April 2025 - dovecot - dovecot.org

Unable to save message in shared mailbox
by Markus Bach 17 Apr '25

17 Apr '25

Hello, I have a curious problem. We are running a Debian bookworm server with dovecot 2.3.19.1. We have a lot of shared mailboxes and most of them are behaving just fine. But we have a problem with one shared mailbox: Users aren't able to save messages in it even though they have the right to. This issue popped up, when a user This mailbox is set up like every other shared-mailbox, so I don't think it's a permission problem. We tried it with several users giving them the same access rights and always got an error when trying to save a mail in the shared mailbox. I didn't find anything that could help in the log files. Even after turning on `mail_debug` I can't even see the try to save a message in the logs. Some of the things I've tried so far without any success: * doveadm force-resync * increasing the quota for the shared-mailbox * disabling the quote for the shared-mailbox * recreating the Sent folder in the shared-maiblox. Does anybody have any idea how I can debug this further or where the issue could be? Mit freundlichen Grüßen Markus Bach IT-Administration -- Telefon: +49 (30) 31 98 31 200 E-Mail: support(a)pegasusgmbh.de PEGASUS GmbH Gesellschaft für soziale/gesundheitliche Innovation IT-Systemleistungen Brunowstr. 52 13507 Berlin Datenschutzhinweise: https://www.pegasusgmbh.de/datenschutz Internet: http://www.pegasusgmbh.de Sitz der Gesellschaft: PEGASUS GmbH Gesellschaft für soziale/gesundheitliche Innovation Potsdamer Str. 98 10785 Berlin Geschäftsführer: Friedrich Kiesinger Registergericht: Amtsgericht Berlin Charlottenburg Registernummer: HRB 69935 B

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Decouple the username hash from the login given
by José Celestino 16 Apr '25

16 Apr '25

Hi all, Is there a way to do the hash on the director without setting the user (or destuser) for the Dovecot backend authentication? The scenario is: Our accounts have multiple aliases where each alias can have a different password (long story): Alias1 accountX password1 Alias2 accountX password2 Alias3 accountX password3 accountX accountX passwordX Our goal is to map the same account, regardless of the alias used to authenticate, to the same backend server. We use checkpassword for userdb on the director, and when we set either the user or username to the main account id (accountX on the example) it sends the authentication as accountX, passwordN, and fails. Is there a var that can be set and used for hashing, leaving the authentication untouched? Our installed version is 2.3.21. Thank you. Best regards, José Celestino

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Question about dovecot quota calculation
by Zakaria 16 Apr '25

16 Apr '25

Hi everyone, I wondered if anyone know the reason why dovecot quota command:- doveadm quota get -u email_address returns slightly smaller size than status command vsize:- doveadm mailbox status -t all "*" -u email_address I wondered if its a bug, if not it would be noticeable imparity between the two results? given in my case dovecot leaves out around 67 MB through quota command? I think both should present identical results, anyone thinks otherwise, I would appreciate if you share with us the reasoning? Also, which one I should use to determine if user exceeded quota limit for certainty? Any recommendation? With thanks. Zak. Hi everyone, I wondered if anyone know the reason why dovecot quota command:- doveadm quota get -u email_address returns slightly smaller size than status command vsize:- doveadm mailbox status -t all "*" -u email_address I wondered if its a bug, if not it would be noticeable imparity between the two results? given in my case dovecot leaves out around 67 MB through quota command? I think both should present identical results, anyone thinks otherwise, I would appreciate if you share with us the reasoning? Also, which one I should use to determine if user exceeded quota limit for certainty? Any recommendation? With thanks. Zak.

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Question about quota calculation
by Zakaria 16 Apr '25

16 Apr '25

Hi everyone, I wondered if anyone know the reason why dovecot quota command:- doveadm quota get -u email_address returns slightly smaller size than status command vsize:- doveadm mailbox status -t all "*" -u email_address I wondered if its a bug but this would be noticeable imparity between the two results? given in my case dovecot leaves out around 67 MB in my case through quota command and why is this? Which one would I should use to determine if user exceeded quota limit for certainty? Any recommendation? With thanks. Zak. Hi everyone, I wondered if anyone know the reason why dovecot quota command:- doveadm quota get -u email_address returns slightly smaller size than status command vsize:- doveadm mailbox status -t all "*" -u email_address I wondered if its a bug but this would be noticeable imparity between the two results? given in my case dovecot leaves out around 67 MB in my case through quota command and why is this? Which one would I should use to determine if user exceeded quota limit for certainty? Any recommendation? With thanks. Zak.

