nothing more). # You can have multiple passdbs and userdbs. This is useful if you want to # allow both system users (/etc/passwd) and virtual users to login without # duplicating the system users into virtual database. # # http://wiki.dovecot.org/Authentication # # PAM authentication. Preferred nowadays by most systems. # Note that PAM can only be used to verify if user's password is correct, # so it can't be used as userdb. If you don't want to use a separate user # database (passwd usually), you can use static userdb. # Linuxconf passwd-like file with specified location passdb passwd-file { args = /etc/vmail/shadow.%d } # Linuxconf passwd-like file with specified location userdb passwd-file { args = /etc/vmail/passwd.%d } # User to use for the process. This user needs access to only user and # password databases, nothing else. Only shadow and pam authentication # requires roots, so use something else if possible. Note that passwd # authentication with BSDs internally accesses shadow files, which also # requires roots. Note that this user is NOT used to access mails. # That user is specified by userdb above. user = root # Number of authentication processes to create #count = 1 } # It's possible to export the authentication interface to other programs, # for example SMTP server which supports talking to Dovecot. Client socket # handles the actual authentication - you give it a username and password # and it returns OK or failure. So it's pretty safe to allow anyone access to # it. Master socket is used to a) query if given client was successfully # authenticated, b) userdb lookups. # listener sockets will be created by Dovecot's master process using the # settings given inside the auth section auth_debug_passwords = yes #auth_master_user_separator=* auth default_with_listener { mechanisms = plain # passdb passwd-file { # Master users that can log in as anyone # args = /etc/dovecot.masterusers # master = yes #pass =yes # } passdb passwd-file { # Path for passwd-file args = /etc/vmail/shadow.%d } userdb passwd-file { # Path for passwd-file args = /etc/vmail/passwd.%d } socket listen { master { path = /var/run/dovecot/auth-master mode = 0666 } } } protocol lda { # UNIX socket path to master authentication server to find users. auth_socket_path = /var/run/dovecot/auth-master }

3 4

[Dovecot] Enable pop3 / pop3 and imap
by edwardspl＠ita.org.mo 12 Mar '07

12 Mar '07

Dear All, I'm new to use dovecot for the Mail service... So, how to enable the mail service ( pop3 / pop2 / imap ) ? Edward.

6 8

[Dovecot] Time moving backwards error
by Matthew Ward 12 Mar '07

12 Mar '07

I'm currently running a VPS which has the NTP daemon running on neither my CentOS installation nor on the hardware node itself, so as far as I am aware the server time shouldn't be being resynched by anything, and the time should be consistent. However, since r25 my Dovecot service is complaining that time is moving backwards (was being killed only a few moments after being started with r25, same problems as Emmett with r26) quite consistently, and always by one second. Could this simply be an error or something within Dovecot itself, as to have nothing physically updating the system time on my machine at all and to have Dovecot complaining that it's being resynched by one second all the time seems a bit odd?

4 4

Re: [Dovecot] separate partition for index/uidlist
by Daniel 11 Mar '07

11 Mar '07

> ... [...] Just one more question: is it wise to copy over the index files and the dovecot-uidlist files to the new locations, or dovecot will regenerate them? Daniel

2 3

[Dovecot] Upgrade from 0.99 to 1.0
by Láďa 11 Mar '07

11 Mar '07

Hi, I have just noticed that one our box is still running ancient 0.99 version (shame on me). Is there anything what I have to take care about during update? I am completely aware about changes in configuration files so my question is mainly about existing maildirs. Láďa

2 2

[Dovecot] separate partition for index/uidlist
by Daniel 11 Mar '07

11 Mar '07

Hi! What's a safe place for the separate index and uidlist files? I am planning to configure Quota/FS. Can they reside under dovecot's basedir? Is this a good idea? Does it have any significance where I put those files? Thanks, Daniel

