Find responses between the lines.
On 08.01.2018 21:23, John Tulp wrote: > My version output is below, under the heading "My actual question". > > Background to my woes: > =================== > > I installed a new virtual machine with CentOS 6.9 (I'll refer to it as > xxserverxx) and included the postfix server. I configured a virtual > network, did a decent job of hardening firewalls for both physical > host and virtual guests. I was able to get mail / mailx to send and > receive mail on the command line using postfix using Maildir > delivery. Sent and received email to/from self as well as from an > external email address hosted elsewhere. > > But not being satisfied enough with mailx mail client... > > wanting an IMAP client on the same 192 virtual private subnet, I used > yum to install dovecot package from CentOS repositories on the virtual > mail guest server. > > Configured mail client (Evolution installled via graphical interface > on a CentOS 6.9 workstation on the same subnet), and configured > dovecot, used mbox delivery, struggled with documentation to > understand how server mail directories/files are actually used, fixed > a problem or two, but did not have IMAP send and receive working. > > Then, wanting to be on the latest stable version of dovecot anyway, I > downloaded dovecot 2.3.0 from dovecot.org and attempted to follow the > instructions on building from source, but in the end all I could > really find was the simple sequence of steps, make configure, make and > make install, so that's what I did. > https://repo.dovecot.org has prebuilt packages if you want to give them a try. > Continued struggling with configuration (needing to be somewhat > certain that defaults would not create a completely wide open mail > server that would be hacked in 10 minutes, since this is on a real > physical host with a public ip. I actually got an email to get > appended to the users mbox file. Evolution Email client at one point > actually logged into dovecot/IMAP and retrieved 3 received emails. > The problem is that Email client is now failing on permissions in > creating index files. I've gotten to the point of going to extreme > measures to "fix" that file creation problem, but to no avail. > > Now unfortunately I've found an underlying problem to everything, > going back to the beginning where I upgraded dovecot. > > My actual question: > ================ > > I don't want troubleshooting help, but help with documentation. > > It appears that make install has not replaced the old 2.0.9 binaries > with new 2.3.0 binaries, even though it faithfully created everying > under the /usr directories, e.g., /usr/bin, etc., and make install did > not set some variable or otherwise configure for the new version to > run instead of the old. Well, maybe. > You should really have removed the old installation. > Very scary (to me) in my maillog file, starting up and shutting down > doevcot... > > Jan 6 16:15:59 xxserverxx dovecot: master: Dovecot v2.0.9 starting up > (core dumps disabled) > Jan 6 16:16:05 xxserverxx dovecot: master: Warning: Killed with > signal 15 (by pid=5983 uid=0 code=kill) > Jan 6 16:16:16 xxserverxx dovecot: master: Dovecot v2.0.9 starting up > (core dumps disabled) > Jan 6 16:21:02 xxserverxx dovecot: master: Warning: Killed with > signal 15 (by pid=6056 uid=0 code=kill) > Jan 6 16:23:39 xxserverxx dovecot: master: Dovecot v2.0.9 starting up > (core dumps disabled) > That's just SIGTERM which is the normal way dovecot stops itself. > Precisely how should this 2.3.0, built from source, be properly > installed and configured to actually run the new version ? > > Here is what I currently get from --version and -n, just running in my > root directory: > > [root@xxserverxx ~]# dovecot --version > 2.3.0 (c8b89eb) > > [root@xxserverxx ~]# dovecot -n > # 2.3.0 (c8b89eb): /usr/local/etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf > doveconf: Fatal: open(/usr/local/etc/dovecot/dovecot.conf) failed: No > such file or directory (copy example configs from > /usr/local/share/doc/dovecot/example-config/) > You have forgotten to provide correct parameters for configure, e.g. this is what is used by rpm building for centos6 ./configure --build=x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu --host=x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu --target=x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu --program-prefix= --prefix=/usr --exec-prefix=/usr --bindir=/usr/bin --sbindir=/usr/sbin --sysconfdir=/etc --datadir=/usr/share --includedir=/usr/include --libdir=/usr/lib64 --libexecdir=/usr/libexec --localstatedir=/var --sharedstatedir=/var/lib --mandir=/usr/share/man --infodir=/usr/share/info 'INSTALL_DATA=install -c -p -m644' --docdir=/usr/share/doc/dovecot-ce --disable-static --disable-rpath --with-nss --with-shadow --with-pam --with-gssapi=plugin --with-ldap=plugin --with-sql=plugin --with-lua=plugin $'\302\240' --with-pgsql --with-mysql --with-sqlite --with-zlib --with-libcap --with-libwrap --with-ssl=openssl --with-ssldir=/etc/pki/dovecot-ce --with-solr --with-docs > Here is root's path: > > [root@xxserverxx ~]# env|grep -i path > PATH=/usr/lib64/qt-3.3/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/root/bin > > Perhaps, of course, the new versions are running. Of course, it > appears that the dovecot executable can't find config files. So why > would my maillog say that the old version is running ? Perhaps it's > the new executable running with some leftover config from the old > version ? > > Obviously I have not a clue as to the following, and these are my > questions: > > a) what determines from which directories are each and every dovecot > executable runs (i.e., normal plus any oddball) ? > b) under what userid is each one run ? > c) what determines from which directories are each and every dovecot > config file is read ? > d) when I install a new version of dovecot, how do I control which > versions of config and executables are used at runtime ? > > Is there a place in the documentation where all this is contained in > one place in a nice organized table ? > > My mitigating workaround: > ===================== > > I can of course start over, creating a brand new mail server VM, > WITHOUT installing dovecot 2.0.6, and then JUST download the 2.3.0 and > build and install it. At least then I will only have 1 version of > dovecot present on the virtual machine to deal with. > > But the obvious question then remains: > > After my NEXT dovecot upgrade, I'm back in the quagmire, needing to > know a) b) and c) above. > > I am confident that dovecot is not lacking in this department, I just > can't find what I'm looking for in the documentation. > > Thanks in advance, > > John > Aki