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Dovecot24 - passdb configuration syntax
by Juergen Edner 16 Apr '25

16 Apr '25

Hello, as Dovecot 2.4.1 has been published, I started investigation how I need to modify my existing Dovecot 2.3.x configuration, which worked flawlessly the last 5 years. With the help of the doveconf tool I've identified the parameters which need to be modified and I got rid of the error message at the end. Nevertheless, not getting any errors displayed, does not automatically mean, that it has correctly been configured. Here is the initial auth configuration and hopefully the right 2.4 version: Dovecot23: disable_plaintext_auth = yes auth_username_format = %Lu auth_mechanisms = plain login cram-md5 passdb { driver = passwd-file args = username_format=%Lu /path/to/aliases-file } passdb { driver = passwd-file args = scheme=cram-md5 /path/to/cram-md5-file } userdb { driver = passwd } Dovecot24: auth_allow_cleartext = no auth_username_format = %{user | lower} auth_mechanisms = plain login cram-md5 passdb aliases-file { passwd_file_path = /path/to/aliases-file } passdb md5-file { passwd_file_path = /path/to/cram-md5-file } userdb passwd-file { passwd_file_path = /etc/passwd } Here are my questions: - The first passdb configuration (aliases file) initially contained the "args = username_format=%Lu ..." option. Do I still need to convert this to a dedicated "auth_username_format = %{user | lower}" line or is this already covered by the global "auth_username_format" setting? - The second passdb configuration (cram-md5 file) initially contained the "args = scheme=cram-md5 ..." option. I couldn't find any replacement for it. Does this mean the only alternative would be to prefix all passwords in the password file with "{CRAM-MD5}"? - For the third userdb configuration (passwd file) I made use of the "passwd_file_path" parameter. Is this a valid replacement for the original "driver = passwd" entry or have I forgotten anything? BTW, I was curious if ChatGPT could do the job faster than me, but I can say "not yet". It made several errors and had to be corrected one by one but that might change in the future if more and more people are asking for support on this topic. Thanks Juergen -- Mail: juergen(a)eisfair.org

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Stats-writer permission denied
by Ken Wright 15 Apr '25

15 Apr '25

I've got a new Dovecot error (well, new to me, at least)! I ran tail /var/log/mail.err and got the following: net_connect_unix(/var/run/dovecot/stats-writer) failed: Permission denied I checked the file, and it's owned by www-data and the www-data group, with read and write permissions for owner and group... just like I have specified in /etc/dovecot/conf.d/10-master.conf. I can't understand why permission is denied when the file permissions appear to be correct. Can anyone shed any light on this for me? Ubuntu 20.04 Dovecot 2.3.7.2 Ken

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shared folders in dovecot
by Anton Shevtsov 15 Apr '25

15 Apr '25

I used dovecot without shared folders some time ago. All work fine. old dovecot config: |mail_home=/var/mail/%d/%n mail_location = maildir:/var/mail/%d/%n:UTF-8:INBOX=/var/mail/%d/%n/Inbox |mail_plugins = acl |protocol imap { mail_plugins = $mail_plugins } | All work fine. Now I want to add shared folder functionality. I am defining namespaces and doing it wrong (maybe) new dovecot config: |mail_home=/var/mail/%d/%n mail_location = maildir:/var/mail/%d/%n:UTF-8:INBOX=/var/mail/%d/%n/Inbox |mail_plugins = acl |mail_debug=yes namespace inbox { type = private separator = / prefix = inbox = yes } namespace { type = shared separator = / prefix = shared/%%u/ # wrong #location = maildir:%%h/Maildir:INDEX=~/Maildir/shared/%%u:INDEXPVT=~/Maildir/shared/%%u |# wrong again location = maildir:%%h/:INDEX=~/%%u |subscriptions = no list = children } protocol imap { mail_plugins = $mail_plugins imap_acl acl } plugin { acl = vfile acl_shared_dict = file:/var/mail/%d/shared-mailboxes.db } | I can set access right for shared folder (screenshot - https://ibb.co/ccxQ63wN) but i can not see shared folder in subscriptions (screenshot - https://ibb.co/PRfpD7X) -- *Anton* I used dovecot without shared folders some time ago. All work fine. old dovecot config: mail_home=/var/mail/%d/%n mail_location = maildir:/var/mail/%d/%n:UTF-8:INBOX=/var/mail/%d/%n/Inbox mail_plugins = acl protocol imap { mail_plugins = $mail_plugins } All work fine. Now I want to add shared folder functionality. I am defining namespaces and doing it wrong (maybe) new dovecot config: mail_home=/var/mail/%d/%n mail_location = maildir:/var/mail/%d/%n:UTF-8:INBOX=/var/mail/%d/%n/Inbox mail_plugins = acl mail_debug=yes namespace inbox { type = private separator = / prefix = inbox = yes } namespace { type = shared separator = / prefix = shared/%%u/ # wrong #location = maildir:%%h/Maildir:INDEX=~/Maildir/shared/%%u:INDEXPVT=~/ Maildir/shared/%%u # wrong again location = maildir:%%h/:INDEX=~/%%u subscriptions = no list = children } protocol imap { mail_plugins = $mail_plugins imap_acl acl } plugin { acl = vfile acl_shared_dict = file:/var/mail/%d/shared-mailboxes.db } I can set access right for shared folder (screenshot - https://ibb.co/ccxQ63wN) but i can not see shared folder in subscriptions (screenshot - https://ibb.co/ PRfpD7X) -- Anton

