[CentOS] Fedora 9 -> Centos 7 upgrade Dovecot problem

Hi all,

I'm upgrading my old F9 mail server to Centos 7 and all is going well. 
However, I've got a problem with recently created users.

I've rsync'd /home and /var/spool/mail after moving /etc/passwd and /etc/group

I used the default locations on the old F9 server, i.e. mail delivered 
to /var/spool/mail/%u by EXIM and Dovecot using that as the inbox.

Dovecot then used ~/mail/ as it's folder dir.

On the new server this works fine for any user where ~/mail/ already exists, 
but for any user where ~/mail/ does not exist Dovecot fails.

I've done some googling and have tried a number of settings, the most popular 
one being

mail_location = mbox:~/:INBOX=/var/spool/mail/%u

However, I haven't managed to fix the problem.  Anyone know what I need to do 
next?

Below hopefully is enough for someone to see what I've got wrong.  They're 
done with mail_location set to the default, i.e. commented out in 
10-mail.conf


I've also put the log file up at http://www.stainburn.com/centos.log  which 
should be easier to read.

cpage is an established user, tdegg is a new one. As I say below, I have found 
a work-around but even that still has errors.

[root at ollie2 home]# for F in cpage tdegg ; do 
ls -lad /home/$F /home/$F/* /home/$F/.* /home/$F/* /home/$F/mail/* /home/$F/mail/.* /home/$F/mail/.imap/* /var/spool/mail/$F ; 
done
ls: cannot access /home/cpage/mail/*: No such file or directory
drwx------    5 cpage cpage       125 Mar 31  2009 /home/cpage
drwx------    5 cpage cpage       125 Mar 31  2009 /home/cpage/.
drwxr-xr-x. 208 root  root       8192 Aug 24 13:27 /home/cpage/..
-rw-r--r--    1 cpage cpage        18 Feb 29  2008 /home/cpage/.bash_logout
-rw-r--r--    1 cpage cpage       176 Feb 29  2008 /home/cpage/.bash_profile
-rw-r--r--    1 cpage cpage       124 Feb 29  2008 /home/cpage/.bashrc
drwxr-xr-x    2 cpage cpage         6 Apr  6  2008 /home/cpage/.gnome2
-rw-r--r--    1 cpage cpage       120 Mar 31  2009 /home/cpage/.gtkrc
drwx------    3 cpage cpage        18 Mar 31  2009 /home/cpage/mail
drwx------    3 cpage cpage        18 Mar 31  2009 /home/cpage/mail
drwx------    3 cpage cpage        18 Mar 31  2009 /home/cpage/mail/.
drwx------    5 cpage cpage       125 Mar 31  2009 /home/cpage/mail/..
drwx------    3 cpage cpage        18 Mar 31  2009 /home/cpage/mail/.imap
drwx------    2 cpage cpage      4096 Aug 24 
16:21 /home/cpage/mail/.imap/INBOX
drwxr-xr-x    4 cpage cpage        37 Nov 20  2008 /home/cpage/.mozilla
-rw-r--r--    1 cpage cpage       658 Mar 31  2009 /home/cpage/.zshrc
-rw-rw----    1 cpage mail  352512344 Aug 24 13:28 /var/spool/mail/cpage
ls: cannot access /home/tdegg/*: No such file or directory
ls: cannot access /home/tdegg/*: No such file or directory
ls: cannot access /home/tdegg/mail/*: No such file or directory
ls: cannot access /home/tdegg/mail/.*: No such file or directory
ls: cannot access /home/tdegg/mail/.imap/*: No such file or directory
drwx------    4 tdegg tdegg     88 Aug 24 16:17 /home/tdegg
drwx------    4 tdegg tdegg     88 Aug 24 16:17 /home/tdegg/.
drwxr-xr-x. 208 root  root    8192 Aug 24 13:27 /home/tdegg/..
-rw-r--r--    1 tdegg tdegg     18 Oct 23  2008 /home/tdegg/.bash_logout
-rw-r--r--    1 tdegg tdegg    176 Oct 23  2008 /home/tdegg/.bash_profile
-rw-r--r--    1 tdegg tdegg    124 Oct 23  2008 /home/tdegg/.bashrc
drwxr-xr-x    2 tdegg tdegg      6 Apr  6  2008 /home/tdegg/.gnome2
drwxr-xr-x    4 tdegg tdegg     37 Nov 20  2008 /home/tdegg/.mozilla
-rw-rw----    1 tdegg mail  209466 Jun 10 11:29 /var/spool/mail/tdegg
[root at ollie2 home]# 


[root at ollie2 ~]# telnet 127.0.0.1 110
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to 127.0.0.1.
Escape character is '^]'.
+OK Dovecot ready.
user cpage
+OK
pass ********
+OK Logged in.
stat
+OK 2812 356812518
quit
+OK Logging out.
Connection closed by foreign host.
[root at ollie2 ~]# telnet 127.0.0.1 110
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to 127.0.0.1.
Escape character is '^]'.
+OK Dovecot ready.
user tdegg
+OK
pass ********
-ERR [SYS/TEMP] Internal error occurred. Refer to server log for more 
information.
Connection closed by foreign host.



I have found that if I manually intervene, and issue the following commands, 
things start to work, although I still get errors. Hopefully I get find out 
how to fix my Dovecot config so that I don't have to do this every time I set 
up a new user.


[root at ollie2 home]# mkdir -p ~tdegg//mail/.imap/INBOX
[root at ollie2 home]# chown -R tdegg:tdegg ~tdegg/mail



[root at ollie2 home]# telnet 127.0.0.1 110
Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to 127.0.0.1.
Escape character is '^]'.
+OK Dovecot ready.
user tdegg
+OK
pass *******
+OK Logged in.
list
+OK 19 messages:
1 1099
2 1026
3 1842
4 2053
5 7481
6 25063
7 1275
8 1484
9 19089
10 125054
11 3468
12 3490
13 3490
14 961
15 3177
16 3487
17 3897
18 3895
19 1001
.
quit
+OK Logging out.
Connection closed by foreign host.
[root at ollie2 home]# 


Aug 24 16:42:31 ollie2 dovecot: pop3-login: Login: user=<tdegg>, method=PLAIN, 
rip=127.0.0.1, lip=127.0.0.1, mpid=130939, secured, 
session=<K7wxdxAefQB/AAAB>
Aug 24 16:42:31 ollie2 dovecot: pop3(tdegg): Error: 
fchown(/home/tdegg/mail/.imap/INBOX/dovecot.index.log.newlock, group=12
(mail)) failed: Operation not permitted (egid=2046(tdegg), group based 
on /var/mail/tdegg - see http://wiki2.dovecot.org/Errors/ChgrpNoPerm)
Aug 24 16:42:31 ollie2 dovecot: pop3(tdegg): Error: 
fchown(/home/tdegg/mail/.imap/INBOX/dovecot.index.cache.lock, group=12(mail)) 
failed: Operation not permitted (egid=2046(tdegg), group based 
on /var/mail/tdegg - see http://wiki2.dovecot.org/Errors/ChgrpNoPerm)
Aug 24 16:42:37 ollie2 dovecot: pop3(tdegg): Disconnected: Logged out top=0/0, 
retr=0/0, del=0/19, size=212332
-- 
Gary Stainburn
Group I.T. Manager
Ringways Garages
http://www.ringways.co.uk