dovecot - Apr 2022 - Unable to write *.sieve files while Dovecot is running

I noticed lately that I can no longer modify *.sieve files while Dovecot
is running. Write operations appear not to be permitted anymore:

  $ echo >> example.sieve
  zsh: permission denied: example.sieve

Text editors like vim cannot write either. Since I used to be able to
modify Sieve source files on the fly, I am wondering if the behaviour
I see nowadays is intentional?

Doveconf reports the following versions:

# 2.3.14.1 (9f0cfb6426): /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf
# Pigeonhole version 0.5.14 (1b5c82b2)
# OS: Linux 5.17.1-gentoo-r1-x86_64 x86_64 Gentoo Base System release 2.7

-Ralph

On 2022-04-07 15:16, Ralph Seichter wrote:
>   $ echo >> example.sieve
>   zsh: permission denied: example.sieve
where does https://wiki.dovecot.org dokument it supported ?

Am 07.04.2022 um 15:16 schrieb Ralph Seichter:
> I noticed lately that I can no longer modify *.sieve files while Dovecot
> is running. Write operations appear not to be permitted anymore:
> 
>    $ echo >> example.sieve
>    zsh: permission denied: example.sieve
> 
> Text editors like vim cannot write either. Since I used to be able to
> modify Sieve source files on the fly, I am wondering if the behaviour
> I see nowadays is intentional?
IMHO dovecot only consumes the bytecode sieve filter, not the plain text 
source file based on which the bytecode get generated.

I would be your issue is cause by unix permissions or by MAC systems 
like grsecurity, SELinux or Apparmor.

Alexander

> On 7. Apr 2022, at 16.16, Ralph Seichter <ralph at ml.seichter.de>
wrote:
> 
> I noticed lately that I can no longer modify *.sieve files while Dovecot
> is running. Write operations appear not to be permitted anymore:
> 
> $ echo >> example.sieve
> zsh: permission denied: example.sieve
> 
> Text editors like vim cannot write either. Since I used to be able to
> modify Sieve source files on the fly, I am wondering if the behaviour
> I see nowadays is intentional?

Dovecot does not keep the files open or protect them against modifications.
It is most likely some security feature in your operating system that blocks the
modifications.

Sami