dovecot - Nov 2014 - Unable to see virtual users

Thanks very much; please see in-line for clarification questions.

At 8:22 AM +0100 11/28/14, Steffen Kaiser wrote:
>  On Thu, 27 Nov 2014, Randall Gellens wrote:
>
>>  I'm still having trouble getting users accepted by postfix +
dovecot.
>
>  I suppose in your system + virtual user mix, you should use LMTP:
>  http://wiki2.dovecot.org/HowTo/PostfixDovecotLMTP
>  So Dovecot handles the difference itself.
I have postfix set to use dovecot-lda as the delivery agent, which I 
thought would make postfix let dovecot handle the differences.  I 
also thought if I used LMTP then I can't also use dovecot-lda and 
Sieve.  Can you help me understand?
>
>>  userdb {
>>   args = uid=vmail gid=vmail home=/local/mnt/home/%n
>>   driver = static
>>  }
>>  userdb {
>>   driver = passwd
>>  }
>
>  The static userdb does hide the passwd userdb, because it hits for 
> all users. You should change the order.
What I have in /etc/dovecot/conf.d/10-auth.conf is:
----------
passdb {
   driver = passwd-file
   # args = scheme=SHA1 /etc/dovecot/passwd
   # args = username_format=%n /etc/dovecot/users
   args = username_format=%n /etc/dovecot/passwd
}

userdb {
   driver = static
   args = uid=vmail gid=vmail home=/local/mnt/home/%n
}

!include auth-system.conf.ext
----------

What I have in /etc/dovecot/conf.d/auth-system.conf.ext is:

----------
passdb {
   driver = pam
   # [session=yes] [setcred=yes] [failure_show_msg=yes] [max_requests=<n>]
   # [cache_key=<key>] [<service name>]
   #args = dovecot
   args = username_format=%n
}


userdb {
   # <doc/wiki/AuthDatabase.Passwd.txt>
   driver = passwd
   # [blocking=no]
   #args 
   # Override fields from passwd
   #override_fields = home=/home/virtual/%u
}
----------

So, in  /etc/dovecot/conf.d/10-auth.conf the passwd-file userdb is 
before the static one, yet 'doveconf -n' reports them the other way 
around.  I think the system user is not in the system /etc/passwd 
file anyway, the sytem user is verified using PAM.

Sorry for being so confused.

-- 
Randall Gellens
Opinions are personal;    facts are suspect;    I speak for myself only
-------------- Randomly selected tag: ---------------
Algol was a great improvement on most of its successors.
                                          --C.A.R Hoare

I'm still very confused, but I have finally gotten it to recognize 
all users.  What changed from my previous message is that I deleted 
the static userdb, and added the system user to the 
/etc/dovecot/users file (but not to the passdb /etc/dovecot/passwd). 
Oddly, I had to set uid:gid and homedir for each entry in 
/etc/dovecot/users even though I have these set to default values 
("default_fields = uid=vmail gid=vmail home=/local/mnt/home/%n").

I'm still confused about the static userdb, as well as if I need to 
configure in /etc/postfix/main.cf both the mailbox_command to use 
dovecot-lda and the virtual_transport = dovecot service.

-- 
Randall Gellens
Opinions are personal;    facts are suspect;    I speak for myself only
-------------- Randomly selected tag: ---------------
(If you can't hear me, it's because I'm in parentheses)

One more piece of the puzzle: the explanatory comment text in 
/etc/dovecot/conf.d/auth-system.conf.ext:

   # LDA and LMTP needs to look up users only from the userdb. This of course
   # doesn't work with static userdb because there is no list of users.
   # Normally static userdb handles this by doing a passdb lookup. This works
   # with most passdbs, with PAM being the most notable exception. If you do
   # the user verification another way, you can add allow_all_users=yes to
   # the args in which case the passdb lookup is skipped.

This explains why the static userdb prevented the system user from 
being recognized, since it was in PAM not /etc/passwd.

-- 
Randall Gellens
Opinions are personal;    facts are suspect;    I speak for myself only
-------------- Randomly selected tag: ---------------
The first ninety percent of the task takes ninety percent of
the time, and the last ten percent takes the other ninety percent.