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Reindex all e-mails for FTS?
by Alexander Skwar 14 Apr '25

14 Apr '25

Hello How do I reindex all e-mails (for a user or for all users) for FTS? Seems I can find new emails, but not old ones. I tried this: askwar@mail /o/mailcow-dockerized> time sudo docker compose exec dovecot-mailcow doveadm index -A '*' ________________________________________________________ Executed in 1.73 secs fish external usr time 0.00 millis 0.00 millis 0.00 millis sys time 12.90 millis 1.08 millis 11.83 millis As you can see, this was very fast — should it be…? I'd like to be able to search for a text which is in attachments and then I'd need to be able to find the email. This works fine for new emails, but not for old ones. To verify that the attachment would be readable by tika, I took an old e-mail, saved the PDF attachment, and then mailed it to me. Searching for the e-mail will find the new e-mail, but not the old one. The mailbox is not exactly small: askwar@mail /o/mailcow-dockerized> sudo docker compose exec dovecot-mailcow doveadm quota get -u a(a)skwar.xyz Quota name Type Value Limit % Userquota STORAGE 34908222 61685760 56 Userquota MESSAGE 458837 - 0 bd36093fccaa:/# du -sh /var/vmail_index/a\(a)skwar.xyz/ /var/vmail/skwar.xyz/a 2.4G /var/vmail_index/a(a)skwar.xyz/ 27G /var/vmail/skwar.xyz/a I've enabled full text search fts in dovecot with these settings: plugin { fts_autoindex = yes fts_autoindex_exclude = \Junk fts_autoindex_exclude2 = \Trash fts = flatcurve fts_tika = http://tika:9998/tika fts_tokenizer_email_address = maxlen=100 fts_tokenizer_generic = algorithm=simple maxlen=30 fts_languages = en es de fts_tokenizers = generic email-address fts_filters = normalizer-icu snowball stopwords fts_filters_en = lowercase snowball english-possessive stopwords fts_index_timeout = 300s } askwar@mail /o/mailcow-dockerized> docker --version Docker version 27.3.1, build ce12230 askwar@mail /o/mailcow-dockerized> sudo docker compose exec dovecot-mailcow dovecot --version 2.3.21.1 (d492236fa0) Thanks, Alexander

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Compile failure on git head : lib-settings/settings-history-core.h
by Genes Lists 14 Apr '25

