Hi Andreas, Check mailing list archives. I asked same questions last week.
My Configuration: mail_location = maildir:/home/mail/%d/%n mail_extra_groups = mail namespace public { separator = / prefix = Public/ location = maildir:/home/mail/public } namespace private { separator = / prefix = inbox = yes } /home/mail/public/: total 4 drwx------ 7 mail mail 208 Jul 24 10:25 . drwx------ 4 mail root 104 Jul 24 10:18 .. drwx------ 5 mail mail 296 Jul 24 10:52 .Non-Spam drwx------ 5 mail mail 296 Jul 24 10:33 .Spam drwx------ 2 mail mail 48 Jul 24 10:18 cur drwx------ 2 mail mail 48 Jul 24 10:18 new -rw------- 1 mail mail 14 Jul 24 10:25 subscriptions drwx------ 2 mail mail 48 Jul 24 10:18 tmp /home/mail/public/.Non-Spam: total 28 drwx------ 5 mail mail 296 Jul 24 10:52 . drwx------ 7 mail mail 208 Jul 24 10:25 .. drwx------ 2 mail mail 48 Jul 24 10:52 cur -rw------- 1 mail mail 0 Jul 24 10:13 dovecot-shared -rw------- 1 mail mail 69 Jul 24 10:25 dovecot-uidlist -rw------- 1 mail mail 144 Jul 24 10:52 dovecot.index -rw------- 1 mail mail 16384 Jul 24 10:52 dovecot.index.cache -rw------- 1 mail mail 460 Jul 24 10:52 dovecot.index.log drwx------ 2 mail mail 48 Jul 24 10:25 new drwx------ 2 mail mail 48 Jul 24 10:25 tmp /home/mail/public/.Spam: total 32 drwx------ 5 mail mail 296 Jul 24 10:33 . drwx------ 7 mail mail 208 Jul 24 10:25 .. drwx------ 2 mail mail 48 Jul 24 10:29 cur -rw------- 1 mail mail 0 Jul 24 10:14 dovecot-shared -rw------- 1 mail mail 62 Jul 24 10:25 dovecot-uidlist -rw------- 1 mail mail 144 Jul 24 10:29 dovecot.index -rw------- 1 mail mail 17408 Jul 24 10:29 dovecot.index.cache -rw------- 1 mail mail 460 Jul 24 10:33 dovecot.index.log drwx------ 2 mail mail 48 Jul 24 10:18 new drwx------ 2 mail mail 48 Jul 24 10:25 tmp Everything works nice. BTW /home/mail/public/ is not a mailbox and must not contain cur new and tmp folders. As Timo said this bug was fixed in 1.1. Saturday, July 28, 2007, 5:11:05 AM, you wrote: > Hello list, > I am trying to set up a public mailbox for users to put spam in so that > sa-learn can do its job at night. Only I can't seem to fully understand how > and which permissions should be set. I've read [1] and am using Dovecot > 1.0.1. > First some background information: I do not host or care (at the moment) about > virtual users or virtual mail hosting. All users have Unix system accounts > and shell access. I'd like to have a Spam folder, say /var/mail/public/.Spam > that is a maildir where users can put Spam that got through the server-side > filter. Spamassassin's sa-learn runs nightly and learns from the contents of > the Spam folder. > After reading [1] I think I should have under /var/mail/public a file called > dovecot-shared that belongs to root:mail and has permissions 0660 (with user > dovecot being a member of group mail) so that it looks like this: > [EMAIL PROTECTED]:/var/mail/public# ls > drwxr-sr-x 2 root mail 4096 2007-07-28 03:29 . > drwxrwsr-x 3 root mail 4096 2007-07-28 02:19 .. > -rw-rw---- 1 root mail 0 2007-07-28 02:46 dovecot-shared > [EMAIL PROTECTED]:/var/mail/public# > The first question arises: should Dovecot have write access > to /var/mail/public itself? > Now I should create the Spam folder called /var/mail/public/.Spam. Should this > directory be in maildir format, i.e. should it already contain the > subdirectories cur, tmp and new? What of the permissions of this directory? I > am pretty sure Dovecot needs write access to it, so it should look like this: > [EMAIL PROTECTED]:/var/mail/public# ls > drwxr-sr-x 3 root mail 4096 2007-07-28 03:44 . > drwxrwsr-x 3 root mail 4096 2007-07-28 02:19 .. > -rw-rw---- 1 root mail 0 2007-07-28 02:46 dovecot-shared > drwxrwsr-x 2 root mail 4096 2007-07-28 03:44 .Spam > [EMAIL PROTECTED]:/var/mail/public# > The .Spam directory here is completely empty. > Now in a user's Maildir (/home/user1/Maildir) there are the user's private > folders; a symlink to /var/mail/public/.Spam should be added: > [EMAIL PROTECTED]:/home/user1/Maildir# ln -s /var/mail/public/.Spam . > [EMAIL PROTECTED]:/home/user1/Maildir# ls > ... > drwx------ 5 user1 user1 4096 2007-07-19 16:14 .INBOX.foo > drwx------ 5 user1 user1 4096 2007-07-06 23:01 .INBOX.bar > ... > lrwxrwxrwx 1 user1 user1 22 2007-07-28 03:51 .Spam -> /var/mail/public/.Spam > ... > [EMAIL PROTECTED]:/home/user1/Maildir# > Is that all I have to do? Probably not, because I keep getting errors like the > following when connecting (after subscribing of course): > Jul 28 03:52:35 host dovecot: IMAP(user1): > mkdir(/home/user1/Maildir/.Spam/cur) failed: Permission denied > Should I have created the cur, tmp and new subdirectories manually and set > their permissions like /var/mail/public/.Spam? But that still wouldn't give > user1 write access. If I gave the users (or "others": chmod o+w) write > permissions then Dovecot's index files would be owned by the first user that > connects to the server and uses that folder. Apparently also not a solution. > I also don't think I should have to make my users members of the mail group, > but I could be wrong here. > So I am not sure what I am missing, or if what I want to do is at all possible > (without taking out the sledgehammer and setting all permissions to 0777). I > also apologise for this lengthy post with many details and little interesting > questions. It's getting late and I fear I've reached a dead end. > I'd really appreciate it if someone knowledgeable could point me in the right > direction here. > Thanks in advance! > Andreas > [1] http://wiki.dovecot.org/SharedMailboxes -- Sergey