Dovecot with mbox virtual hosts

pbraun.nethence.com/doc/mail/postoffice.html

pbraun.nethence.com/doc/mail/vm-pop3d.html

pbraun.nethence.com/doc/mail/dovecot.html

pbraun.nethence.com/doc/mail/spamass-milter.html

pbraun.nethence.com/doc/mail/procmail.html

Prepare the system

See Postoffice smtp server virtual mbox configuration (pbraun.nethence.com/doc/mail/postoffice.html)

Prerequesties

Make sure you've got those packages installed,

rpm -q ntp dovecot

Dovecot doesn't like time changes (wiki.dovecot.org/TimeMovedBackwards). You need the NTP daemon to slow down or accelerate the clock speed when updating the time,

cd /etc

mv ntp.conf ntp.conf.dist

sed '/^$/d;/^#/d;' ntp.conf.dist > ntp.conf

vi ntp.conf

point to your prefered NTP serveurs e.g.,

server ntp1.dedibox.fr

server ntp.obspm.fr

Configuration

Check for configuration file location,

dovecot -n | head -1

Configure,

cd /etc

mv dovecot.conf dovecot.conf.dist

vi dovecot.conf

like,

protocols = pop3 imap

syslog_facility = mail

first_valid_uid = 8

disable_plaintext_auth = no

ssl_disable = yes

#mail_debug = yes

# for thunderbird (at least for thunderbird 1),

protocol imap {

        login_greeting_capability = yes

        imap_client_workarounds = tb-extra-mailbox-sep

}

auth default {

  passdb passwd-file {

        args = /etc/virtual/%d/passwd

}

  userdb static {

        args = uid=8 gid=12

}

}

mail_location = mbox:/var/spool/virtual/%d/%n.folders:INBOX=/var/spool/virtual/%d/%n

#mail_location = mbox:/var/spool/virtual/%d/%n.folders

Note. check UID and GID,

grep ^mail /etc/passwd

grep ^mail /etc/group

Note. if you want an alternate port e.g. for pop3,

#rotocol pop3 {

#       listen = *:111

#

Run and enable the daemon,

service dovecot start

chkconfig dovecot on

check ports 110 and 143 are listening,

ps aux | egrep 'pop3|imap'

netstat -antp | grep LISTEN | grep 110

netstat -antp | grep LISTEN | grep 143

User administration

Create a virtual mail user,

cd /etc/virtual

./pop_passwd.pl user password >> example.net/passwd

create its IMAP folder and inbox symbolic link,

cd /var/spool/virtual

touch example.net/user

mkdir -p example.net/user.folders

#ln -s ../user example.net/user.folders/inbox

Fix perms,

chown -R mail:mail /etc/virtual

chown -R mail:mail /var/spool/virtual

find /etc/virtual -type d -exec chmod 700 {} \;

find /etc/virtual -type f -exec chmod 600 {} \;

find /var/spool/virtual -type d -exec chmod 700 {} \;

find /var/spool/virtual -type f -exec chmod 600 {} \;

Clean-up subscriptions,

cd /var/spool/virtual/example.net/user.imap

for dir in `find . -type d -name .imap`; do rm -rf $dir; done

References

wiki.dovecot.org/BasicConfiguration

wiki.dovecot.org/VirtualUsers

kevin.denis.free.fr/vmail/part4.html

neranjara.org/article/title/How_to_configure_PostFix_and_Dovecot_for_Virtual_Users_with_out_a_Database_

help.ubuntu.com/community/Dovecot