dovecot - Jan 2005 - Corrupted mailboxes

Hello,

We are currently facing some weird problems, and although it may not be
directly related to dovecot, I hope some of you guys may have a clue on
this.

We used to have a POP/IMAP server running Fedora Core1, with dovecot
0.99.13 (DAG). Everything was working fine, until an hardware problem
forced us to install a new server, on another machine.

We installed a fresh new Fedora Core 3 box, running both sendmail
8.13.1, procmail 3.22 and dovecot 0.99.13.

Now, we are seeing strange errors in our dovecot logfiles. It seems to
happen randomely, but always on the same mailboxes.

The following error is logged:

pop3(username): Jan 27 17:26:46 Error: Error syncing mbox
file /var/spool/mail/szameitatd: LF not found where expected

pop3(username): Jan 27 17:26:46 Error: Error indexing mbox
file /var/spool/mail/username: LF not found where expected

pop3(username): Jan 27 17:26:46 Error: Couldn't open INBOX: Internal
error occured. Refer to server log for more information. [2005-01-27
17:26:46]

People having that problem are able to login, but cannot retrieve new
mails. Clients simply says no new mails are available.

We tried to remove completely the mailbox file, waiting for procmail to
create a new, but after a few minutes, the problem happens again. We
cannot reproduce the bug with a particular mail; it seems the problem
come from nowhere. Verbosing procmail didn't helped either.

The only way to fix it when this happens, is to manually edit the file,
and remove the first line feed at the very beginning of the mailbox
file.

I saw one post in the mailing list with the same problem, and we tried
the "mail_extra_groups = mail" workaround, but that didn't help
either.
I actually think this has nothing to do with my problem :)

We have around 500 mailboxes, and only a couple of them (3-5) do have
the problem.

Any idea how this can happen ? Any suggestions ?

Thanks !
Vincent.
-- 
Vincent Jaussaud
Kelkoo.com Security Manager 
email: tatooin at kelkoo.com
GPG key: 1024D/3BFE3FC7 2002-02-07

"Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not
have, nor do they deserve, either one."
    -- President Thomas Jefferson.    1743-1826
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On 27.1.2005, at 18:39, Vincent Jaussaud wrote:
> Now, we are seeing strange errors in our dovecot logfiles. It seems to
> happen randomely, but always on the same mailboxes.
>
> The following error is logged:
>
> pop3(username): Jan 27 17:26:46 Error: Error syncing mbox
> file /var/spool/mail/szameitatd: LF not found where expected
..
> We tried to remove completely the mailbox file, waiting for procmail to
> create a new, but after a few minutes, the problem happens again. We
> cannot reproduce the bug with a particular mail; it seems the problem
> come from nowhere. Verbosing procmail didn't helped either.
Is procmail using same file locking mechanisms as Dovecot? procmail -v 
and mbox_file_locks in dovecot.conf should show it.
> The only way to fix it when this happens, is to manually edit the file,
> and remove the first line feed at the very beginning of the mailbox
> file.
Is it always the first LF?

Anyway, 0.99.x's mbox support isn't very good. If you can't get it
to
work I'd suggest using 1.0-test61.
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