dovecot - Jun 2015 - Problem logging in during testing

Instructions at http://wiki2.dovecot.org/BasicConfiguration say the
next thing to test after getting IMAP and Telnet working is to create
a dummy user file with the following command:

echo "$USER:{PLAIN}password:$UID:$GID::$HOME" > users

And place it in /etc/dovecot and protect it appropriately. It was also
edited to change the plain-text password from `password' to what it
really is.

The next section describes changes to 10-auth.conf and other things:

If you used the example configuration files, switch to passwd-file by
modifying conf.d/10-auth.conf: 

# Add '#' to comment out the system user login for now:
#!include auth-system.conf.ext
# Remove '#' to use passwd-file:
!include auth-passwdfile.conf.ext

In conf.d/auth-passwdfile.conf.ext you should have: 

passdb {
  driver = passwd-file
  args = scheme=CRYPT username_format=%u /etc/dovecot/users
}
userdb {
  driver = passwd-file
  args = username_format=%u /etc/dovecot/users
}

Verify with doveconf?-n?passdb?userdb that the output looks like above
(and there are no other passdbs or userdbs). 

All done successfully.

Now, when I telnet 127.0.0.1 143 and attempt to log in with the
string:

a login <any username> <any password>

whether it's one in my users file or not, I get:

a NO [AUTHENTICATIONFAILED] Authentication failed.

Am 15.06.2015 um 15:19 schrieb Steve Matzura:
> Instructions at http://wiki2.dovecot.org/BasicConfiguration say the
> next thing to test after getting IMAP and Telnet working is to create
> a dummy user file with the following command:
>
> echo "$USER:{PLAIN}password:$UID:$GID::$HOME" > users
>
> And place it in /etc/dovecot and protect it appropriately. It was also
> edited to change the plain-text password from `password' to what it
> really is.
>
> The next section describes changes to 10-auth.conf and other things:
>
> If you used the example configuration files, switch to passwd-file by
> modifying conf.d/10-auth.conf:
>
> # Add '#' to comment out the system user login for now:
> #!include auth-system.conf.ext
> # Remove '#' to use passwd-file:
> !include auth-passwdfile.conf.ext
>
> In conf.d/auth-passwdfile.conf.ext you should have:
>
> passdb {
>    driver = passwd-file
>    args = scheme=CRYPT username_format=%u /etc/dovecot/users
> }
> userdb {
>    driver = passwd-file
>    args = username_format=%u /etc/dovecot/users
> }
>
> Verify with doveconf -n passdb userdb that the output looks like above
> (and there are no other passdbs or userdbs).
>
> All done successfully.
>
> Now, when I telnet 127.0.0.1 143 and attempt to log in with the
> string:
>
> a login <any username> <any password>
>
> whether it's one in my users file or not, I get:
>
> a NO [AUTHENTICATIONFAILED] Authentication failed.
>
Logs might give you a clue what exactly doesn't work.

-- 
Alex JOST

>> passdb {
>>    driver = passwd-file
>>    args = scheme=CRYPT username_format=%u /etc/dovecot/users
>> }
have you created/generated a password to be used with the crypt scheme?

you can use doveadm pw for this.

- christian

On Mon, 15 Jun 2015 17:22:13 +0200, you wrote:
>> Now, when I telnet 127.0.0.1 143 and attempt to log in with the
>> string:
>>
>> a login <any username> <any password>
>>
>> whether it's one in my users file or not, I get:
>>
>> a NO [AUTHENTICATIONFAILED] Authentication failed.
>>
>
>Logs might give you a clue what exactly doesn't work.
Found one problem in maillog. mail_uid and mail_gid weren't defined. I
didn't define them manually because I thought they defaulted to vmail.
Now they are defined that way.

These are a mystery:

Jun 15 16:45:15 <my-node> dovecot: imap-login: Login: user=<admin>,
method=PLAIN, rip=127.0.0.1, lip=127.0.0.1, mpid=1428, secured,
session=<jBDSLZEYvQB/AAAB>
Jun 15 16:45:15 <my-node> dovecot: imap(admin): Error: User
initialization failed: Namespace '': Mail storage autodetection failed
with home=/home/admin
Jun 15 16:45:15 <my-node> dovecot: imap(admin): Error: Invalid user
settings. Refer to server log for more information.

~doveadm log find' says everything goes to /var/log/maillog, so that's
all I have.