Hi
My mail is in /var/mail/ Dovecot is installed on Ubuntu Server 12.04. What is the correct way for Dovecot to point to the mail directory. The various howtos seem to take a much different approach currently I have this in /etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf which is fron the 12.04 manual I downloded
But that does not work. If I put mail_location = /var/mail/ Dovecot does not get upset when I logon but then does not find the mail.

Thanks Robert...

Hi Bob Fletcher,
First of all, I recommend you to use Maildir instead of MBox. After that, you need to know if SMTP server (Postfix? Exim?) is configured the same way. Finally, it's possible that you need to tell to MUA (Roundcube? SquirrelMail?) to create default folders if they don't exist (usually first time you login).

Where SMTP is saving mails? Which format does it uses?

Hi, thanks for getting back to me. not using Squirrelmail or Roundcube yet. Mail arrives in /var/mail/ in a file called robert this seems to be in default for Postfix and that side of it is working. I installed Alpine no configuration needed and I can read and send out mail from Alpine.

As you can see I am a newbie to servers. I have had a lot of trouble getting this going this far and I usually stuff things up and reinstall. As everything else is working I would be reluctant to make any other changed. I just want Dovecot to access the mail.

Thanks

Robert...

Hi again, Robert:

Did you took a look into Dovecot's log file? It's normally at /var/log/dovecot . Also, you need to know that dovecot has segmented configuration for every service: IMAP (mail checking) and LDA (Local Delivery Agent). Check if they both are correct. Also check namespaces. Check both dovecot.conf and conf.d/* .

Best regards,
emi

Hi Bob,

There are a ton of 'how to' docs out there that refer to version 1.x without saying it in so many words.

Take a look at this and see if it helps:

http://wiki2.dovecot.org/MailLocation/

The logs can give you a clue, look for errors relating to file access.

Hi leslie_jones,
Ubuntu Precise 12.04 has Dovecot 2.x.

See you,
emi

Thanks, that means the link to version 2.x I posted above, is the correct link for the subject.

Thanks I have found the problem. How I missed it I do not know. In the 12.04 docs it had the mail pointing to /var/spool/mail/ but that is only a symlink but I put it in anyway.

Telnet test again failed but this time I read the log more carefully and it pointed to Dovcot help with this problem.
That one error generated 7 entries in the log. I still don't understand them all. It said to change the permissions of the mail directory to 0600 and now it works.

Thank you all for your time. It is nearly 3 weeks and still more to sort out.

Thanks
Robert...