Dovecot default_mail_env
 

Hello all.

I am installing a new Linux mail and file server and am trying to configure dovecot. I have the latest dovecot release from the dovecot website

I have the following in my dovecot.conf:

default_mail_env = mbox:~/mail/:INBOX=/var/mail/%u

straight out of the comments. My postfix is putting mail into /var/mail/<username>

It isn't working, and when I look at the log files, I have something like this:

Aug 24 21:59:47 server dovecot: POP3(username): open(/var/mail/.temp.server.domain.com.10572.a0b492e71795c2eb) failed: Permission denied

It should be trying to open /var/mail/username. It appears to be substituting some mail piece id instead of the username for the %u variable.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Charles

I csn't see anything in my docs, but I'd guess that this is some interim step used by dovecot before it appends the message to the mbox file (hence the .temp). Is /var/mail writeable to dovecot?

Found my own answer.

According to the dovecot web site, the problem is that I have to have the dovecot process also belong to the mail group. Otherwise it doesn't have the permission to read the spool files at /var/spool/mail/username (or to create the 'dot lock' files that I was noticing in the logs.

You learn something new every day.