dovecot - Feb 2023 - Could not override "mail_location" with "userdb_mail" statment in "/etc/passwd"

Hi,
** Using Dovecot 2.2.22 and Postfix 3.1.0 **

I plan to migrate all accounts on my server from mbox to maildir storage but
before i want to make some tests on dedicated accounts. To do so i want to
overide the general "mail_location" ( mail_location =
mbox:~/mail:INBOX=/var/mail/%u ) with "maildir:~/Maildir" only for
some test accounts.

To do so i modified my "/etc/passwd" file using something like that :

testm2m_mydomain.tld:x:2122:2122::/home/mail/testm2m_mydomain.tld:/bin/false:userdb_mail=maildir:~/Maildir
Also tried
testm2m_mydomain.tld:x:2122:2122::/home/mail/testm2m_mydomain.tld:/bin/false::userdb_mail=maildir:~/Maildir

And as mentioned in the doc (https://wiki.dovecot.org/LDA/Postfix) i added ?-d
"$USER" in my Postfix "mailbox_command" but it don't
seem to work (my new mail_location for this test user is is not taken into
account).

When i try to make an "doveadm user testm2m_mydomain.tld" i get this :

8<--------------------------------
field ? value
uid ? ? 2122
gid ? ? 2122
home ? ?/home/mail/testm2m_mydomain.tld
mail ? ?mbox:~/mail:INBOX=/var/mail/testm2m_mydomain.tld
system_groups_user ? ? ?testm2m_mydomain.tld
8<--------------------------------

My modification is not taken into account ...

Any help is welcome !

/Xavier
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> On 13/02/2023 11:36 EET Xavier <xavier-mlist at proton.me> wrote:
> 
> 
> Hi,
> 
> ** Using Dovecot 2.2.22 and Postfix 3.1.0 **
> 
> I plan to migrate all accounts on my server from mbox to maildir storage
but before i want to make some tests on dedicated accounts. To do so i want to
overide the general "mail_location" ( mail_location =
mbox:~/mail:INBOX=/var/mail/%u ) with "maildir:~/Maildir" only for
some test accounts.
> 
> To do so i modified my "/etc/passwd" file using something like
that :
> 
>
testm2m_mydomain.tld:x:2122:2122::/home/mail/testm2m_mydomain.tld:/bin/false:userdb_mail=maildir:~/Maildir
> Also tried
>
testm2m_mydomain.tld:x:2122:2122::/home/mail/testm2m_mydomain.tld:/bin/false::userdb_mail=maildir:~/Maildir
> 
> And as mentioned in the doc (https://wiki.dovecot.org/LDA/Postfix) i added
-d "$USER" in my Postfix "mailbox_command" but it don't
seem to work (my new mail_location for this test user is is not taken into
account).
> 
> When i try to make an "doveadm user testm2m_mydomain.tld" i get
this :
> 
> 8<--------------------------------
> field value
> uid 2122
> gid 2122
> home /home/mail/testm2m_mydomain.tld
> mail mbox:~/mail:INBOX=/var/mail/testm2m_mydomain.tld
> system_groups_user testm2m_mydomain.tld
> 8<--------------------------------
> 
> My modification is not taken into account ...
> 
> Any help is welcome !
> 
> /Xavier
Hi!

You need to use passwd-file driver. I would recommend adding secondary userdb
for overrides in a separate file instead of modifying /etc/passwd.

userdb {
  driver = passwd
  result_success = continue-ok
}

userdb {
  driver = passwd-file
  args = /etc/dovecot/overrides
}

and put in overrides

testm2m_mydomain.tld:::::::userdb_mail=maildir:~/Maildir

Aki