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G. He
Asked: 2012-04-03 20:27:05 +0800 CST

dovecot can't compact mail folder /var/mail/username

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ubuntu 11.10 32bit. Setup a dovecot imap server. Using Thunderbird on a different ubuntu machine (64bit) to access imap server. Everything else is fine, except I can not compact the deleted email in inbox, which is stored at /var/mail/username. Checking mail.log and I see this error message:

Apr  3 00:10:11 autumn dovecot: imap(username): Error: file_dotlock_create(/var/mail/username) failed: Permission denied (euid=1000(username) egid=1000(username) missing +w perm: /var/mail, euid is not dir owner) (set mail_privileged_group=mail)

what is wrong with the permission? Here are the permissions for the relevant files:

$ ls -ld /var/mail
drwxrwsr-x 2 mail mail 4096 2012-04-02 23:36 /var/mail

$ ls -l /var/mail/username
-rw------- 1 username mail 417 2012-04-02 23:36 /var/mail/username

Anyone knows what's going on here?

permissions mail dovecot

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    I went into /etc/dovecot/conf.d/10-mail.conf, added the group mail to the line "mail_privileged_group = ", stop dovecot, and then start dovecot. It works now.

    As pointed out by Celada, it is documented here.

    • 6

  2. I will write as to correct it on steps. I test it Debian 8 and ubuntu server 14.04.

    1. sudo nano /etc/dovecot/conf.d/10-mail.conf
    2. change the parameter #mail_privileged_group to mail_privileged_group = mail
    3. Ctrlo
    4. Ctrlx
    5. sudo service dovecot restart
    6. Profit!
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