dovecot - Apr 2006 - Questions about differences to other mail servers

I just transferred over my first server from Suse Linux with 
uw-imap(ipop3/imap2003) to CentOS with Dovecot (0.99). I didn't find any 
problems in the testing phase, but when the actual transfer into 
production happened I found a few problems crop up:

1. Dovecot wants to chdir in the user's home directory even when logging 
in via POP3. However, the mailboxes for POP3 are all in /var/spool/mail. 
What's the reason for this and can I stop this?

2. In addition I found that the home directories need additional 
permissions I did not need when using ipop3/imap2003, although this imap 
server needs to write/read in the same directories as dovecot. 
Specifically, I had to change the permissions on the directory right above 
the pop user directories from 750 to 755. Those directories are owned by 
the user and the primary group he belongs to. It seems that dovecot 
somehow doesn't "use" the primary group of the user and so
can't traverse
thru and the chdir fails.

3. Furthermore, Dovecot created an IMAP directory structure within the 
home directory of most users like "mail/.imap/INBOX" (on some it
reused
the existing Mail -uppercase- directory). Just on a simple first POP3 
login. What's the reason for doing this? Maybe that user is never going to 
use IMAP? Does it test for both mail and Mail before it creates it's own 
structure or what does it do? I assume this is related to 
default_mail_env?

4. Dovecot supports "auth plain", does it also support "auth
login"? If
so, how do I enable it?

Kai

-- 
Kai Sch?tzl, Berlin, Germany
Get your web at Conactive Internet Services: http://www.conactive.com

Kai Schaetzl wrote:
> I just transferred over my first server from Suse Linux with 
> uw-imap(ipop3/imap2003) to CentOS with Dovecot (0.99). I didn't find
any
> problems in the testing phase, but when the actual transfer into 
> production happened I found a few problems crop up:
> 
> 1. Dovecot wants to chdir in the user's home directory even when
logging
> in via POP3. However, the mailboxes for POP3 are all in /var/spool/mail. 
> What's the reason for this and can I stop this?
> 
I remember this bug... I'm sure it was fixed.  Which version of the 
ancient-but-venerable 0.99 are they shipping with CentOS?
> 2. In addition I found that the home directories need additional 
> permissions I did not need when using ipop3/imap2003, although this imap 
> server needs to write/read in the same directories as dovecot. 
> Specifically, I had to change the permissions on the directory right above 
> the pop user directories from 750 to 755. Those directories are owned by 
> the user and the primary group he belongs to. It seems that dovecot 
> somehow doesn't "use" the primary group of the user and so
can't traverse
> thru and the chdir fails.
Check in the config file which users Dovecot is set to use.  It may be that you 
need to chown the dir, or set Dovecot to use a different user.  NOTE:
There's
more than one use setting in Dovecot, because of security and the auth daemon.
> 3. Furthermore, Dovecot created an IMAP directory structure within the 
> home directory of most users like "mail/.imap/INBOX" (on some it
reused
> the existing Mail -uppercase- directory). Just on a simple first POP3 
> login. What's the reason for doing this? Maybe that user is never going
to
> use IMAP? Does it test for both mail and Mail before it creates it's
own
> structure or what does it do? I assume this is related to 
> default_mail_env?
Most likely, yes.  What do you have default_mail_env set to?  If you haven't
set
it, Dovecot will try to auto-detect.
> 4. Dovecot supports "auth plain", does it also support "auth
login"? If
> so, how do I enable it?
Does 0.99 support this?  Honestly, even though I still use 0.99, new installs 
should be using the latest 1.0 release ( currently 1.0beta4)

--
Curtis Maloney
cmaloney at cardgate.net

On Mon, 2006-04-03 at 23:01 +0200, Kai Schaetzl wrote:
> I just transferred over my first server from Suse Linux with 
> uw-imap(ipop3/imap2003) to CentOS with Dovecot (0.99). I didn't find
any
> problems in the testing phase, but when the actual transfer into 
> production happened I found a few problems crop up:
> 
> 1. Dovecot wants to chdir in the user's home directory even when
logging
> in via POP3. However, the mailboxes for POP3 are all in /var/spool/mail. 
> What's the reason for this and can I stop this?
See bottom of http://wiki.dovecot.org/MailLocation
> 2. In addition I found that the home directories need additional 
> permissions I did not need when using ipop3/imap2003, although this imap 
> server needs to write/read in the same directories as dovecot. 
> Specifically, I had to change the permissions on the directory right above 
> the pop user directories from 750 to 755. Those directories are owned by 
> the user and the primary group he belongs to. It seems that dovecot 
> somehow doesn't "use" the primary group of the user and so
can't traverse
> thru and the chdir fails.
Hmm. It should use it. If you used 1.0betas, you could check what
exactly it's using as gid by setting mail_debug=yes
> 3. Furthermore, Dovecot created an IMAP directory structure within the 
> home directory of most users like "mail/.imap/INBOX" (on some it
reused
> the existing Mail -uppercase- directory). Just on a simple first POP3 
> login. What's the reason for doing this? Maybe that user is never going
to
> use IMAP? Does it test for both mail and Mail before it creates it's
own
> structure or what does it do? I assume this is related to 
> default_mail_env?
Although the directory is named .imap, it doesn't mean that it's
IMAP-specific. Perhaps I should have named it ".dovecot" instead.
Index
files are stored there, and they can speed up accessing mails also for
POP3 users who keep the mails in the server.
> 4. Dovecot supports "auth plain", does it also support "auth
login"? If
> so, how do I enable it?
1.0betas do.
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