2 6

[Dovecot] in memory indexes?
by Daniel 11 Mar '07

11 Mar '07

Hi! > RCS file: /home/cvs/dovecot/src/lib-index/mail-index.c,v > Working file: src/lib-index/mail-index.c > revision 1.268 > date: 2007-03-11 16:10:42 +0000; author: tss; state: Exp; lines: > > +8 -5; commitid: yo3GJUvm1yKgLG9s; > If we run out of disk space, move to in-memory indexes. I just saw the commit. Is this a "solution" for the Quota/FS problem, the problem which occurs when the quota is full, and dovecot can not update it's index files? Daniel -- LeVA

2 3

[Dovecot] (no subject)
by Erdenebat Gantomor 11 Mar '07

11 Mar '07

In Postfix+Postfixadmin+Dovecot+SASL+MySQL case what is the best and compact MySQL database structure for storing all configuration? What will you suggest me guys? I've already installed postfixadmin and I'm confusing (actually my experience is not enough) extending and organizing my database for postfix+dovecot. Please give me some quick tips. -- Best regards, Erdenebat Guntomor/ /mailto:RkLogin@gmail.com

1 0

[Dovecot] FreeBSD 6.1-RELEASE/kqueue high CPU load
by Taras Savchuk 11 Mar '07

11 Mar '07

Hi to ALL! I have dovecot-1.0r7 installed on FreeBSD 6.1, using kqueue and Maildir (<20 mailboxes, < 0,5 Gb size). Periodically CPU load of imap processes increasing up to 60-80%. Is it normall behavior or not? May be somebody had such kind of problems? -- С уважением, Савчук Тарас ООО "Элантек" : Аутсорсинг ИТ, WEB-разработка +7 (495) 589 68 81 +7 (926) 575 22 11 http://www.elantech.ru info(a)elantech.ru

8 32

[Dovecot] dovecot and pine tab-completion
by Kyle Wheeler 10 Mar '07

10 Mar '07

Hello, So, I'm migrating from Binc to Dovecot, and one of my users has run into an odd complaint/issue. I don't know that it's a Dovecot issue necessarily, but maybe the people here know a fix anyway... The problem is that pine tab-completion now appends a "." to the end of folders that have sub-folders. In other words, say the user has these folders: INBOX INBOX.foo INBOX.foo.bar When he types in INBOX.f and hits tab, for some reason Pine completes that to: INBOX.foo. Note the "." on the end. This is annoying, because then to get into foo he has to hit the delete key first. With the Binc server, the delimiter was /, and INBOX/foo/ was a perfectly legitimate folder name (so he could just hit return). Does anyone have any suggestions for how to fix this? ~Kyle -- There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order. -- Ed Howdershelt

2 3

Re: [Dovecot] Dovecot Stable Version
by Erdenebat Gantomor 10 Mar '07

10 Mar '07

First I'm not enough in English. Therefore sorry about that. I mean just asking about roadmap. I just don't wanna force anyone. Sorry again Timo if i was bugging you. Best regards, Erdenebat Guntomor/ /mailto:RkLogin@gmail.com Charles Marcus wrote: > Erdenebat Gantomor wrote: >> Dovecot is now in release candidate. When will release stable? Is it >> safe to use in production? I mean now the Dovecot is stable enough to >> use in production? > > <sigh> > > Please stop bugging Timo about this... he will release it when it is > ready. > > Seriously - if you want a release version, I'm sure Timo will gladly > accept your payment and provide one. >

2 1

[Dovecot] logging volumes
by Kyle Wheeler 10 Mar '07

10 Mar '07

Hello! I’m in the process of migrating from BincIMAP to Dovecot, and I have a minor question. One of the things that Binc does is logs how many bytes of data it has sent as part of logging the log-out. Is there a way to get Dovecot to do that, or to calculate something similar? ~Kyle -- Racism is man's greatest threat to man---the maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason. -- Abraham Joshua Heschel

2 2