14 Apr '25

Summary: -------- Our daily test builds of git head started failing on Archlinux using gcc 14.2.1+r753+g1cd744a6828f-1 Compile error occurs on git HEAD branch main: commit : beca41cc94dbc81cb2586aab311762bde39bdb11 Possible relevant commit: ------------------------ commit 9dca2f961f83a071d2ff516cd332cd4aa88484dd Build Error: ------------ ... CCLD test-dns-util make[3]: Leaving directory '.. /src/core/src/lib-dns' Making all in lib-settings make[3]: Entering directory '.. /src/lib-settings' GEN settings-history-core.h Line 3: Invalid version sort order make[3]: *** [Makefile:897: settings-history-core.h] Error 1 Thanks for any help. gene (more detail below) config / build details: ---------------------- git fetch --all; git pull git clean -fdx ./autogen.sh ./configure \ --enable-maintainer-mode \ --prefix=/usr \ --sbindir=/usr/bin \ --sysconfdir=/etc \ --localstatedir=/var \ --libexecdir=/usr/lib \ --with-rundir=/run/dovecot \ --with-moduledir=/usr/lib/dovecot/modules \ --disable-static \ --with-pam \ --with-sqlite \ --with-pgsql \ --with-mysql \ --with-ssldir=/etc/ssl \ --with-gssapi \ --with-ldap=yes \ --with-lua=plugin \ --with-bzlib \ --with-lz4 \ --with-zstd \ --with-solr \ --with-sodium \ --with-libcap \ --enable-experimental-mail-utf8 \ --enable-experimental-imap4rev2 Install prefix . : /usr File offsets ... : 64bit I/O polling .... : epoll I/O notifys .... : inotify SSL ............ : openssl GSSAPI ......... : yes passdbs ........ : static lua (plugin) passwd passwd-file pam ldap sql : -bsdauth userdbs ........ : static lua (plugin) prefetch passwd passwd-file ldap sql CFLAGS ......... : -std=gnu11 -g -O2 -fstack-protector-strong - U_FORTIFY_SOURCE -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -mfunction-return=keep -mindirect- branch=keep -Wall -W -Wmissing-prototypes -Wmissing-declarations - Wpointer-arith -Wchar-subscripts -Wformat=2 -Wbad-function-cast -fno- builtin-strftime -Wstrict-aliasing=2 SYSTEMD ........ : notify - /usr/lib/systemd/system/dovecot.service SQL drivers .... : pgsql mysql sqlite : -cassandra Full text search : solr make clean make -- Gene

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email-address Tokenizer Splits Hyphenated Local-Parts, Causing Inaccurate FTS Search Results
by Daniel 11 Apr '25

11 Apr '25

I’m using Dovecot FTS with the flatcurve backend in a mailcow: dockerized setup. When searching for an email address with a hyphenated local-part (e.g., ma-g(a)example.com) the email-address tokenizer splits the local-part on hyphens, producing tokens like ma, g, and ma-g(a)example.com. This prevents searching for ma-g as a single term. With fts_flatcurve_substring_search = yes, searching for ma-g matches unrelated addresses containing ma (e.g., manager(a)example.com) leading to irrelevant results. Dovecot version: 2.3.21.1 (d492236fa0) Including only relevant part of dovecot config: plugin { fts = flatcurve fts_autoindex = yes fts_autoindex_exclude = \Junk fts_autoindex_exclude2 = \Trash fts_autoindex_max_recent_msgs = 999999 fts_tokenizers = generic email-address fts_tokenizer_email_address = maxlen=100 fts_tokenizer_generic = algorithm=simple maxlen=100 fts_flatcurve_substring_search = yes fts_languages = en es de ru fts_filters = normalizer-icu snowball stopwords fts_filters_en = lowercase snowball english-possessive stopwords fts_filters_ru = lowercase snowball stopwords fts_index_timeout = 300s } service indexer-worker { process_limit = 12 vsz_limit = 512 MB } Steps to Reproduce: Index an email with ma-g(a)example.com in the From field also index email contains "ma" and "g" in the From field. Check tokenization: doveadm fts tokenize -u user(a)example.com "ma-g(a)example.com" Output: ma g example com ma-g(a)example.com Search: doveadm search -u user(a)example.com FROM ma-g Results include manager(a)example.com due to ma matching. Expected Behavior: FROM ma-g should match only emails with ma-g(a)example.com, treating ma-g as a single term or exact local-part. Expected tokens: doveadm fts tokenize -u user(a)example.com "ma-g(a)example.com" Output: ma-g ma g example com ma-g(a)example.com Actual Behavior: The tokenizer splits ma-g into ma and g. Substring search matches "ma" or "g" in unrelated addresses (e.g., manager(a)example.com, greg(a)example.com) Without substring search, ma-g matches nothing unless searching the full address. Impact: Searching hyphenated local-parts for short email address local-parts is unreliable, especially for common fragments like ma, flooding results with irrelevant matches. Request: Add a configuration option, such as "fts_tokenizer_email_address_keep_hyphenated = yes|no" (default: no, for compatibility), to include the hyphenated local-part of an email address as an additional token. For example, with "yes", tokenizing "ma-g(a)example.com" would produce "ma-g", "ma", "g", "example", "com", and "ma-g(a)example.com". This allows searches for "FROM ma-g" to match emails with "ma-g(a)example.com" exactly, while preserving "ma" and "g" for substring searches. Consider "yes" as a future default, as including hyphenated local-parts aligns with RFC 5322 and user expectations for precise email searches, especially for common hyphenated addresses like "first-last(a)domain.com". If changing defaults, provide upgrade notes for users relying on the current token set. Is there any workaround to search hyphenated local-parts accurately? Best regards, Daniel Levin

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