dovecot - Jan 2005 - Dovecot doesn't call pam_open_session, thus dodging pam_mkhomedir

I hit a small snag using Dovecot-imapd smoothly in my environment 
with maildir and most of my accounts in LDAP.  Since the accounts are 
created through a web interface on another server home directories on 
the mail server don't get created automatically.  There's the handy pam 
module pam_mkhomedir.so to automagically create home directories, but 
unfortunatly Dovecot wasn't calling pam_open_session to run the session 
setup pam modules.  I made a small patch to passdb-pam.c to call 
pam_open_session between pam_acct_mgmt and pam_get_item and now I my 
home dirs are automagically created and everyone is happy.

  So, I figured I'd share the little patch in case someone else finds it 
useful.  My patch doesn't properly close the session which will probably 
iritate more advanced session modules that actually have something to 
clean up, oh well.

  Aside from manually having to create home directories Dovecot-imapd 
has been working really well for us for a number of months, I just 
finally got around to dealing with the home dir creation issue.

  - Nick Lopez
    nlopez at espri.arizona.edu
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Nicolas Lopez wrote:
>   I hit a small snag using Dovecot-imapd smoothly in my environment with 
> maildir and most of my accounts in LDAP.  Since the accounts are created 
> through a web interface on another server home directories on the mail 
> server don't get created automatically.  There's the handy pam
module
> pam_mkhomedir.so to automagically create home directories, but 
> unfortunatly Dovecot wasn't calling pam_open_session to run the session
> setup pam modules.  I made a small patch to passdb-pam.c to call 
> pam_open_session between pam_acct_mgmt and pam_get_item and now I my 
> home dirs are automagically created and everyone is happy.
> 
>  So, I figured I'd share the little patch in case someone else finds it
> useful.  My patch doesn't properly close the session which will
probably
> iritate more advanced session modules that actually have something to 
> clean up, oh well.
> 
>  Aside from manually having to create home directories Dovecot-imapd has 
> been working really well for us for a number of months, I just finally 
> got around to dealing with the home dir creation issue.
> 
>  - Nick Lopez
>    nlopez at espri.arizona.edu
Nick

I am running dovecot-0.99.13 on FC2 with pam_mkhomedir, and it has been 
working fine. Not sure why you are having a problem. If I could just 
figure out how to get Exim to do the same, I'd be happy :-)

Thanks for the patch, I'm sure those having the same problem will be 
grateful!

Regards

--
Chris Hills
IT Services
North East Worcestershire College